Dancing With Velvet (9 page)

“Sure, I did. Young as we were, we meant for it to last forever, and it’s going to. But we both had a lot of growing up to do even after we married. Living here with Pearl and Big Ben helped. We saw the kind of give and take relationship they had and learned from it. Still, it’s a good thing we didn’t have Barbara right off the bat. We weren’t ready to be parents.”

“You and Ben are good parents.”

“We try. She’s the only chance we’ll get.”

“I’m sorry about what happened when she was born.”

“Well, I am, too, Cece, but we both came out all right, and maybe one child is enough, with the way things are going in the world.”

“The Sunday we walked around town, Kent said there’s going to be another war.”

“I think he’s right. Big Ben says things are sure heading that way.”

“Would Ben have to go?”

“Probably not. Ranching is what they call a
war-necessary business
, and since it’s just his dad and him, well, he’d probably get exempted.”

“I hope so.”

“But there’ll be a lot of others who have to go.”

“Like Kent.”

“Your Kent would be a prime candidate at his age with no dependents.”

“He’s not
my
Kent.”

“But you still kind of think of him that way, don’t you?”

“I need to stop thinking about him at all.”

“Yes, you do. Get out and have some fun, Cece. Big sister says so.”

****

Spring was late, and when summer came, it was hotter than Celeste could remember. Mr. Thomas brought up an extra fan from the stockroom and kept the windows wide open, but nothing helped very much. By noon, Celeste felt like a hothouse plant someone had overwatered by mistake.

She made a conscious effort to put Kent out of her mind, chiding herself for expending so much effort and emotion on someone she’d seen twice. She didn’t even know his last name, just Kent from Brownwood. They’d kept it impersonal for a reason, and now she was acting like a silly schoolgirl.

Still, every time she went to the window to find some fresh air, she couldn’t help watching the sidewalk below, hoping against reason to catch a glimpse of him. Once she thought she did, but when the man took off his hat to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief, she felt foolish and drew back inside so quickly she bumped her head hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.

She caught a summer cold and had to stay home for two days. Her father—though she’d tried without success to stop thinking of him that way—didn’t ask how she was feeling and complained that dinner wasn’t ready when he got home. Feverish and miserable, Celeste told him he could afford to eat downtown. He slammed out of the house mumbling something about not paying for her keep.

Maybe it was the fever that made her dream, but she woke one night calling Kent’s name. He’d been so real, so close, and now he was gone. She wept with frustration, closed her eyes, and tried to call him back.

She did her Christmas shopping in July so she could put things on layaway. One Friday, the saleslady who had talked her into the blue velvet dress waylaid her on her way out of the store.

“I’m dying to know what happened to you in that dress.”

“Nothing happened,” Celeste replied, resenting the intrusion into her private life. “I went dancing once or twice, that’s all.”

“Only once or twice?”

“I didn’t like it.”

“Didn’t like it? Every girl likes to dance with a handsome man.”

“Maybe there weren’t any handsome men,” Celeste said. “Excuse me, I’ve got to catch my ride.”

All the way to the bank, she berated herself for her rudeness. If things had been different, she might have told the friendly clerk about Kent. But things weren’t different, and it hurt to remember how she thought they had been.

****

At the end of August, Paula received word she’d won a scholarship to the design school in Dallas and would be leaving at Christmas to enroll for the second term. Veda asked Celeste if she wanted to share the room.

“I can’t afford it on my own. If I can’t find a roommate, I’ll have to quit and go back home. Not that home’s a bad place, but there aren’t many jobs in a little place like Winters. Besides, I like San Angelo. I’m even thinking about taking a night class at the business college.”

Celeste was tempted.
I could manage half the rent, and Coralee would say I should do it.
Then she thought of her own spacious room and how she’d have to fit into half the cramped one in the boarding house. Though she’d shared space happily with Coralee for years, she’d settled into her own way of doing things now that she had the room to herself. “I couldn’t leave my father to do for himself,” she fibbed. “He depends on me.”

“Is he going to depend on you for the rest of his life?” Veda asked.

Celeste shrugged. “If I left…well, I just can’t, that’s all. Not right now.”

Coralee didn’t even try to hide her irritation when Celeste told her about turning down the offer. “You can stay with Daddy until the day he dies, and he’ll be the same as he is right now. What do you think is going to happen?”

“It’s not Daddy. It’s leaving my room and all my pretty things. He might, well, get rid of them.”

“Ben and I will go down and get your bedroom suite and anything you can’t take with you and store it at the ranch.”

“Daddy wouldn’t let you.”

“He owes me. He owes
you
, for that matter.”

“I’m going to stay for now, Sister. Maybe one of these days I can have my own place.”

“I think you’re making a big mistake. This is a golden opportunity.”

“Then it’s my mistake,” Celeste snapped, instantly regretting her words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“I almost stayed home longer because of you. Ben understood. He really did. But I knew if I didn’t get out when I had the chance, I might not ever get out. Then, when Big Ben offered you a place here, I knew I’d made the right decision.”

“But I didn’t go.”

“No, you didn’t. Do you know what Daddy said when I told him Ben and I were getting married?”

“I guess I don’t remember.”

“Because you didn’t hear. I sent you across the street before I told him. He called me a name I won’t repeat and asked me if I was pregnant.”

“Oh, Sister.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why he didn’t walk me down the aisle? It wasn’t just all that stuff about not letting you go with me.”

“I guess I was having too much fun being a bridesmaid to wonder where he was.”

“You didn’t care where he was. Neither did I. I really worried about leaving you there afterward.”

“I’ve been all right.”

“How long are you going to be all right, Cece? Nothing’s going to change.”

Celeste sighed. “I’ll think about it again, Sister. I promise.” But they both knew she wouldn’t.

****

September was muggy and wet. People talked about the flood of 1936 and wondered aloud if another one was due. Celeste packed a small bag and kept it under her desk in case she got caught downtown some afternoon and couldn’t get home.

The weather finally turned cooler in mid-October, and November brought the first frost of the season. She went to Sterling City for Thanksgiving. It was a quick trip, there and back in one day, because she had to be at work on Friday.

After work that Friday, with her layaway paid out early, she used some of her savings to buy a new winter coat at Levine’s and wore it to church on Sunday. Mrs. Lowe told her she looked like a blooming rose in the bright red wool.

The next week seemed to drag. Veda found a new roommate, which eased Celeste’s conscience, and the girls at the store began planning a going-away party for Paula. Mr. Thomas said they could use the employee lounge after work if Celeste would be responsible for locking up.

She overslept the following Sunday and was almost late to church. She wondered if she was going because it was the thing to do, because she was enjoying her stylish new coat, or because it was simply a habit.

Just after twelve, as the congregation began to exit the church, she sensed something wasn’t right. Several cars parked along the street had their radios turned on with the volume up louder than necessary. As she walked down Harris, she heard the words
Pearl Harbor
repeated over and over. Finally she stopped beside one of the cars to listen.

“What does it mean?” she asked an older man leaning on an open car door.

“It means we’re at war, little lady.”

“War? Why?”

“The Japs finally did it. They bombed our bases at Pearl Harbor.”

“Where’s that?”

He spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the gutter. “Hawaii,” he said. “In the Pacific Ocean. Our boys are floating around in the Pacific Ocean like dead fish.”

****

On Monday, Celeste sat in the office with Mr. Thomas and Marilyn and listened to President Roosevelt ask Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. She thought of Pete and hoped he’d be able to graduate from the university before he was drafted. Then she thought of Ben, hoping Coralee was right about him not having to go. And then she thought of Kent and knew he would.

****

As the country geared up for war, Celeste threw herself into the local efforts by volunteering with the Red Cross on Saturday afternoons. When the small local airport became a bombardier training school, Mrs. Lowe and some of the other ladies in town decided that two bases warranted a Canteen for the servicemen who would be arriving to learn to fly or to drop their bombs with deadly accuracy.

“We want nice girls, Celeste. Girls who remind the boys of their sisters and girlfriends back home. Girls that the married men, if there are any, can sit and talk to about their wives and children.”

Celeste recruited Veda, whose brother had enlisted in the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor. “I can’t do anything for Bobby,” Veda said, “but maybe being nice to some of these other boys will help him somehow.”

“I’m sure anything we can do will help
all
our boys,” Mrs. Lowe assured her. The day before the doors opened, she called in all the volunteers and laid down the rules.

“This is their home away from home, so to speak. We’re going to have good food, good conversation, games, dancing, a place for them to write letters, listen to the radio, and read. Anything they need, we’re going to provide if at all possible.

“What they don’t need—and neither do we as an organization—is any kind of activity that even hints at being improper. I’m not saying that you young ladies might not get interested in a serviceman and want to go out on a date, but you won’t do it from here. You don’t leave the Canteen with a serviceman at any time. He can pick you up at home like a gentleman. If you break the rules, you won’t be allowed back, and that would be a shame. We need all of you. We have to work together to win this war. If you keep that in mind, it shouldn’t be too hard to follow the rules.”

The field commander agreed that the first group of trainees who arrived in September could attend the grand opening of the Canteen on the third Saturday night after their arrival. Half a dozen girls turned out to decorate, while Celeste and Veda fried doughnuts all afternoon, and a local band set up to play. At six o’clock, when the mayor opened the doors, the boys poured in.

Celeste, hot and disheveled after her stint in the kitchen, announced her intention to stay there. “I don’t think I’ll go out,” she told Veda. “Next week, maybe.”

“Just go wash your face and powder your nose, honey. And take off that apron.” Veda reached to untie the strings at Celeste’s waist.

Celeste shrugged. “Oh, why not? I’m not going to know anyone anyway.” She spent a few minutes in the ladies’ room making herself presentable. A little powder, a little lipstick, and a brush through her hair helped more than she anticipated. Feeling excited in spite of herself, she pasted a smile on her face, squared her shoulders, and stepped out into the main room.

“I thought I recognized you.”

The voice just behind her sounded eerily familiar. She whirled. “You!”

“Yeah, me, Kent. Remember? The victim of your half-eaten apple.” He winked at her.

Celeste stared at the crisp new uniform in which he looked more handsome—and more vulnerable—than ever and blinked back tears.

“Once I knew I was being sent here, I decided to look you up. You’re not married or anything? Or engaged?”

She shook her head.

“Good. I’ve thought about you a lot.”

“You have?”

“Told my brother all about you.”

“You did?”

“But it wasn’t fair to you to start something, like writing letters or anything.”

“It’s all right. I understood.”
No, I didn’t. I waited and waited to hear from you. Anything would’ve been better than nothing.

“Well, I’m not sure I did. I had to take the new route because of the money, but I didn’t like it. I mean, I didn’t like not coming back here.” He turned his cap in his hands. “How’ve you been?”

“All right.”

“Go dancing again?”

“No. Not since I got your letter.”

“I’m sorry.” He grinned suddenly. “Well, maybe I’m not sorry at that. Music sounds good in there. Want to give it a try?”

She lost the battle with her tears. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I’m just so glad.”

“Hey, don’t cry, kid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you’re glad to see me, but I don’t like to see you cry.”

He pulled out a clean handkerchief and offered it to her. “I’ll have to keep a supply of these for you, I guess.” Then he took her hand and led her out onto the dance floor.

****

Kent held her closer than she remembered him doing before. “Can we talk?” he asked as the dance ended.

“I’m supposed to be mingling,” she said.

“Then I’ll follow you around like a lost puppy.”

She smiled. “Let’s go sit at the table over there. If one of the chaperones gives me a look, I’ll have to get up.”

He brought two cups of coffee and some doughnuts to the table. “Veda and I fried those things all afternoon,” Celeste said, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t even want to look at them.”