All for a Song (38 page)

“I’m sorry.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

Their conversation strolled as slowly as their steps, as Dorothy Lynn determined to make this afternoon last as long as possible. If nothing else, her brother seemed agreeable to the pace. They passed one building after another, each identical to the last, but she knew fantastical differences lurked within. In their silences, she tried to imagine what they concealed. Other miniature houses? Or castles, maybe, based on the number of women she saw walking around in long velvet gowns.

“So this is it?” she said, turning quickly away from the copper-toned man dressed in leather breeches. “You’re staying here forever?”

“For now, anyway. If I ever leave, I’ll tell you.”

“Don’t make us wait, Donny.” She’d use these final minutes for one last plea. “Write to Ma and explain. She just wants to know that you’re alive and well.”

“I can’t promise.”

“Good. Ma says you can only promise or do, but not both.”

They arrived at the car, where Roland was deep in conversation with the most striking woman Dorothy Lynn had ever seen. She had dark, bobbed hair, red lips, and a way of looking regal even with her short stature and dancer’s pants. He was in the process of handing her his card and saying, “I’m at the Hotel Alexandria. Meet me there for lunch later in the week, and I’ll have some news for you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lundi.” Her voice was throaty and cultured, and she offered only a passing glance at Don and Dorothy Lynn as she left.

“She’s a dancer,” Roland said, as if the woman’s legs weren’t sufficient identification, “but she wants to be an actress. And I tell you, I have an eye. You remember that name—Lucille LeSueur. I’m going to make her a star.”

Don kissed Dorothy Lynn on the cheek and reached out to shake Roland’s hand. “Thank you for taking such good care of my baby sister. Can you see that she gets home safe?”

Roland looked from one to the other. “This the end of the road for you two?”

“We had a good sit-down visit,” Dorothy Lynn said, controlling the threatening tears.

“How about I get a picture?” Roland reached into the car for his Brownie. “I’ll have a copy delivered to you here, sport.”

Don agreed and looped his arm over Dorothy Lynn’s shoulder. “Let’s get the car in it. I’ll pretend it’s mine.”

Roland took another step back and looked down through the viewer. They smiled on his command, and while Dorothy Lynn knew she should be looking at the camera, she instead turned her gaze on Don, studying her brother’s strong profile.

“I got one more left,” Roland said when he released them from their pose.

“Let me get the two of you.” Don took the camera and the two men traded places. This time she stared straight at the photographer, knowing how small and square and upside-down she must look in his eyes.

“That’s it.” Don bent to put the Brownie back in the car and reached out to run a finger along the guitar case.

“Your guitar’s in there,” Dorothy Lynn said with a quaver to her voice. “You can have it back if you like.”

“It’s yours,” he said. “Keep it.” She found herself awash in relief.

He hugged her then, and she held tight, so grateful for the warmth that had been absent from their first embrace. She wanted to remind him one more time to write to Ma, or to her, or to Darlene, but the truce they’d called seemed so fragile, she dared not disrupt it. Instead she said, “I love you, Donny. We all do.”

“Give my love to Ma.”

“The wedding’s Saturday after next,” she ventured, “in case you change your mind.”

He lifted the hat off her head and kissed her at her temple. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

And she knew, if she walked down an aisle at all, she’d walk down alone.

She’d insisted he bring her to the beach, hoping the sound of the waves would clear her head. This was the last place she’d truly felt at peace, and she searched for that feeling again as she stood at the edge of the sea. How terrifying it must have been for early man to see such a sight, to think that the world simply dropped off and ended where the ocean’s water poured over the side into
some unknown abyss. Then, too, how enticing to see it stretch, seemingly forever. An endless future. No wonder they climbed into vessels and set sail to parts unknown. Mountains could be climbed, roads traveled, but the sea presented itself as infinite and unforgiving. It drew and it drew. Large, crashing waves, so impressive in the distance, reduced themselves to deceptively harmless lapping. She looked down to see them covering her feet, then receding, then covering again. A matter of a few steps, and she’d be drawn in, drawn under, swept away.

She dug her heels in deeper, burying herself up to her ankles. The endless unknown was Donny’s choice, and with her hands held high, she sent him silent blessing, asking the Creator of this miracle to do the same. Her brother’s life was in her Heavenly Father’s hands, and he’d kept him safe thus far.

“This far and forever,” she said, and her words disappeared in the sound of the surf.

Not long, and the sun would dip under the horizon, ending this day, but for Dorothy Lynn it would end so much more. Her future stretched behind her, in the east where the sun would rise in the morning. Back home, by whatever means would get her there. Back to Brent if he would have her. And even if he wouldn’t.

She lifted her foot from where she’d covered it with cool, wet sand, and balanced the solid mass before shaking it, sifting the clumps between her toes into the shallow space below.

A high-pitched whistle pierced the wind, and she turned to see Roland returning from his errand to buy them each a cold drink from a vendor farther up the beach. He held the bottle of Coca-Cola high, beckoning. Back at the car, Dorothy Lynn did what she could to knock the excess sand from her feet before climbing in to join him, perched atop the backseat. Using a
small, metal opener, he pried the top off each bottle, sending a fizzy hiss to join the pounding surf. They took a first, long drink together—she welcoming the sweet scratch of the liquid to a throat that had spent the better part of the day sore with unshed tears.

“What can I tell you, sweetheart?” Roland wiped his lips with his sleeve. “War changes people.”

“Ma was right. A fool’s errand.” It occurred to her for the first time that Ma must have suspected Donny’s state of mind all along.

“No such thing,” Roland said. “A dead end, maybe. It’s the fool who takes that same road again.”

“You can be very wise when you want to be, Mr. Lundi.”

“So I keep trying to convince the world.”

“You’ve convinced me. And I guess Donny would agree with you. That’s why he never came back. Says he’s changed too much. Maybe I have too. He makes it seem so easy, starting over.”

“You wouldn’t be the first kid to want a bigger life than what was waiting on the farm.”

“There’s no farm.”

“You wouldn’t be the first girl to leave a guy hanging, either.”

His voice made it impossible to know whether he spoke of Brent or himself, and his eyes kept the answer hidden in an ocean-long gaze.

She nudged her shoulder against his and took a guess. “You’ve already moved on, Mr. Lundi. With Miss Lucille, the dancer? I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“Dancers,” he said dismissively. He drained the last of the dark drops before tossing the green glass onto the beach, leaving Dorothy Lynn with no clearer understanding.

“I don’t know if Brent will be waiting for me when I get
home. If he’ll still want me. And it’s almost certain he won’t after I tell him—if I tell him . . .”

“So don’t.”

“If he’s my husband, he’ll have a right to know.”

“But he’s not. See that fellow down the beach?” He pointed to a young man in rolled pants and shirtsleeves walking along the water’s edge. “Your guy has about as much a claim on you as that one. Who’s to say he can’t come over here with a line that’ll make you forget me and the reverend both? You’re about as obligated to that preacher of yours as you are to him. Or to me.”

“There’s one difference,” she said, running her finger along the cold, curved shape of the bottle. “I don’t love that fellow on the beach.”

The silent possibility that she might love him mixed with the salted air, and she drank the last of the caramel-sweet drink to keep from saying so out loud. When she finished, he took the bottle from her and tossed it to where it made a satisfying clink against his. Then, while the effervescence of it lingered, he kissed her. This was not one of the fatherly kisses she’d come to expect or anything like the drunken collision at the edge of her memory. This was a man kissing a woman, a mutual giving and taking of taste and touch.

“Oh, Roland,” she said when he released her for breath, but then his palms were cool against her pulse, and she let him kiss her again. Not out of fear or twisted obligation, as she had when she launched herself on him the night of the party, and not out of the physically-charged desire she’d felt from the first time she kissed Brent. This was the first kiss born from the woman she’d become. A kiss for this moment, for its own sake, given and received without gratitude or promise.

Her hat tumbled to her feet as he pulled her closer. She could
feel the faint roughness of the afternoon’s whiskers as he trailed kisses the length of her neck; it was how she imagined the warm sand would feel beneath her bare skin.

This could be home. No fear, no questions. No expectation of truth. What was it Donny had said?
“Nobody cares who I am or where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I don’t have to tell them anything. They don’t ask questions. And if they do, they don’t expect the truth.”

And yet—

“Stop,” she said, not sure if she was talking to her mind or her body. Whatever the case, Roland obeyed, at least as far as his kisses were concerned. He still held her close, her cheek resting against his temple as the horizon beckoned. “There’s a part of me, I think, that will always wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed. Just like Donny. Become a whole new person, maybe even a famous one. But I don’t think that’s a person I’d ever want to be.”

He pulled away and looked at her. The dark fringe of his lashes framed an indulgent, almost humorous smolder. “So? Stay.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He offered what was probably meant to be a noncommittal shrug, but she sensed something deeper, something she never would have expected if she’d been the same girl who had stumbled into his solitary Chinese lunch such a short time before.

“Do you love me, Roland? And don’t say no, because I won’t believe it. A girl knows—a woman knows.”

“Of course I love you.” Even the vastness of the sea and sky left no room for doubt. “About as much as you love me.”

“And how much is that?”

Her fingers were entwined in his, and he raised them up to kiss them. “Enough.”

It should have been the perfect answer, complete in its simplicity, but for one last time she relied on the wisdom he’d gained from living so much more of a life than she’d ever dreamed possible. So she, too, kissed their interlacing and looked up, searching for one final answer.

“Enough,” he repeated, “for me to put you on the next train home, because you should never give up a guy you want to marry for one who doesn’t want to marry you.”

She rested in the pool of his affection. “It’s more than that, you know. It’s my whole life—Brent just happens to be at the center of everything. Or at least he should have been. And he will be, just as soon as I get home.”

“And that, sweetheart, is when I hope you’ll love me enough to let me remain a fond, distant memory.”

“Always.”

It seemed the perfect time to wrest her hand away from his, and she smoothed her skirt, wishing she could smooth away the awkward moments certain to follow.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said, and she waited silently, watching his jaw tense in preparation for the words to follow. “Quit beating yourself up, understand? And promise me something else, too. When you go back home, don’t you fall on your knees asking that preacher to forgive you. You walk into that place with your head up high. You did something noble for your family. You did something beautiful for God, and don’t you ever let anybody take that away from you. You understand?”

She nodded and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her blouse.

“Look at you,” he said, “already halfway back to the country life.”

This time when he took her hand, it was only to help her step gingerly from the backseat to the front, where she stuffed
her stockings into her purse and slid her shoes on her bare, sandy feet. Roland emitted some halfhearted grumbling about his fond memory being nothing less than half the beach tracked into his car, but by the time he’d tugged his hat down low, lit a smoke, and brought the engine to its powerful purr, she knew she’d been forgiven.

The car bumped over sand and rushes before finding the smooth surface that would take them back into the city. Dorothy Lynn closed her eyes and let the salted air rush over her, almost rough against her skin. At the edge of this cleansing darkness, she heard Roland’s voice.

“For the last time—you love this fellow?”