Gingersnap (2 page)

“With that little turned-up nose, it almost looks like you,” Rob said.

“A funny face,” I said.

“That’s what makes it great. Imagine, it’s been around forever, rolling down from a mountain or coming up from under the sea. She might bring us luck, Jayna, this funny stone girl.”

“We need luck.” I slipped the stone into my pocket, and we went up to the house. I hopped, holding my bare foot up in the cold air. I held the sleeve of his wet jacket with two wet fingers.

“That water is really freezing,” he said, then stopped, frowning. “I forgot. Celine is coming to dinner.”

“I should have drowned myself,” I said.

“Instead of my boot.”

“You wasted a perfectly good night inviting her,” I said. “
Lux Theater
is on the radio at nine o’clock. I was going to curl up and listen.…

“And I ruined a perfectly good jacket trying to get that flower for you. But maybe Celine will be gone by nine. Besides, I’ve made a perfectly good dinner. And afterward, we’ll get everything settled with her.”

That Celine.

I didn’t stop in the kitchen. I went down the hall toward the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub, washing off my foot, thinking what it would be like here in North River without Rob. I was used to him coming home from the base every night and being free most weekends. That was why we’d chosen to live in North River, after all—to be together while he trained. I was used to cooking with him, laughing with him, hiking up the hills outside town with him.

When would the war ever be over?

I
went into the kitchen and set the table for the three of us, giving Celine the plate with the chip on the edge.

Rob thickened the gravy, stirring in cornstarch with rosemary and garlic, while I made lemon icing, eating a spoonful as I spread it over the graham-cracker cake he’d made.

He glanced across at me. “The cake won’t be as good as usual. Only one egg, and lard. It’s all because of the war.…”

He didn’t have to finish. Food was rationed, and we couldn’t always get eggs or butter. How hard it was to
find everything we needed. Still, the dinner was going to be fine, just as Rob had promised.

News came from the small white radio on the shelf, hints of convoys moving toward the islands off Japan. That was why Rob was leaving the base and heading to California, where he’d board the
Muldoon
.

He saw my worried face. “She’s a great ship. Fast and sure in the water.”

I held up my hand. “Don’t.”

He nodded and started our game: what we’d do when the war was over and he came home.

When
, I told myself. Not
if
.

“We’ll pack our bags and leave North River,” he began.

“Bringing all your recipe books,” I said.

He nodded. “We’ll go to Brooklyn.”

I didn’t know Brooklyn. I knew only those towns near North River where I’d lived in foster homes before Rob rescued me.

“We’ll open a restaurant,” I said. “You can cook all day.”

“And you’ll make soup.”

Celine knocked at the door and pattered in, her small feet on a pillow body, her hairpiece askew. What was underneath that nest?

She looked around as always, trying to see how we kept the house.

A mess.

We went to the table and Rob brought in the steaming dishes. Never mind the dust and the piles of books and sweaters on the couch; there wasn’t one thing wrong with the cooking.

Without thinking, I rested my arms on the table.

“Your elbows will turn into camels’ heels if you keep leaning on them like that,” Celine said.

I opened my mouth to say something mean, but Rob winked at me, so I closed it.

Celine knew it. “Closed teeth are fences against bad words.” She glanced up at the ceiling, her mouth filled with lamb. Her hairpiece slid lower as she chewed. How could she see?

She started in on the news, the war, and Rob’s leaving. “Dangerous,” she said.

As if we didn’t know it. Rob and I looked at each other, and suddenly it was hard not to laugh. Quickly I bent my head over my plate.

Celine hadn’t noticed. “But don’t worry,” she went on. “Think of that pilot, Eddie Rickenbacker, and his crew, who were on rafts in the Pacific for weeks, starving.” She shook her head, her hairpiece quivering, as she helped herself to half the bowl of carrots.

“A seagull landed on his hat,” Rob said calmly. “It was enough food to get them through.”

“Our fleet is massing for a huge attack in the Pacific,” Celine said, her mouth full. “Everyone knows that.”

Take a few deep breaths
.

“So I’ll keep Jayna,” she went on. “I certainly will. I’m not doing it for money. It’s for the good of the country.”

“I’ll send you almost everything I make,” Rob said.

Celine was coughing now, choking on the pound of carrots she’d crowded into her mouth.

Some manners.

Rob poured a glass of water for her. In science class this morning, Mrs. Murtha had said, “Let’s think about water. If you drop a ball into a bowl, the water has to move away to make room for it.”

“Huh,” Joseph had said in his seat behind me.

Mrs. Murtha had ignored him. “When a ship enters the ocean, the same thing happens. The water has to make room for it. That’s called
displacement
.”

“Everyone’s displaced because of the war,” a voice whispered behind me.

Joseph? Diane?

No.

The whisper came again. “Pushed away from my misty silver lake, peace gone. I’ll have to spend my days here.”

I turned around. I saw …

Something? Someone? A lock of ginger hair, almost like mine, that faded into nothing.

Mrs. Murtha was staring at me.

Had I fallen asleep?

Now I glanced across the dinner table at Rob.

He was going to be displaced, taken away from North River, away from me. I’d be displaced into Celine’s house up on the hill.

I stared at my plate for the rest of the meal. I barely finished the lamb and hardly tasted the graham-cracker cake with the icing I loved.

At last Celine put on her hat. “I have to be home before it gets really dark. Who knows? Robbers and thieves may be hiding.…” Her voice trailed off as she opened our front door.

We watched her hurry down the street. “As if a robber would dare go near her,” Rob said, laughter in his voice.

We went back into the kitchen to cut ourselves huge slices of cake. Celine was gone! We could eat in peace.

Rob began to talk about the war. “My ship will steam into the South Pacific,” he said. “It will be part of a huge convoy to take the islands from the Japanese: Iwo Jima, Okinawa, then Honshu, Hokkaido.…”

Names that sounded strange to my ears. Names I didn’t want to hear.

The big radio was on in the living room and
Lux Theater
was beginning. “Don’t spoil the cake. Don’t spoil
Lux
.” I hesitated. “Suppose your ship is blown up.”

“You sound like Celine with her robbers and thieves.” He held up his hand. “The
Muldoon
’s a powerful ship. She cuts through the water like the blade of a knife.”

“What will happen to me if …” I couldn’t finish.

He came around to my side of the table and put his large hands on my shoulders. “You are tough, Jayna. You are strong. I’ve seen that over and over. You’re like our mother. You’ll always know what to do.”

Not true
, I wanted to say. Not at all true. But still, how wonderful it was to be compared to the mother I never knew.

“So think that,” Rob said. “Jayna the strong. Jayna the brave.”

“Yes, think that,” a voice whispered.

I turned, but no one was there.

F
rom my window the next morning, I watched the sun turn the pond to gold. Leaves drifted along on the water; only a few were left on the trees.

I flew down to the water’s edge, spotted Theresa, and sprinkled dried insects from the turtle food box for her to snap at.

Then I leaned against the yellow willow tree. Last night, I couldn’t concentrate on
Lux Theater
after all. I kept thinking of our mother and father, who had died long ago. I’d never seen their pictures. I couldn’t imagine what they looked like, even though I tried.

I pretended to change my mother’s hair from long to short, her lips pink to red, her dresses long to short,
just the way I’d drawn in my coloring books. I’d made my father tall, looking like Rob, sometimes with a mustache, sometimes not.

I’d whisper their names, Claude and Marie Louise, Father and Mother, both gone in a car accident. I tried to imagine what life would be like if they hadn’t been in that car. We’d listen to
Lux Theater
together on Monday nights or the
Shadow
on Sundays. Sometimes we’d go to the movies. And every night at bedtime, we’d call out
I love you
to each other.

After
Lux
, I’d stared across at Rob. He had a tiny dab of icing on the edge of his mouth; his crew cut was brushed up dark and stiff.

“What?” Rob asked.

“I want to know more about our mother and father.”

I thought of living in those foster homes, not far from North River. Rob had lived in another home nearby. All those years, he’d come to see me on Sundays. I’d asked him the same question every time.

“She wore a blue ring on her finger,” he’d say, or “She had curly hair like yours. She called you Gingersnap.”

Rob looked at the silent radio. “Sometimes she sang French songs. Her parents were French.”

That was new. Why hadn’t I known that?

“She loved to cook. Dough was always rising in the kitchen.”

I did know that. I waved my hand. “What about our father?”

“He laughed a lot, a big laugh.” Rob raised his shoulders. “He went to work in the city.”

“What else?”

He shook his head. “I was always playing ball. I didn’t pay attention. I’ll try to think.”

He always said that. The story of our parents came out in dribs and drabs.

Rob frowned a little. “I do remember something.”

I held my breath.

“There’s a box on top of my closet. At least, I think there is, somewhere in back. It has my baseball glove.…”

“Please,” I said, grinning. “Am I interested in your baseball glove?”

He grinned back. “There are a few pictures and a recipe book. The book’s in French—you can’t read a word. But there’s something about a bakery.” He raised his shoulders. “Something about a grandmother. I meant to check it out after I saw it again last year, but I’ve been so busy here and at the base.”

I nodded.

“When I come home,” he said, “we’ll look at it together.”

On the other side of the pond, I saw my old Sunday hat again, most of it under the surface of the water; I couldn’t see the blue ribbons anymore. Still, I walked toward it, around the other side of the pond.

Rob would leave, and I’d be alone. I whispered the
words that meant a family. I used to say them every night: cousins, aunts, uncles, grandfather, loving the sounds on my tongue. I’d make them up: Cousin Eleanor, Aunt Elaine, Grandpa.

One Sunday I’d told Rob that. “I used to do the same thing,” he said. “Uncle John, Cousin Pete.”

The hat was almost in my reach, the way the yellow flower had been. I moved closer and was just able to run my fingers over the sodden crown.

“Don’t bother,” a voice said. “It’s a terrible mess.”

I spun around. Who could that possibly be? Was it coming from the top of the shed? A soft voice, a high voice. A small stone rattled its way down from the roof.

I saw a pair of feet. Whoever it was wore one of my yellow striped socks and the green one with the hole in the toe.