Jack got up early every Saturday to wash and wax his father’s Coupe after those Friday nights when he took Viviane out for a movie at the Admiral Theater or for a five-cent bottle of Coca-Cola at the drugstore. Jack’s father watched for his son not on Friday nights but on Saturday mornings, to be sure the car was thoroughly taken care of. Jack never missed a washing. Neither knew what would happen if he did.
Just like everyone else in the world, Jack and Viviane were both thinking about the war, but each for different reasons. Unbeknownst to Viviane, Jack had been eagerly counting down the days until he turned eighteen. As soon as he did, he went to enlist but was rejected due to his flat feet and poor eyesight.
When Jack told his father that he’d failed the physical exam for military combat, Jack knew John Griffith would let him know exactly what he thought. And he was right.
John had laughed — a hollow and empty bark — and jeered at Jack. “You never cease to amaze me, Jack. Just when I think you couldn’t disappoint me more, you always seem to find a way.”
“It’s not my fault,” Jack said.
“What about the Lavender whore? You’re still screwin’ around with the witch’s daughter, aren’t ya?” John released the laugh again. “Probably cast some spell on you — wouldn’t be hard, weak-minded son of a bitch that you are.”
“Dad —” Jack started.
John dismissed him with a wave of his meaty hand. “Whatever you got to say ain’t worth hearing.”
“Do ya know what kind of fellas go to college these days?” Jack asked Viviane suddenly, hitting the Coupe’s steering wheel with his open palm. “The quacks. The ones with deformities or syphilis. No girl would be caught dead with an F-er.”
Jack was right. Most girls wouldn’t be caught with a boy deemed unfit for combat. Lucky for Jack, though, Viviane wasn’t most girls. The idea of Jack fighting in the war had always terrified her — she’d barely slept the week before his birthday. She’d never tell him, but she thanked God every morning for blessing Jack with lovely flat feet. Instead of going to war, the next morning Jack would be leaving to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla. Even if it was two hundred seventy miles away, at least it wasn’t across a whole ocean.
Viviane grabbed Jack’s hand and pressed it to her lips. “You looking to meet some girls in between your studies, college man? Because if that’s the case, you won’t find me waiting here for you to come back.”
“Oh yeah?” Jack smiled, revealing the slight gap beside one of his incisors. “What’re you gonna do instead?”
“I’ll follow you,” Viviane answered simply.
For a very long time, Viviane and Jack lived in that world people inhabit before love. Some people called that place friendship; others called it confusing. Viviane found it a pleasant place with an altitude that only occasionally made her nauseous.
The light from the windows of the Lavender house cast a soft glow across the front seat of the Coupe. Jack brushed his thumb along the hollowed dimple in Viviane’s left cheek. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “I love you, you know.”
Viviane let the words hang in the air between them for a moment, like a sweet pink cloud. Then she inhaled the words in whole, turned them over in her mouth, relished their solidity on her tongue.
Viviane raced up the hill to her house. Before she went inside, she turned back toward Jack and the idling Coupe and yelled, “We’re in love! We’re in love! We’re in love!” Even her neighbor, the sourly Marigold Pie, awakened by Viviane’s declaration, had to smile at that.
THE MORNING OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE found Viviane in the bathtub, her arms wrapped around her knees. The water splashing from the silver faucet was scalding hot. She filled the bathtub as high as she could, nonetheless, watching her breasts and the rounded points of her knees turn bright pink in the steam.
She let herself slip under the water and opened her mouth, thinking she might swallow the bathwater in one gulp and sink to the bottom. It was a weak moment and only lasted until her cheeks filled. She sat up, choking on mouthfuls of hot, body-soiled water.
It had taken only two dismal months for Jack’s promised daily letters to falter to three a week, and then two, and then none at all. By June Viviane hadn’t heard from Jack in five months, one week, and three days. The one time Viviane tried phoning him, she was told Jack Griffith was out, but the dorm mother swore to tell him she’d called. Whether she actually did, Viviane never got the chance to ask. Jack never called.
She spent her days trying to forget the sound of his voice, and her nights trying to remember. She spent her hours standing by the mailbox waiting for letters that did not come, sitting by a telephone that would not ring. Her mother banned her from the bakery — everything Viviane touched made the customers weep.
Yet in spite of the circumstances, Viviane was optimistic. Jack had to leave in order to come back, didn’t he? And she knew he would be back, just as she knew that some of the stars that shone bright in the sky were already dead and that she was beautiful, if only to Jack. And that’s just the way it was.
Viviane pulled the plug from the drain and wrapped the chain around the faucet, counting in her mother’s French with each turn.
“Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six.” Viviane could only count to ten, but no matter; it didn’t take so many turns. She stepped out of the bathtub. As she wrapped a towel around her hair, Viviane glanced through the bathroom’s small window to where her mother’s newest houseguest was busy working in the yard.
Emilienne had started taking in houseguests just after the start of the war. It was the only patriotic thing she ever did. The house on the hill became a carousel of everchanging men, women, children, and animals, all needing a place to rest, sometimes for the night, sometimes longer. The longest to stay was a family of black cats. It was later rumored that these cats and their ancestors had inhabited the rooms and hallways of our house for thirty years, which only further supported speculations that my grandmother was a witch in pâtissier clothing. The longest-staying resident of the human variety, however, was Gabe.
Gabe was unusually tall, so had to be careful where he stood, for if he blocked the sun, his shadow could cause flowers to wither and old women to send their grandchildren inside to fetch their sweaters. Because of his height, many thought Gabe to be much older than he was. This was both a blessing and a curse.
Like most other new arrivals, Gabe’s first stop in the neighborhood was the bakery. He was drawn by the sharp scent of sourdough bread, but also by the girl standing in the shop’s open doors, the wind swirling her brown hair around her head. Viviane hadn’t been blessed with her mother’s thick black hair or green eyes. She was hardly the obvious beauty her mother was. To think Viviane was beautiful required a certain acquired taste. It was the kind of beauty perceived only through the eyes of love.
When Gabe learned that the girl from the bakery lived in the house at the end of Pinnacle Lane, he walked right up to that house with every intention of offering up his soul in return for a room. Fortunately, he didn’t have to make the offer. Emilienne took one long look at Gabe and easily decided she needed a tall handyman who could reach the light fixture on the front porch when the bulb needed changing.