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Authors: Pam Jenoff

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I stood on the stairs, snapping shots of the boys as they tackled one another, their hair and skin golden in the late-day sun.

“Hey!” Liam scowled at the clicking sound. “No pictures.”

I lowered the camera and walked down the steps. “Why not?” I challenged.

“You gotta be careful with that. Someone might think you're an Axis spy.”

“Liam!” Jack cautioned.

“I didn't mean anything by it.” His face flushed. But there was some truth to what he'd said: people looked at me differently since the war began. Even though I was an American citizen now and my accent had faded with time, my past meant I would never truly be one of them. I was an outsider, foreign once more.

“I doubt the Germans would want a photo of you anyway,” Jack chided his twin, trying to break the tension. Liam did not answer but stormed off around the side of the house.

“But, Liam, we're going to the boardwalk!” Robbie could not imagine anyone passing up on that. His voice was drowned out by the choky rev of Liam's dirt-bike engine, then tires squealing. Seeing Robbie's face fall, I walked over and squeezed his hand, which was still a bit slick with bacon grease. Jack looked at me helplessly. Liam was so much moodier and more distant than a year ago. We had hoped that the summer away from the city, where trouble was so easy to find, would have done something to calm Liam's wild ways. There were moments when he seemed his old self, playing with his brothers in the surf. But his darkness always returned.

Mrs. Connally stepped from the house, shielding her eyes as she scanned the side yard. “Where's Liam?”

“Gone—on his bike. He said something earlier about meeting some friends at the beach.”

Mrs. Connally's face fell. “I hate that thing,” she said bluntly. The bike had been a reward—Liam was allowed to buy it with the allowance he'd saved in exchange for finishing the semester with no Fs. But it had backfired, allowing him to roam farther and longer than ever before. “He's having such a hard time.” She seemed to be pleading with me to do something, though what I did not know.

Before I could ask, Jack came to my side with Robbie in tow. “Ready?”

“What about the others?” I asked, purposefully vague.

But the point of my question could not have been more obvious. “Charlie's got plans.”

“A date,” Robbie piped up cheerfully.

“Robbie, don't.” Jack shifted uncomfortably. He had been trying to spare my feelings. A foot seemed to kick me in the stomach. I had seen Charlie talking to the girl who worked the concession stand by the beach a couple of times, a strawberry blonde a year or two older than me. But I had not actually thought he would go out with her tonight of all nights. It was our last night at the shore, for goodness' sake. How could he waste it with someone he hardly knew?

A few minutes later, the jitney came and we paid a nickel each to board. Our nights had changed since last summer when the whole Connally family had made the trek to the boardwalk on Saturday nights to ride the Ferris wheel and watch the lights twinkle along the hazy coastline below. On the Fourth of July, we'd crowded together on a blanket, sharing caramel corn as fireworks exploded above and an orchestra played on the pier.

Now everything was different. Liam was off getting into trouble and Charlie was with that red-haired girl. My mind was flooded with images. Where was he taking her tonight? So those moments I'd glimpsed between me and Charlie had just been my imagination. How foolish of me! I had no right to stop him from dating, but it still felt like a betrayal—and it hurt worse than I could have imagined.

“We're here.” Robbie tugged at my arm and we climbed off, then walked the last few steps to the wide promenade of the boardwalk. The shops and arcades stood in a row beneath brightly colored awnings. The heady aroma of taffy and funnel cake and caramel corn, which I normally savored, seemed stifling now. Roller coasters and other amusements rose on the massive piers that jutted out like freighters into the sea. Across the boardwalk, a serviceman who had not yet shipped out yet stole a kiss from the girl on his arm.

We walked passed the Warner Theater, its marquee alight touting a Gary Cooper film. Once the boardwalk would have come alive with twinkling lights even before dusk, but now they were dimmed out, lights covered with a special blue film in a precaution to make the coast less visible in case of an attack. “The Miss America pageant is coming,” Robbie announced as they passed a poster of a striking woman in a swim costume.

“She sure is a dish,” Jack chimed in, but the words sounded forced and silly.

“Hey!” Normally I didn't mind the boys' rough banter. “That's rude to say in front of me.”

“Sorry, Ad,” Jack said, chastened.

But his apology did no good. My frustration, with Charlie and Liam and all of it, suddenly boiled over. The lights and merriment only seemed to amplify my sadness. I could stand it no longer. “I'm a girl, too, you know. Maybe it's time you remembered that!”

I turned away blindly. Ignoring the boys' calls, I dodged through children licking ice-cream cones and the wicker rickshaws pushed by colored men. I ran south, my sandals flapping against the boards until the sound and lights faded behind me.

Finally, I slowed a bit, breathing heavily. The sun was setting in great layers of pink, like wide swaths of strawberry frosting on a cake I'd once admired through a bakery window. The boardwalk grew quiet except for the cry of a few gulls and the rhythmic thunder of the waves. When I reached Chelsea Avenue, I saw a cluster of kids sitting around a fire down on the beach and Liam's dirt bike propped against the side of the boardwalk. Before I knew it, I was going after him.

I took off my sandals and then stepped onto the beach. The sand, still warm, grew damp and harder beneath my feet as I neared the water. About fifteen feet away from the group, I stopped. Seven or eight kids sat in the surf smoking and drinking out of glass soda bottles that I guessed contained something stronger. Liam was not among them, and for a moment I was grateful I had been wrong. Then a familiar whoop came across the water. Liam was almost fifty feet out paddling on a surfboard, scarcely visible at dusk. It wasn't accurate anymore to say that Liam had no hobbies. He had the dirt bike and surfing, which he had picked up earlier this summer. He was drawn, it seemed, to anything dangerous. He rose up and the water seemed to dance beneath him. I momentarily forgot my fear of the water and stood transfixed.

As Liam played to his audience, he scanned the coastline. Seeing me, he lurched in surprise. The board few out from under him and his legs went flying through the air. “Liam!” I called, panic surging through me. Seconds passed and I watched the surface, willing him to appear.

A minute later he emerged in shallow water, his hair dark and slicked with water. As he saw me, a light came to his eyes and for a moment he almost smiled. Then his face seemed to close again and he turned from me, starting toward the group by the fire. “Liam, wait.” As he neared, I noticed an odd smell mingling with the salt water, and his eyes were glassy.

“Hey, Ad.” He reached into his bag and held out a flask to me. His look was daring, sure that I would say no. “I didn't think so,” he sneered when I hesitated. I took the flask from him and as I raised it, the acidic smell took me back to the glass of vodka Nonna always had before supper. Wanting him to trust me but knowing better than to sip, I took a swig, cringing at the burn.

The others kids were packing up now and I feared Liam would follow, leaving me behind. I shivered. He pulled out a shirt and passed it to me, and I could smell the sweat and smoke and beer it had seen as I rolled up the too-long sleeves. He dropped to the sand and I followed, leaning back. There was a great white streak of cloud across the night sky, seeming to light it, as if someone had taken a piece of chalk and brushed it sideways. One of Robbie's ceiling sketches come to life.

I stared up at the sea of stars. “So much darkness,” Liam said. I turned in amazement. Was that really what he saw? “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Running away
, I thought.
Just like you.
I drew my knees close under the sweatshirt and wrapped my arms around them. There were moments when Liam and I seemed to get each other, like last February when snow had blanketed Second Street in fresh white. The boys had built forts out of shoveled snow on either side of the street and it had been Liam and I on one side of the snowball fight, just the two of us against the world. “I was thinking about school this fall,” I said instead, trying to find a topic easier than admitting the real reason I had come.

“School is really more Jack's turf. Anyway, what's the point? We could have had this conversation at home.”

“Except you're never there!” I accused. “Or when you are, you're so busy trying to cover up the fact that you are drunk or whatever that you ignore everyone.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wow. That may be the first time I've ever seen you lose your cool.”

My irritation rose. “Don't mock me. I'm serious.”

“I'm serious, too. You're always so composed. I may be screwed up, but at least I know I'm alive.”

“This isn't about me, Liam.”

“The hell it isn't. You want to talk, fine, but it's got to cut both ways. You can't just sit there like some kind of shrink and look inside me.”

“Fine.” I decided to try another approach. “Truth or dare?”

“What?”

“You heard me.” I hoped he wouldn't pick dare because there was no challenge I could think of that he wouldn't do.

“Dare.” He smirked.

“I dare you to tell me what's eating you. I dare you to tell me why you've changed.”

“That's a truth, not a dare,” Liam protested but then he answered. “Nothing. This is my life. What else is there to do besides drink and surf and sleep? My turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“I knew it. You would never pick dare.”

“Well, it's my choice,” I said defensively.

“Have you ever gone all the way?”

I reared backward, shocked. “Liam!”

“It's a fair question.”

“No, of course not.” I hoped he couldn't see my face turn crimson in the dim light.

“Why not?”

“That's a second question. I wouldn't right now. Not with anyone.”

“Not even with Charlie?”

“That's your third question. Now, it's my turn to ask.”

Ignoring me, he pressed on. “You love him, don't you?”

My breath caught. Was it really so obvious? “That's your fourth. Truth or dare?”

“Addie, this is stupid. You'll keep choosing truth and I'll keep choosing dare, because that's who we are. There's nothing left to say.”

“One more,” I pleaded.

“Okay, I choose dare.”

“I dare you to succeed, Liam Connally. You can rebel all you want, but you don't have to go to hell in a handbasket while doing it. Hang in there, do your homework. Just get by and for goodness' sake don't get yourself killed.”

“Now you sound like my mother.” A quiet moment passed between us. “Truth or dare.”

I took a deep breath, desperate to reach him and pull him from the corner into which he had withdrawn. “Dare.”

“Really?” Surprised, he thought for a moment. “Come swimming with me.”

Behind him the ocean at dusk roiled, darker and more menacing than ever. “I can't, Liam. You know that.”

“Please,” he pleaded in a voice that tugged at my heart. For a moment, I considered trying. It might be my only chance to reach him.

But fear clamped down anew. “I'm sorry, I can't.”

He held out his hand, as though inviting me to accompany him on a journey, and I wanted—really wanted—take it. “C'mon, Addie. Live a little.” I shook my head. “I thought so.” His voice was guarded once more. “You're telling me to change, but you won't.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Me, too. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do—”

He picked up his bag. “This is a joke. I've got to go.”

“Don't walk away like this.” Now it was my turn to plead.

“What else is there to say? You've done your good deed for the day trying to reform me. But you can't turn me into a cause, or return me to my family like some kind of trophy.”

“What about your family?”

He stiffened defensively. “What about them?”

“You're hurting them.”

“They'll be fine no matter what I do.”

“And Robbie?” I countered. “He looks up to you.”

“He's got no shortage of big brothers. Jack and Charlie are the better role models by far.”

“Do you really believe that?” He did not answer but looked away, eyes distant. When had Liam slipped away from us? In the middle of a noisy Connally kitchen or in a quiet moment when no one was looking? He seemed gone down a path now too far to reach.

“This has got to stop, Liam, before someone gets hurt.” But he turned and walked up the beach. I watched helplessly as he slipped back into the destructive lifestyle that seemed to be claiming him for its own.

I reached Sunset Avenue forty minutes later, feet aching from the long walk back. The brackish smell of low tide rose from the bay waters, unseen in the darkness. I eyed the Connally house, my disappointment rising anew. Liam was still at the beach or God only knew where, Charlie on his date. Nothing was the same anymore. I started for our house, then stopped with surprise. My aunt and uncle were waiting for me on the front porch. It was nearly ten o'clock. Were they mad at me for going out without asking, or coming home late, or simply for spending more time with the Connallys?

But there was no anger in their eyes. “Addie, come, sit,” Aunt Bess said as they led me to the stairs up to our rooms. Aunt Bess sat down beside me on the daybed in the sunroom. “It's about your parents.” She looked at Uncle Meyer uncertainly and then back to me. “They've gone missing.”

All the air seemed to leave my lungs as all of the worries I'd had about the Connallys vanished. “Papa was arrested before.” I willed myself to breathe against the tightness in my chest. “But he came back.” My parents had remained in my thoughts of course, though fuzzier and more remote with time. Now their faces appeared sharply before me and my guilt rose. How had I let go of worrying about them, even for a single second?

Uncle Meyer brushed at his eyes. “It's not like that. I'm afraid they're both gone.” In his hand he clutched a small bundle of worn envelopes. I reached out and took them, trembling as I recognized the letters I'd written to my parents, one each week since coming here. I'd described my life with great care, focusing on the best parts in hopes that it would make them stop what they were doing and come to America. It had hurt that other than once at the beginning they had not written back, even for my birthday and the holidays. My uncle's explanations about the inconsistency of wartime post had been of little comfort. Now my letters had been returned, each one stamped undeliverable.

“How long have you known?”

My aunt and uncle exchanged uneasy looks. “We knew the letters were coming back, but we didn't know why until just now,” Uncle Meyer answered. Why hadn't they told me? He passed me a torn piece of paper containing a scrawl in Italian:
Montfortes no longer at this address. No forwarding address given
.

“They could be in hiding,” I said, clinging desperately to hope.

Uncle Meyer's eyes flickered and there seemed to be something more he wanted to say. My parents would not have gone without sending me a way to reach them—unless they were taken unexpectedly, not given a choice.

“We don't know if they were arrested,” Aunt Bess offered, as though this might make things better. She had never been there—how could she possibly know?

I turned and ran down the steps of the duplex and across the yard. I knocked, then opened the door without waiting. Mrs. Connally sat alone reading on the sofa. Seeing me, her face crinkled with concern. “Addie, what is it?”

“My parents.” I told her what I had just learned. She enveloped me softly, letting me sob into the softness of her skirt.

A few minutes later, I straightened. “If I hadn't left, they might be safe.” Of course, it had not been my choice. Mamma had not even told me I was leaving Trieste until we reached the ship, knowing I would refuse. But I could have fought it and even run away and gone back.

“If you hadn't left, you would have been taken as well,” Mrs. Connally said softly. “Your mother did what all good mothers do, fight for their children's survival. I would have done the same.”

“No, you would have gone with your boys.” I was not talking back, just being honest. Anger rose up in me then. Why couldn't my parents have put caring for me first?

Robbie padded into the room then, rubbing his eyes. “Addie, what are you doing here?”

“Just talking,” Mrs. Connally said quickly, as I wiped the tears from my cheek, trying to shield her youngest from bad news. “You can stay here tonight if you want,” Mrs. Connally offered.

“Like a slumber party?” Robbie asked, brightening.

His mother chuckled. “Something like that. I'll let your aunt know.” I nodded gratefully and Mrs. Connally walked from the room. Robbie dropped down beside me and slipped his hand into mine, sensing my sadness. Mrs. Connally returned with a pillow and blanket, which she arranged on the couch.

“Off to bed.” She shooed Robbie. He stood, but lingered by the doorway.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Jack's sleeping. And Liam...” Mrs. Connally gestured helplessly, not wanting to say more in front of Robbie. So Liam had not come back after I had seen him at the beach. Our talk, it seemed, had done no good at all. And Charlie was not back from his date either. Jealousy wormed its way into the worry about my parents and nagged at my stomach once more.

“Can Addie stay for breakfast in the morning?” Robbie asked.

“Of course, if she likes. Now go.” After Robbie disappeared up the steps, Mrs. Connally hung back. “I would never try to replace your mother.” The word twisted in my stomach like a knife. “And I know that you have your aunt. But I'm here for you—we all are. And with all of these boys,” she added, gesturing upward. “Well, I'm glad you're with us.” As she started up the stairs, I exhaled quietly. Though I so often wanted to be a Connally, I was glad for once she had not said I was like a daughter. Tonight I could not have stood it.

I lay in the darkness, the news about my parents pressing down on me. I burrowed into the covers, trying to remember the feel of my mother's dress as I hugged her, and her smell so much like a field of lavender in early spring. There were a thousand other details that had already begun to fade with time. My eyes grew heavy. I drifted off and the ocean loomed, churning darkly before me.

A wave rose, but before it could crash down, a cracking noise startled me awake. I reached for the pocketknife that I kept under my pillow, the one Aunt Bess and the others did not know about. But it was not there. I sat bolt upright. “Easy,” a familiar voice said. Charlie. His hands were on my shoulders, firm and soothing. “What are you doing here, Addie?” I sat up, recalling that I was on the Connallys' couch, not in my bed.

My grief swelled thinking about my parents, threatening to drown me and for a moment I wanted to throw myself into Charlie's arms. Then I remembered he'd been on a date I stood, the blanket from my makeshift bed falling to the floor. “I was just headed home. Don't turn on the light,” I added, hearing the hoarseness in my own voice. I didn't want him to see my tears.

“Wait. Want to go for a walk?”

I turned back, surprised. “Isn't it late?”

“Does that matter? Last night here—no sense wasting it sleeping.” No, he had wasted it on a date with someone else. But I didn't have the strength to argue. I slipped on my sandals and followed him outside. The street was still except for our footsteps as we walked toward the inlet, following the curve of the bay.

“How was your date?” I could not keep the note of recrimination from my voice.

But he ignored or did not hear it. “Okay, I guess. We just didn't have much to talk about.”

We reached the jetty by the bay and lowered ourselves to the rocks. I averted my eyes from the dark water below. “Hard to believe I'm leaving for school tomorrow,” he remarked.

I swallowed over the protest that rose in my throat. This was it. We would no longer all be together. “Hey, what's the matter?” he asked, as I burst into tears.

“My parents,” I said, because somehow it was easier than admitting I was crying over him. I told him Aunt Bess's news. “They're gone, Charlie, really gone.” He drew me close and I cried into his T-shirt, dampening and then soaking the material. He did not speak or try to make it better by offering false hope, but simply held me in the way that was exactly what I needed, even though I had not myself known it.

“And the worst part is that I'm angry. Angry at them for choosing their work over me. Isn't that awful?”

“Our family isn't perfect either, Addie,” he said, a gravelly undercurrent to his voice. “Things got bad during the Depression,” he continued, and it was as if he was opening a door to reveal things about their family. “Dad's business shut down and he couldn't find work. We would have lost the house in the city and the one here, too, if they weren't already paid for. Dad was drinking a lot and some days he wouldn't even get out of bed. I was just a little kid, but I could tell. Then one day...” Charlie broke off. “He tried to hurt himself.” My stomach dropped as I tried to reconcile the story I was hearing with the sunny loving father I'd come to know. “Anyway, he got help and he's better now, but that's why he isn't eligible for the draft.”

“Oh, Charlie,” I sighed, momentarily forgetting my own grief. Scars ran deep, even in a family as close as the Connallys. I touched his arm, the skin warm beneath my fingertips. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's fine. It isn't anywhere near what you've lost. We're here for you, Addie. I'm here for you.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder. There was a peaceful silence between us, only broken by the gentle lapping of the water against the bottom of the dock. A minute later I straightened, lifting my head. Our eyes locked.

Charlie lowered his head and before I knew what was happening his lips met mine, sending waves of electricity through me. A moment later, he drew back. “I shouldn't have done that.”

“I love you,” I blurted out. A chasm seemed to open between us, threatening to swallow me. Should I take it back? No, I would not hide from the truth. “I love you,” I repeated, raising my chin and meeting his eyes squarely.

In that moment I was falling from the sky, nothing to catch me if Charlie did not respond. The entire world hung in the balance. “I do, too,” he said and the declaration, just short of mine, was somehow enough. I landed in his arms, saved. He kissed me and it was the moment of purest joy, tasting and touching the very thing I had wanted for all of this time. “I've been trying to keep my distance,” he said when we broke apart. So that explained why he had been avoiding me.

Before I could respond his lips were on mine again, this time more intense, a freight train neither of us could—or wanted—to stop. Then he pulled back. “We shouldn't,” he repeated, more firmly this time. Was he having second thoughts? Perhaps I had done something wrong. Heat crept up from my neck. I could see the struggle within him, wanting more. If I pressed, would he stop resisting? But he straightened, intent on doing the right thing, as he always had.

“I'm not a child,” I protested.

“It's not that. I mean, I held off for so long because you're like family and I didn't want to screw it up. But there's something else.” I tilted my head, unsure what more could be said on this night. “College...”

“You're leaving tomorrow,” I interjected, not wanting to disrupt the moment with unpleasant thoughts. “I'm not expecting to go steady.” I moved closer to him.

But he held me off. “That's just it. Addie...I'm not going.”

“To Georgetown? What do you mean? Of course you are.”

He shook his head. “I've deferred it. I'm still leaving tomorrow, only not for college—for boot camp. That is, I've enlisted.” He paused, waiting for my reaction.

A cold chill raced up my spine. “So college and your scholarship, you're just letting that go?”

He shrugged. “I'll go someday. But this is about something bigger than football and classes now. It's a chance to make a difference in the world.” His face glowed with the very idealism I had fallen in love with in the first place—the same thing that was driving him to do this now. “There's a whole world to explore and I want to be a part of it.” Then his expression turned grave. “You can't tell Mom and Dad.”

“But how can you possibly do this without them knowing?”

“I'm eighteen. They can't stop me.”

“So you're going off to war without ever telling them?” I could not keep the rebuke from my voice. “What if something happens? Charlie, they have to know.”

“Telling them would only worry them. Let them think I've gone to school. I'll come back at Thanksgiving when I've finished basic training and I'm about to deploy.” I sat silently, stunned by the audacity of his plan. “By then they will see it is for the best.” Remembering Mrs. Connally's fear that the war would take her boys, I knew it would never be true. “It will give them something to be proud of.”

“They're already proud of you.” Cold terror enveloped me then. I wanted to ask, no, beg, him not to go. But it would do no good.

“I've arranged to be inducted in Baltimore, not Philadelphia,” he continued. “And I'm slated for boot camp at an army base just outside Washington. So if I write and call like everything is normal, they won't notice.” He stopped, seeing my face. “It's the best thing, don't you see?” I did not answer, unable to acknowledge the twisted logic in what he was saying. “Promise me, you won't tell.”

BOOK: The Last Embrace
5.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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