Love Finds You in Victory Heights, Washington (35 page)

Mr. Bixby lifted his hands as if to say, “What do I care?” Then he pointed more adamantly to the chair.

Kenny plopped down, his backside only barely hanging on the edge.

“Okay, Russ. Thank you. Yes, I’ll tell him. He’s actually sitting in my office right now.” Mr. Bixby clamped down the phone, then bolted to his feet and came around the desk with the speed of Flash Gordon.

Kenny clasped his hands together. “I really have to fly, Chief. I don’t want to miss that B-17—”

Bixby’s pupils twinkled. “Well, now, son, just settle your head on down. I won’t keep you long, but you’ll want to hear this.”

Kenny tried to focus on his boss’s words. “Okay, sir, I’ll listen.”

“First of all, I want to tell you what a fantasmic job you’ve been doing on these assignments. Nice work. My only complaint is that you didn’t assert yourself earlier. Why were you holding out, son?”

Kenny’s eyes revolved at least once around the circumference of his sockets.
Because you wouldn’t let me
. But he didn’t say it. “I don’t know, sir. Just needed your guidance, I suppose.”

A wide grin spread across Bixby’s face. “Well, now. You are like a son to me, you know. I’m glad to be your guide. Those Rosie the Riveter stories, they’ve done more than sell papers; they’ve brought the community together.”

Kenny eyed the clock on Bixby’s desk. “Sir, thank you, but I really need to go.” He pointed at the clock. 1:15.

“Oh, yes, sorry. Well then, young man, I’ll get to the point. I was just on the phone with Mr. Young, and he’s approved your trip overseas.”

Kenny bolted to his feet. “What?”

“You heard me. Tomorrow morning one of the new C-47 Skytrains will take you to the South Pacific to cover the subcontractors there. It’s all set up. You’ll follow the paramedic group around for three days. You couldn’t do that if they were military, you know. Are you up for it?”

Kenny’s heart slammed against his chest. He felt like hugging Mr. Bixby but shook his hand instead. “Thank you, sir. Thank you! I don’t know what to say. I have so much to do before tomorrow.”

“Yes, you do, son. You have to cover that Flying Fortress story.” Bixby ambled back to behind his desk and opened a side drawer.

“That’s right!” Kenny straightened his fedora.

“But before you go—” Bixby pulled a cigar box out from his desk, opened it, and offered one to Kenny. “I was going to partake of it with you, but since you’re in a hurry, enjoy it on your own time.”

Kenny lifted one of the brown Cuban cigars and inhaled its sweet scent. “Oh, sir, I could never enjoy this on my own.” He slid it back into the box. “When I get back, we’ll celebrate.”

Mr. Bixby’s bottom lip poked out approvingly as he shut the box. “All right then, son. That’s a steal.”

He meant
deal.
Kenny stepped out, then paused. “Thank you again, Mr. Bixby.”

Closing the door behind him, Kenny re-entered the newsroom, buzzing with his fellow reporters, most of whom had been in meetings all morning.

“Hey, Kenny.” An upstart named Chuck strode toward the beveled glass door. “Love your latest Rosie piece.” He doffed his black felt hat, revealing flat brown hair, plastered to his head. “It’s a doozy.” He pressed the hat against his heart.

“Uh, thank you.” Kenny had been so enthralled with finishing the Doolittle story, he hadn’t even glanced at the morning edition. “Glad it turned out okay.”

“Oh yeah.” Hank, a squat, seasoned feature writer, swayed his porkish shoulders like Dorothy Lamour. “Real sweet piece, dollybird.”

Kenny’s forehead wrinkled. “What on earth are you talking about?” He glared at the two mocking men, then shook it off. “Never mind. You two should be committed or something, but I’ve gotta run.”

He faced the newsroom’s young clerk, Rodney. “I’ll be at that place in Victory Heights for a bit; then I’ll be at Boeing Field if anyone needs me.” Kenny reached for the door handle, then opened it, stepping backwards as he waited for Rodney’s acknowledgment.

Rodney’s freckled face blushed. “Yes, sir, Mr. Davenport.”

“I
bet
you’ll be at that place in Victory Heights, lover.” Chuck framed his babyish face with his hands pretending to be a forlorn girl.

Other reporters gathered round as Hank joined Chuck. “Oh, Rosie the Riveter, you’re my sweet dollybird,” Hank teased in an overly deep voice.

Chuck lifted his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and donned it over his head like a bandanna. “I’m a riveter, Kenny, but I think I can love a reporter like you, only if you take me on a roller coaster and give me a bracelet.”

A mad chill howled up Kenny’s back. He marched to the two juvenile men and grasped their shirts, then shoved them against the wall. “Tell me what you’re talking about. How do you know these things?”

The men’s shocked faces didn’t move Kenny.

Hank wiggled to get out of Kenny’s grasp, his jowls jiggling. “No one can take a joke around here.”

“Gee, Kenny,” Chuck whined like a schoolboy, “it was your article. We’re just having a little fun with it.”

Kenny dropped his hands, and Chuck and Hank scurried to their desks. “What do you mean it was my article?”

Rodney shuffled to him and handed him the morning edition. Riveter and Reporter Find Love at Last was the front-page headline. And the byline? Written and lived by Kenny Davenport. He shook the paper and eyeballed each reporter in the room. “Is this a joke? I didn’t write this story. Tell me who did.”

No one answered, and Kenny eyed the clock. 1:25.
Shoot! I’m going to be late.
Without another word to his so-called colleagues, Kenny dashed out the door and down the stairs. He reached for the doorknob but was stalled by Rodney tramping down the stairs.

“Mr. Davenport, you have a call. It’s your father.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back later,” Kenny grumbled.

The lines in Rodney’s freckled forehead angled up. “I’m sorry, sir. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but he says it’s important. You can take it down here.” He pointed to the unmanned reception desk.

Kenny rubbed his brow. “It’s okay, Rodney, I’ll take it.”

Rodney barreled back up the stairs, and Kenny picked up the receiver, blowing out a long breath.

“Lord, please strengthen Rosalie with Your might, according to Your glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering and joy. Help her remember that You have delivered her from the power of darkness and transferred her to the kingdom of Your dear Son.”

Rosalie breathed Birdie’s Scripture-filled prayer in deeply. The two had scoured Victory Heights and finally found the windmill water tower that Kenny had mentioned but not been able to show her. The misty morning fog chilled Rosalie’s arms as she sat atop an old army blanket they’d spread out. A stone’s hard edge, hardly softened by the itchy blanket, pushed into Rosalie’s backside and she shifted.

Birdie continued praying. “Give her peace about her speech and about Kenny. Amen.” Birdie’s hands released Rosalie’s, and she peered up at her.

Sending her friend a grateful smile, Rosalie flicked an ant from the blanket. “Thanks, Birdie. I hope someday I’ll know the Scriptures well enough to pray them freely, like you do.”

“It helps when you don’t know what else to pray.” Birdie tilted her head and grinned. “You can pray Scriptures with the Bible sitting in front of you, you know. You don’t have to have it memorized.”

Rosalie gaped at her friend. “But then I’d have to pray with my eyes open.”

“Do you think God can’t hear you when your eyes are open?”

“I don’t know.” She brushed a pine needle from Birdie’s shoulder. “I just never imagined praying any way but with my lids clamped shut. I’m new at this, remember.”

“Yes, sweets, but just remember, God can hear your prayers anywhere you are.” Birdie rubbed Rosalie’s back. “C’mon, we should be getting back.”

Rosalie stretched as she stood up. She peered out over the landscape from their spot next to the water tower. Though blurred by the light covering of fog, the view rambled beyond the acres of fir trees down to Victory Highway and beyond. Rosalie picked at her thumbnail. She was supposed to experience this view with Kenny.

She wondered if she’d ever spend real time with him again. The nightly phone calls were wonderful, and she strove to be as supportive as she could, but in her gut, she knew that if he really cared, he would find a way to be with her. She wanted to be pursued. She threw these feelings into the mist.

Today everything will be different. The old Kenny who couldn’t wait to be with me will show up again—on time.

“If it weren’t for the fog, I bet we could see Lake Washington from here. Don’t you think, Birdie?”

Birdie picked up the blanket and shook it. “Definitely.” She ambled across the small grassy field toward the narrow path leading home. “But this is Seattle, sweets. I think we’ve been spoiled with all this sunshine so far this summer.”

Rosalie strolled beside her. “Well, maybe, but what you Midwestern folks don’t know is that Seattle has the brightest, most sparkling, perfect summers in the world. We just say it rains all the time—to keep the riffraff out.”

“Good to know,” Birdie said with a snicker.

Dew-dappled ferns lined their footpath as Rosalie and Birdie edged through the woods. Rosalie breathed in the earthy, living scent, but her own zest for life lagged today.

Unspeakably grateful for Birdie’s prayers—and the peace that came with them—Rosalie’s nerves nevertheless wrenched into a tight bolt.
The speech. In front of all those people. No, don’t think about it.

“I’m so proud of you, sweets.” Birdie seemed to sense Rosalie’s wave of nervousness. “I can’t even tell you how proud.” She twisted a thin branch off a tree bending over the path. “I’m just sorry I haven’t been much support to you these last few weeks.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You had a lot going on. I’m so glad they found John.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if I slept more than a few hours a night after hearing his plane had been shot down. I don’t know what I’d do without my sweet darlin’.” She giggled and her blond tresses bounced as she strolled ahead of Rosalie. “Hey, when John returns home on furlough, we should all go out together. Maybe hit The Jolly Roger for dinner, then dance at the Lake City Dance Hall.”

“That would be fun.”

“But then again, I don’t know if I really want to bebop around you two serious jitterbugs.” Her giggle sounded through the foggy woods.

“Well, I’d really like to meet John, and go dancing with my Kenny again.”

“Oh, sweets, he is
your
Kenny, isn’t he?”

Rosalie sighed. The overwhelming nerves about giving a speech in front of 100,000 Boeing workers paled in comparison to her nerves over Kenny. But as much as she’d spun her doubts around like a record on a phonograph, it always ended up playing the same tune: “Trust him.”

So Rosalie continued to try to trust Kenny, and with prayer and reading her Bible, she felt more at peace about their relationship than ever. A surge of joy tingled though her. “I get to see him today.”

“I know! He’s picking you up.” Birdie grinned. “And he’ll probably plant a few smoochies on you too.”

“Birdie!” Rosalie walloped her friend’s arm, but she was thinking—hoping—the same thing.

An hour later it was 1:00, and Birdie and the other Boeing girls, dressed for work—because an awards assembly certainly didn’t mean Boeing could lose a whole day off the line—scurried out the door. Rosalie watched them titter and tease as they pranced down the street toward the bus stop.

“Kinda wish you were going along with them?” Iris clopped down the stairs, hung an arm on Rosalie’s shoulder, and nuzzled against her head.

Rosalie leaned in, her forehead tickled by a wisp of Iris’s hair. “Yeah. Sometimes I really wish someone else could be Seattle’s Own Rosie the Riveter, and I could just be Rosalie, Birdie’s partner and Iris’s friend.”

“Y’know, if it were me, I think I’d kinda like all the attention.” She tilted her head and rested it on Rosalie’s shoulder. “Wanna trade places?”

“Now you’re talkin’!”

Iris stepped over to the hat rack and grabbed her leather helmet. “Nothin’ doin’! Then you’d have to deal with my headache of a man. Did you hear he didn’t have an affair after all? Guess Lanie was mistaken.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Me too.” Iris smiled pensively. “You know, he’s not so bad. It’s just the pressure of being apart that rattles us. So, anyway, we’re not trading places. I need to work it out with Jake, and you’ll be keeping company with that handsome reporter of yours.”

Her gaze flitted to the grandfather clock. Rosalie’s followed.

1:05.

“He’s late.”

“Do you need me to drive you, hon?”

Rosalie smoothed her hands over her jeans, nervousness over the speech crawling through her. “Are you coming to the assembly?”

“Wouldn’t miss seeing my Rosie get that amazing medal. You worked hard for it.”

“Thank you, Iris.” Rosalie grinned. “I don’t need a ride. Lanie’s upstairs if Kenny doesn’t make it. I’ll see you there.”

As Iris whirlwinded out the door, the phone rang. Rosalie’s stomach lurched.
It’s probably Kenny, canceling again
. She lumbered past the coffee table and picked up the receiver from the phone on the wall.