A Place We Knew Well (19 page)

Steve was glaring at him with belligerent eyes.

“What?” Avery asked.

“Saw the preacher come and go.”

“Yup.”

“Get what he wanted?”

“Nope.”

“Good” was all Steve said, heading out to his service bay.

Avery turned to stare out the window, chewing his lip. In some ways, you couldn't pick two people more un-alike than his best friend and his wife. Yet they were identical in confusing what was to him the difference between a simple kindness and a softhearted, or softheaded, gullibility. To Avery, the difference between helping out a person in genuine need, like Marjorie Cook, for instance, and playing the patsy for a lying Billy Wigginthal was night and day.

And where does giving Kitty what she asked for fit in? the goad inside his head wanted to know. Avery shook off the question. The world was hardly black and white. And this week especially, everything seemed a different shade of gray.

B
Y TWELVE-THIRTY,
S
TEVE
had finished his lube job and stood, half watching the pumps, half reading the
Times,
while Avery worked under the lift, wrestling the Chevy's new shifter rods and side arms into place.

“Fella named Lippmann says here, only three ways to get those missiles outta Cuba,” Steve was saying. “Invade and take 'em out. Blockade and starve 'em out. Or, according to him, sit down with the Soviets and trade 'em out—their missiles outta Cuba for our missiles outta Turkey. What d'ya think?”

“We've got missiles in Turkey?” Avery asked.

“Says here we do.”

“Good old-fashioned horse trade, tit for tat? Works for me. Think Khrushchev would go for it?”

“Think he'd rather have a war?”

Under the Chevy's carriage, Avery flashed on the two faces of the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev. On one hand, there was the Krazy Komrade, the short, fat cartoon Communist who pounded his shoe on the table and taunted Americans, “We will
bury
you!” On the other, there was the grinning Nikita, the former peasant farmer who'd toured Iowa a few years back, shucking ears of American seed corn. Was Khrushchev, whose farmer's roots lay deep in Ukrainian soil, capable of pushing the button that would destroy the earth?

Of course, you were a farmer, too, back in '45, he chided himself, and more than willing to help firebomb over two hundred thousand Japanese to smithereens.

Beneath the Chevy, Avery shuddered. If Khrushchev is anywhere near as obsessed with winning as we were, we'll all wind up burned to a crisp.

By twelve forty-five, their supply of Fire Chief gas was gone. Steve offered to finish up the shifter's boot while Avery got out the brush and red paint to add
OUT OF ETHYL
to the A-frame signs at both entrances. While he was at it, he created two more sets of signs. One for tomorrow afternoon:

CLOSED

3–6 PM

FOR HOMECOMING

PARADE

And a second set for Saturday night:

CLOSED

AFTER 6 PM

FOR HOMECOMING.

GO EAGLES!!!

As he spread the signs over the tire racks to dry, his thoughts meandered from how to steer clear of Kitty at Friday's parade to Charlotte and Emilio's weekend plans.

“How'd it go with Emilio last night?” he asked Steve.

“Pretty down at the mouth till your little girl showed up. Perked him right up, I'll tell ya.”

“Charlotte?”

“Brought Leo an album she found at the record shop.”

“Elvis?”

“Nah. You didn't hear the story?”

Avery shook his head. Charlotte had been deep in her homework when he'd returned from church and in a rush, as always, this morning.

“I guess most of the guys out at the camp are pretty homesick. Younger ones especially miss their mamas. So at lights-out, they play a record over the loudspeaker, some quartet—like the Cuban Andrews Sisters—that reminds them of their mamas and their aunties back home, helps 'em go to sleep. But last week, some harebrain broke the record.”

“And Charlotte found a replacement?”

“She did. Leo was thrilled.”

“I bet he was.” Avery felt pride swell his chest. He wished Old Pa had lived to know Charlotte, to see the kindness that was so like his in her.

With suddenly watery eyes, he checked the time. One o'clock already and no word yet from Sarah? Was it possible she was still in bed? He considered calling her but resisted, not wanting to disturb her.

By two, however, with still no word from her, he told Steve he needed to run home for a few minutes, “make sure she's okay.”

The kitchen was exactly as Avery had left it, coffee mug in the sink, note on the counter. No sign that Sarah had been up.

Gently, he opened the door to the shelter and, in the shadows, saw that she was in the same position as the night before: toes up, one pale forearm folded wing-like across her face. He padded closer, holding his breath in an effort to hear hers.

Nothing.

He was just about to reach out and touch her when she murmured, “I'm okay.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said softly, exhaling relief.

“Just tired is all.”

“Catching up on your sleep?”

“Too tired to sleep.”

“Want me to call Doc Mike, have him drop by on his way home?”

“No,” she whispered, stiffening with resistance.

“Wouldn't want you to miss the parade tomorrow. Anything
I
can do?”

“While ago, I got up for the bathroom. Charlotte called. She forgot her baton for practice, needs it dropped off at the band room.”

“Before school's out?” Avery eyed the bedside clock. He'd have to hurry.

“Yes.”

What would she have done if I hadn't come home? he wondered. It wasn't like Sarah to miss a commitment.

“I better get going then,” he told her. “Baton in her room?”

“Prob'ly.”

“Back at six. Seven at the latest.”

Wearily, her lips formed the words
Thank you,
without a sound.

W
HEELING INTO THE SCHOOL'S
side driveway, Avery pulled up to the curb nearest the band room. Through the open windows, he heard them tuning up the Eagles fight song for tonight's homecoming bonfire by the lake. (Aptly named, the Edgewater campus was wedged between waterfront homes on Lake Silver's northeast shore.)

He parked, grabbed Charlotte's baton, and strode toward the band room at the back of the school auditorium.

Despite the band music, the rest of the campus appeared quiet and calm.
Normal
was the word in Avery's head when a sudden loud crash—the heavy thud of metal smashing metal, shattering glass—sent him running. A second crash was accompanied by loud cries and yelling. By the time he rounded the corner of the Admin Building, he was holding Charlotte's twirling baton like a club.

Myriad explanations—a car wreck, a riot, some sort of uprising or vandalism—came to mind. But none of these came close to the scene that he confronted.

A behemoth red-jerseyed lineman, surrounded by several brawny teammates, swiveled his hips, hauled a long-handled sledgehammer high over his head, then slammed it down, clobbering the front fender of an old clunker—a '47 Ford coupe spray-painted orange and black, the colors of Winter Park High, homecoming's opposing team. Off to one side, two cheerleaders whooped beside a Key Club sign inviting students to
SMASH THE WILDCATS!!! 10 CENTS A WHACK, 3 FOR A QUARTER.

Avery came to a standstill, his heart hammering. Thanks to the lineman's hit, the coupe's curved grille, which had always reminded him of a friendly face, was now pinched into a permanent grimace.

He turned and wiped one sweaty palm then the other on his pant leg and retraced his path to the open band room door.

Band director Charles Beauchamp stood up front on the podium while his students packed up their sheet music, instruments, and schoolbooks in anticipation of the final bell.

“Ah, Mr. Avery,” Beauchamp hailed, and looked behind him as if expecting someone else. “But where is Mrs. Avery?”

“Home resting,” Avery replied.

The bell rang. “Beware the thundering herd,” Beauchamp warned, nudging Avery inside his office as a crush of students rushed past, flailing a band's worth of cumbersome black instrument cases.

Beauchamp stood at the door reminding the kids: “See you tonight. Concert positions. Six forty-five
sharp.
”

Watching Beauchamp, Avery thought the man's longish flop of hair, fine animated features, and dramatic gestures were all a bit over the top.
But of course,
he heard Sarah's voice inside his head,
he's a musical genius!

“Hey, Mr. A, is that Charlotte's baton?” Charlotte's friend Brenda called. “I'll take it. We're meeting on the field.”

“Thanks,” Avery said, handing it over.

“See ya tonight, Mr. Bo!”

After they were gone in a swirl of skirts and ponytails, Beauchamp turned to Avery, beaming. “It's a banner year for the band, Mr. Avery. A
banner
year!”

Avery had heard that Beauchamp was busting his director's buttons over the fact that this year's Homecoming Court, normally dominated by cheerleaders, included two of the band's majorettes—Charlotte, of course, and squad captain Barbara Everly.

“Majorettes triumphant!” Beauchamp was saying. “This could be our best homecoming
ever
. Assuming”—his eyes flickered concern—“there
is
one.”

“Well…,” Avery replied, eager to be on his way.

“Before you go…” Beauchamp riffled through the mess on his desk. “Last week, Mrs. Avery and I were discussing contraltos. Turns out the great Sigrid Onégin is a mutual favorite.” He located a record album and held it reverently against his chest. “Do you know her?”

Avery eyed the red operatic album cover—
Prima Voce?
—then shook his head. Although Sarah often played classical recordings at home, and there were some he enjoyed, his tastes ran more to Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and the Grand Ole Opry.

“Too bad,” Beauchamp said, handing it over. “Dame Onégin's version of Bach's ‘Erbarme dich'? Sublime! The woman had a
three-octave
range,” he enthused, “and her
trills
? Phenomenal!”

“I'll be sure to tell Sarah,” Avery said awkwardly.

“No need, I put in a note,” Beauchamp said, smiling.

Without the din of the kids, Beauchamp's office had grown uncomfortably quiet. Avery palmed the album and got the heck out of there.

Driving back to the station, he felt again the widening gap between himself and others. Here, in the heart of town, things seemed calm, eerily so. People waved, smiled, and called out a friendly “Afternoon, Wes!,” as they might on any ordinary day.

Insulated from the convoys on the Trail, the massive shipments rolling by on the rails, and local news sanitized by the
Sentinel,
were they unaware, untroubled by the events unfolding before his very eyes? Or were they hiding their fears same as he was?

The past week's day-by-day revelations, the constant hydraulic shifts from shock and disbelief to dread and outright dismay—plus his nagging guilt over the whole Kitty thing—were becoming corrosive. Trepidation bubbled up in his gut like ground crude.

Am I overreacting?

But hadn't he learned, at the tender age of ten, that life could turn on a dime? Or, in his father's case, the failure of a six-cent extension screw?

Throughout the war, he'd carried the two pieces of the broken screw in a leather pouch in his pocket: a reminder that a single moment's carelessness could alter everything. He'd forgotten that he'd shown it to Kitty all those years ago; but had been pleased that she remembered. And he wished he'd talked to her more about the larger picture.

As an army nurse, had she seen, as he had in the air force, that the actions of their own forces could be as dangerous as any enemy's? That within every massive military operation, there was the inevitable FUBAR—somebody's screwup that sent things Fucked Up Beyond All Recovery. It was so prevalent in the navy, Steve said once, that they had their own term: BOHICO, for Bend Over, Here It Comes. Whatever its name, Avery couldn't escape the feeling that disaster was out there, waiting to happen. Kitty must have felt it, too. Or why else would she be here?

The sun, missing for two days, had finally managed to burn a hole through the steel-gray cloud cover. The sky—what he could see of it anyway—was chicken-wired by dozens of feathering contrails from the constant maneuvers out of McCoy.

Wasn't that crisscrossed patch of blue
proof
that he wasn't overreacting? He hadn't
imagined
those jet trails, or the U-2s, or the convoys, or the barely camouflaged flatcars, or DefCon
Two
! Others might be ignorant or oblivious, but Avery could
see
with certainty that the US military was in full readiness to make the ultimate FUBAR—war with the Soviets—a reality. Surely, somebody somewhere was considering alternatives?

Hungry for news, he dialed on the truck radio. A report in progress said something about US ambassador Adlai Stevenson and a special session of the United Nations Security Council in New York. Feeling the catch of some distant gear urging him on, Avery gunned the truck toward the station.

S
TEVE HAD MOVED THE TELEVISION
out of the office and onto the workbench in his service bay. He stood watching, one leg up on a rung of the work stool, bent elbow atop bent knee. His eyes flickered from the screen to Avery. He made a face, ripe with disgust.

“What'd I miss?” Avery asked.

“Buncha Russian horseshit.”