What I Saw and How I Lied (8 page)

She thought I had a crush on Wally. The pipsqueak. That to her was a great match. Evie and Wally, sitting in a palm tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

It was hard to be mad at her after shed bought me all those clothes, but I managed it. We got in the car and I slammed the door.

"I'm not like other girls, you know," I said. "I've been taking care of myself since I was little. I'm not a kid. Mom worked since I was little. I made my own sandwiches for school since first grade. I put myself to bed plenty of times. Made the supper when she was tired. I did all that, and more, too."

I thought she'd understand, but she didn't. I could tell. She wasn't seeing me anymore. Now I recognized that other woman, the one I'd seen angry and turning her face away. All that pizzazz, and underneath it was a whole lot of sad.

"Okay, Evie," she said. "You're not a kid. Got it." She turned on the engine. "Just don't grow up too fast, that's all."

The mood had changed. Why had she invited me today? She'd asked me right after I'd read part of her letter. Was this shopping trip some kind of bribe? So that I wouldn't tell anyone what I'd read? So I wouldn't tell what I'd overheard?

The next day I sat with a schoolbook in my lap, under the shade of a tree that fractured the sunlight into points of fire. Numbers swam in front of my eyes. School seemed so far away. I was thinking of Peter, but I was also thinking of Arlene Grayson's suddenly cold eyes.

A hand reached over my shoulder and closed the book.

A flash of wrist, white cuff.

He whistled softly and raised me up, then stepped back to look at me in my new seersucker dress. I'd pulled in the belt as tightly as I could and my hair was loose and down to my shoulders.

"Well," Peter said. "Va va va voom. Look at you."

"You checked out." I blurted it out, then blushed, because it showed him that I'd been asking about him.

He sat on the wide arm of my chair. The sun hit his green eyes and turned the hair near the undone button

of his shirt gold. "A friend has a house here — friend of the family. My father happened to tell him I was here at a hotel, and hoo boy, they were insulted. Peter can't stay in a hotel, et cetera. So I'm at their house. It was closed for the season, but I'm camping out." He took the book out of my hands and closed it. "It's too hot to read. Let's go to the movies. There's an air-cooled theater in West Palm."

My heart jumped around like a fish. I wished I could just leap up and go with him, without another word.

He knew why I hesitated, and he made a slight motion with his head toward the beach. "Your parents are down there. I'll walk with you."

We walked to where Joe and Mom sat under a tiki hut. I could see Joe talking while Mom looked out to sea. Peter waited while I slipped off my sandals.

"I hope he says yes," I said.

"Make sure and tell him I'll take good care of you," Peter said, shading his eyes to look down the beach at them.

I skip-hopped over the burning sand. I stopped in the back of the tiki hut, pausing a minute as my feet hit the cooler sand that was in the shadow of the grass roof.

"You've just got to have the big picture, got to grab the biggest slice of pie," Joe said as I hopped to the next cool piece of sand. He looked up at me, scowling, but I thought he was just squinting in the sun. I couldn't imagine that there would be a time that Joe wouldn't be happy to see me. His beach shirt was open, and perspiration snaked down his bare chest. Mom had just been in the water; her suit was wet, and drops sparkled on her legs. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head.

"Can I go to the movies with Peter?" I asked.

Joe blew out a breath and looked at the water. Mom drew a pattern in the sand with a shell.

"It's air-cooled, and I'm so hot," I said. "And he said ... he said he'd take good care of me." Somehow it came out sounding wrong, but I didn't know why.

Joe twisted to look back up at the sidewalk where Peter waited. He stared for a long minute before he turned around again. "I don't like this, Bev," he said.

Mom shrugged. "She's almost sixteen."

"Which," Joe said, "is actually my point."

"So? It's just a matinee, Joe. Don't be such a stiff." Mom tossed her towel in her straw bag. "Tell you what — I'll chaperone. I've had enough sun anyway." She stood and wrapped the matching skirt around her tropical-patterned suit. She shaded her face with her hand and looked down at him. "I've had enough of this hot air," she said.

She didn't wait for Joe's good-bye. She hurried me along the sand, as if it was burning her feet, toward Peter. I was the only one to look back. I could see the back of the chair, and Joe's head, looking out to sea. His arm hung down next to the chair. His hand was curled into a fist.

The coolness of the theater made us shiver. Mom had changed into a white sleeveless blouse and a white skirt, and she glowed inside the darkness. Peter led us down to the middle section, close to the front. We were lucky. We came in during the newsreel.

The movie was
Dark Passage,
with Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Bogie's face was bandaged up, and I lost the plot about twenty minutes in. I just soaked up the darkness and Peter's arm next to mine. I could pretend that Mom was just a stranger on my other side.

But then the stranger nudged me. She put a whole dollar in my hand. "I'm starved," she whispered. "Get us something, will you?"

"I'll go," Peter whispered, and someone said "Shhhh!"

"No, Evie knows what I like."

I slipped out, bending down so I wouldn't get in anybody's way. I hurried to the counter. I didn't really know what Mom would want — she never really ate candy except in a big box on Valentine's Day. But I didn't want to waste any time out here so I asked for Sno-caps and a Hershey bar and popcorn. Then I put the change in my pocket and went back on a run.

I stood in the back of the theater for a minute, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Peter had moved over into my seat. Mom's blond head was close to his as she whispered something. The rest of the theater was dark except for those two blond heads, those white, white shirts gleaming in the darkness.

What I thought then was I needed to do that, think of a remark to tell Peter so I could lean with my lips close to his ear.

I slid into the seat next to Peter and passed the candy to Mom and the popcorn to him.

Peter held the popcorn in his lap. Mom and I dipped our hands in and out, occasionally bumping fingers, watching the plot tangle and untangle as the bad guys got shot.

It was mid-afternoon when we came out, the time of day when the heat bounced up from the sidewalk and slammed you in the face, and you felt like you could lick moisture out of the air.

"How about a soda at Walgreens?" Peter asked.

"A soda at the drugstore," Mom said. "That sounds keen!" She said it with a too-chirpy voice, and Peter grinned, even though I guess she was teasing him about being young, and not that nicely, either. He was a good sport not to get mad, and I wanted to kick Mom for being mean to him.

We sat at the soda fountain and ordered Cokes. The ice was crushed, and the soda was cold and delicious. There was a local high school crowd there, and I saw Wally again. He looked different now, in loose pants and a short-sleeve shirt, his hair unruly. Instead of looking younger, he looked older, my age. In his evening clothes and his bellhop uniform he'd looked like he'd been wearing his father's clothes. I was glad that he could see me now. I tossed my hair as I smiled up at Peter, just so Wally would know I was on a date.

He raised a hand to wave at me, and I gave him a little wave back.

"Friend of yours?" Mom asked.

"He works at the hotel," I explained.

"Why don't you go talk to him?"

"I don't want to."

Peter gave me the tiniest push at the base of my spine. "Come on. Give the fella a thrill."

I could feel that one tiny spot burning as I walked over to Wally and said hello. "We've been to the movies," I said.

"Yeah, that's the way to keep cool. I saw that picture, too." Wally slurped up some soda and looked at his shoes. He didn't even know enough to ask me to sit down. "So, New York, have you ever been to the Empire State Building?"

"Sure," I said.

"How about Radio City?"

"You bet. You can get free tickets to the radio shows." I wondered if Wally was going to lead me through a list of New York tourist attractions. He was trying to make conversation, and he was a bore. Behind me I heard Peter laugh at something Mom had said. Was he being a good sport again? I was dying to get back so I could protect him from her.

"I went to Washington, D.C., once, before the war," Wally told me. "My dad is going to take me to Tampa."

"That sounds nice," I said politely.

"We go out on the boat every Saturday. It's not a big boat, but it's fun. There's plenty of stuff to see, neat places to go. Have you ever seen a cypress swamp?"

True, I was in a whole new state. But could it be that a boy was getting up the nerve to ask me to tour a
swamp}

"You want a cherry Coke? I'll get Herb to mix you one."

"I'd better get back to my date," I told him.

"Your date?" He looked surprised as he looked over my shoulder at Peter and Mom. "Well, okay. See you around." No boy had ever asked to buy me a soda before. A month ago, it would have felt nice, even though it was only Wally the bellhop. Now it didn't mean anything, because all I could think of while I was talking to him was how quickly I could get back to Peter.

Mom was looking in her compact and Peter was tossing coins on the counter when I finally rid myself of Wally. It was the end of my date, and I'd hardly said more than ten words to Peter. On the drive back to the hotel I wondered how I could see him again. Ahead stretched an evening of cards and dinner and staring out the window at the moon. It seemed impossible that I could get through it without him.

He drove up to the hotel and parked. When he came around to open the door for us, he leaned in before we got out.

"Thank you for the company, ladies. Let's do it again."

Mom got out of the car and I followed, embarrassing myself by sticking to the seat as I tried to wiggle over. I tried to swing my legs out gracefully, the way Mom had.

Mom put out her hand, and he shook it.

"Thanks for the movie," she said. "And the keen soda."

"Anytime."

"Well," Mom said, slipping her hand out of Peter's, "I think I'll go for a walk down Worth Avenue and see if I can find a store that's open."

"I'll come," I said.

She shook her head. "Homework time."

I couldn't believe she'd brought up homework in front of Peter. I couldn't believe my parents had made me bring books to Florida in the first place. Furious, I watched as she walked off, her chiffon scarf trailing from her hand.

"You're a peach, Evie Spooner," Peter said.

And then he waited, just like in the movies, to watch me walk up the stairs into the hotel. When I turned around he was still looking. Behind him, my mother continued down the middle of the empty street, her scarf fluttering like some exotic tropical bird.

All afternoon after the movie I lay on my bed and dreamed in a haze of heat. I built a future with Peter using geography and hope. He lived in Oyster Bay — a huge distance from Queens, and not just in miles. Out there they had lawns and big white houses and not a luncheonette in sight. But he had a car.

It was cocktail time and Mom wasn't back yet. I went to the connecting door and peeked in. Joe had changed his shirt and combed back his hair. As he waited, he smoked a cigarette and tapped his knee with his fingers in a constant Gene Krupa drum solo. He didn't seem in the mood for company.

Joe's impatience kept rolling through the open door. I could hear the drumming, hear him stub out another cigarette. Finally I heard him pick up the phone and call the front desk. He asked for Mom, then grunted, which meant she wasn't back yet.

"In another minute I'm calling out the marines, Evie!" he shouted cheerfully at me.

The tone in his voice gave me the nerve to ask the question I was dying to have him answer. We were stuck together waiting for Mom, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I hovered in the doorway between our rooms. "What was Peter like during the war?" I asked, trying to make it sound like I was just making conversation.

Joe looked at me strangely. "Why are you asking?"

"No reason. I just never met a buddy of yours from the war."

"He wasn't a buddy. He just thinks he was. I didn't really know him. That's all I can tell you."

That wasn't much to go on. I wanted to ask another question, but I heard the click of her heels through the louvered door.

She walked in, her hair loose now and around her shoulders, carrying the ugliest vase I've ever seen. It was bright yellow and green, in the shape of a pineapple.

"What in the name of Sam Hill is that?" Joe asked.

Mom put it on the dresser. "A present for Grandma Glad." She smoothed her hair in the mirror.

"Bev, for crying out loud, it's past six. Where have you been?"

"I got my hair done. You never notice. And I did a little shopping." Mom came over and bent down to kiss me. I smelled Life Savers on her breath — and, behind that, something sweet. "Arlene told me about some of her favorite places."

Joe gave a doubtful look at the vase. "She should get out more."

Mom went into the bathroom to change. "Well, you're being an awful sourpuss."

"I wanted to talk to you. I have big news. Evie, this news is for you, too." Joe gave a dramatic pause as Mom came out of the bathroom in her slip. She tossed her white skirt and blouse on the floor of the closet.