We found a table outside, beneath a string of bare bulbs. I waited till the waitress brought our drinks, then dove right in. “Why is Mrs. Morris strange about me now?”
“What do you mean?”
“She was friendly till I played the organ. Now I’m the skunk at her garden party.”
Lizzie shook her head. “It’s your imagination.”
“You’d think she’d have a sweeter personality, wearing such sweet perfume.”
“That’s just a cover-up. The woman’s a genuine grouch.”
“But not to me, at the beginning. Now she leaves the church anytime I play, almost at a run. And she’s much less friendly around the house.”
“Are you really good at the organ?”
“I’m not terrible.”
“Maybe she was. Maybe it was a big problem with her husband, that she was a lousy organist and the choir hated her, and he had to hire you to keep his job. Your talent and youth stick a knife right in her pride.”
I sipped rum and tonic like a mouthful of candy. It was wonderfully cold. “It feels bigger than that.”
“Well, you’ve never had someone more talented than you rub it in your face.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“I bet there have not been too many situations that humbled Brenda Dubie. You seem plenty confident.”
I squirmed. “I’ll tell you one way I am definitely not confident: push-ups.”
“Oh ho.” Lizzie brightened. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Here?”
She pointed. “Behind my chair. No one will see but me.”
Clambering around, I tucked my dress between my knees and used my best form.
“Three?” Lizzie laughed. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“I started out with less.” I stood, a little wounded. “You don’t have to be mean.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but three?”
I slumped into my chair. “I’m not sure why those stupid exercises are so three-alarm important, anyway.”
“Because.” Suddenly serious, Lizzie leaned toward me. “Is a woman who can do only three push-ups worth going to war for? A man needs something to desire, to keep him alive. Your guy is working day and night on some math thing that wipes his brain out. My guy is training for the Pacific invasion, preparing to see his buddies killed, maybe do some killing himself. You want a man to come home when this is all done, and think you are the only thing he has ever desired, and the only thing he will desire for the rest of his life. Then you go make babies like your life depended on it.”
I couldn’t argue. Someday the war would end. Only that morning I read that we’d torpedoed the Junyo Maru, 5,620 men. Hitler was in retreat too. Sooner or later, our soldiers would put their rifles down, and come home. And the mathematicians? What would happen to them?
“Do you think I am being punished?” I blurted it out without thinking.
“Whatever for?”
“Charlie never answered my letter saying I was moving here.”
“Have you written him again?”
I shook my head. “I came all this way. He should write to me.”
“You and your pride,” Lizzie said. “Did you consider maybe your letter got lost?”
“None of the other ones did.”
“You’re disappointed in him, when actually he might not know you are here? And weeks are going by?”
“I don’t know.”
She gave me a long look, straight on, like I was a salesman feeding her a line.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
“Maybe you want to be punished. It’s odd to cross half the country for a guy, then not contact him. Maybe you did something wrong, so you’re punishing yourself. Otherwise you would have written him twice, gone to the police, tracked him down somehow.”
“You’re out of your mind.” My voice rose a little. “Presumptuous too. I want to be punished? What kind of crazy idea is that?”
Lizzie sat back with her drink, confident as a bird on her perch. “A correct one.”
Normally when we returned from a night out, the boardinghouse’s downstairs windows were dark. Only the stairway light would be on. But that night the whole place was lit up. Two drinks in my belly, I hadn’t noticed. But Lizzie grabbed my arm and made us stop.
“Who’s that for?” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not up listening to the radio.” She pointed at the lit windows. “So they have news. Is it for you, or me?”
“Lizzie, that is a terrible way to think.”
But her fear was naked to me, just then, and contagious. “If it’s me,” I said, “I’ll need your help. And if it’s you, I promise to stand by you.”
“Oh, Brenda.” She gave me a quick hug. “I do love my fella.”
“And he’s not in combat yet.”
“And your brother is in a motor pool, away from the fighting.”
“They’re going to be all right,” I said. Which was pretending, because aside from submarine kills, I knew nothing about anything.
We were standing in the entryway off the living room, clutching each other’s hands, when Reverend Morris cleared his throat. “Brenda?”
My mouth went dry. So it was me. Why did he have to be so damn loud?
“Hello,” I said, chipper as a Monday morning. “How was your evening?”
“Your mother called,” Mrs. Morris announced, icicles dripping from her words. What had I done to her, anyhow?
“Is everyone all right?” I asked, my voice cracking a little.
Mrs. Morris did not look up from her needlepoint. “We knew better than to pry.”
“She would like you to phone her,” the reverend boomed. “We discussed it, and we are willing to make a long distance call for you.”
I glanced back and forth between them. “Is it too late to do it now? I mean, thank you. But could we?”
Mrs. Morris only pursed her lips, and pulled a needle through the canvas.
“Of course.” Reverend Morris rose from his chair.
I followed him into the study, where he picked up the black phone and dialed the operator. He read her the number from a slip of paper. I tried to imagine my mother giving him our number, and what it might mean. Lizzie marched right across that living room to stand beside me. What a pal. I held her hand.
“It’s going through now.” He handed me the phone.
“Hello?” My mother sounded throaty.
“It’s Brenda, Mother. Is everything all right?”
“Sweet girl. How nice it is to hear your voice.”
“Who is hurt, Mother? What happened?”
“Why, no one is hurt, Brenda. Hold on.” She coughed, I could hear her doing something, then she came back. “How are you, my girl?”
I felt confused. Her voice sounded fine. “Is there some kind of emergency?”
“Not at all. I’m just waking up. I told the Morrises there was nothing wrong.”
Something inside me went cold. I turned and Mrs. Morris was concentrating on her needlepoint, calm as a sleeping cat. Why had she scared me like that? “Is that so?”