A Distant Melody (45 page)

“I know you don’t want to see me,” he said. “But I’ve got to talk to you.”

She lifted her chin, determined not to show her rampaging emotions. He wanted to discuss her letter? Why couldn’t he respect her enough to leave her alone? Didn’t he understand the humiliation of unrequited love? “This isn’t necessary.”

“Yes, it is.” He frowned and wiped his forehead. “There’s a bunch of stuff I should have told you the other day, in May, in March, in January even.”

What could he have to tell her? Allie glanced down the track to the east, willing her train to come.

“I’ll try to make it fast, but I’ve got to do this. Got to.”

She turned back. The late afternoon sun illuminated the insistence in his hazel eyes, and she nodded in spite of the knowledge that she was about to receive a heaping portion of pity.

“First, I’m real sorry about what happened with your parents. I can’t believe they did that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will.” He looked her in the eye with warmth that threatened to melt her knees. “Breaking up with Baxter— that was the step of obedience, wasn’t it?”

All the intimacy of their friendship returned in those words. Allie nodded, unable to speak.

“I’m glad you obeyed. Real glad. But wow, I had no idea the consequences would be that bad. Do you think your parents— they’ll forgive you, won’t they?”

Allie shook her head. Walt’s disappointment and understanding made her want to bury her face in his chest and tell him every hurt and worry and care, but he belonged to another woman.

She pulled herself tall. “I think you should return to the reception. If our letters weren’t proper and my visit wasn’t proper, then this is most unseemly.”

Walt grimaced, punched in the chest with his own lie, but he had to take it like a man, and he had to say what he’d come to say, every ugly word. “Listen, Allie, I lied to you and I lied about you.”

“Oh.” She didn’t sound as surprised as he’d expected.

“The orange, that was the first lie. You know that.” He walked past Allie to the edge of the platform. “Remember when we picked strawberries? I said I hadn’t seen the juice on your cheek. Not true. Thought it was cute and didn’t want you to clean up.”

He turned on his heel and strode past her again, toward the station building. “Next, the wedding. I said George wanted us to dance for Art and Dorothy’s sake. That was a whopper so I could back out on our deal and dance with you.”

He whipped around, back across the platform, and looked up the tracks—no sign of the train. “When I visited your house, you want to know what really happened? I threw away your address. Threw it away. I—well, I was attracted to you. Boy, was I mad when I learned about Baxter, but I changed my mind and wanted to write you, so Frank and I drove all over—”

“I know.”

Walt turned. “How did you know?”

Allie wiped a finger under one eye. Swell, she was already crying, and he’d just gotten started. “My friend Daisy—her father was your cab driver.”

All this time she’d known. He’d worked so hard to conceal it and for what? “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I—I didn’t want to embarrass you—or—or myself.” She wiped her cheek, made a face, and opened her purse.

He wanted to go to her and hold her and kiss away those tears, but he had so much more to say. “Embarrassment. Pride. That’s where lies start. I’m sick of it. I even made you promise not to tell Betty we were writing. What did I say? Betty didn’t think it was proper? Nowhere near the truth. I just didn’t want her to know what I did to get your address.”

“I—I figured as much.”

“You figured that one out too? Well, here’s one you don’t know.” He marched right up to her, right into her tear-stained face. “Every man at Thurleigh thought you were my girlfriend. Bet you didn’t know that.”

“What?” Her pretty lips barely moved.

He hadn’t been that close to her for a year, close enough to smell her sweetness. “Yeah, I told them you were my girlfriend.”

“But—but why?”

She was too close. He had to get away, had to keep moving. Back toward the building. “So I’d be one of the guys, so they wouldn’t bug me, so they’d respect me. It worked. And you helped—the letters, the applesauce, the cookies—wow, they thought you were crazy about me.”

“Is—is that what this was about? I was just a decoy, a trophy—”

“No.” Walt wheeled around. “No, never. You have no idea. Would I have written everything I did—I mean, when Frank—” He set his hand on his hip and looked at the ground until the thickness in his throat went away. Then he locked his gaze on her. “I wrote stuff to you I didn’t tell anyone else. You have no idea how much your friendship’s meant to me.”

Allie’s mouth twisted. “Or yours to me.”

This was when he was supposed to embrace her and kiss her and tell her he loved her, if he didn’t have one last big lie around his neck ready to hang him.

She pulled a handkerchief from her purse. “You said you confessed a lie to your crew. Was—was that it?”

“Yep. Cracker, of all people, he’s the one who got them to forgive me. They didn’t have to. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve your forgiveness either.”

“Walt, I—”

“No, wait.” He held up his hand. Nope, no hand on that side anymore. He lifted his left hand. “I’m not done yet.”

Allie flipped open her handkerchief and pressed it to her cheek. “But you said you stopped lying after that.”

“Well, there was an exception. I thought it would fix everything, but it just made everything worse. Lies do. Remember when I told you white lies were like ball bearings in the machinery of society? Wrong. Lies are like incendiary bombs, burning and melting and mangling everything—trust, hopes, everyone you love.”

She dabbed at her eyes. “I—I think I understand.”

“Good. Not that it’ll make a difference. You see, my last letter to you was a lie.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, a lie.” He paced to the edge of the platform. He had to finish before the train came. “Emily. Yeah, I went out with her a few times. She was actually crazy about me, but I wasn’t crazy about her. She was never my girlfriend.”

Back around to the station. The motion of his feet pumped out the words. “I couldn’t talk to her like I could talk to you—I mean, Flossie the cow has more brains. And Emily never told me I couldn’t write to you.”

“What?” Her voice cracked. “Why did you say she said that?”

“I needed an excuse to stop writing you or else I would have had to tell you the truth.”

“And what truth is that?” She stood tall, and a breeze ruffled her long green dress.

Walt groaned and strode toward the tracks. “That I cared for your correspondence too much.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. How could you? I’m messing this up.” He kicked a chunk of gravel down to the tracks. “How come it’s easier to tell a lie, even when the truth is the same as one of your lies?”

“I really don’t understand.”

He faced her and planted his feet in the at-ease position, except he couldn’t clasp his hands behind his back. “I knew I had to stop writing when I prayed, ‘Lord, why can’t she dump Baxter and fall for me?’”

Her eyes widened, bigger and greener than ever.

“It was wrong. You were engaged. Well, I guess you weren’t anymore, but I thought you were. If you married him, I’d be in love with another man’s wife, and that’s against one of the Ten Commandments. Well, so is lying but . . .”

Allie’s mouth opened, closed, opened. “You don’t mean . . .”

“I love you.” At last, the blessed, painful truth.

“You—you—”

“I love you. I thought dating Emily would help. It didn’t. The more time I spent with her, the more I missed you, the more I loved you. I had to stop writing. Doesn’t make it right, but that’s why I lied.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?” Her face crumpled, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

Her distress socked him in the gut. “I’m sorry. I should have. I knew you couldn’t feel the same way about me, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Stupid pride. And pride is why I didn’t confess earlier. Once you said silence was a truthful solution to a dilemma. Not in my case. I allowed you to believe a lie. Silence isn’t truthful when it perpetuates a lie.”

Allie mumbled something, then moved her trembling hand from her mouth. “Didn’t you think how your letter would make me feel? I cried myself to sleep that night.”

“You did?” His insides felt as if they were stuck in Mom’s wringer. He didn’t think she’d miss his friendship that much.

“That was the night—” She glanced to his stump and back to his face. “I had a horrible dream. You didn’t want my friendship, but you needed me to pray, and I did.”

A kick to his wrung-out soul. “Good thing one of us obeyed. Listen, Allie, I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I hurt you. And what a lousy way this is for a man to tell a woman he loves her.”

Allie hugged her stomach and looked around the train station, her face wet and agitated. “I daydreamed about this moment. I’d be here at this depot, and I’d wear my Easter hat, and you’d step off the train, and all your friends and family would be there, and I’d hug you and tell you about my broken engagement, and if you seemed pleased, I might whisper in your ear how much I loved you, but only if I felt bold, because I didn’t—I didn’t know you loved me too.”

Walt stared, his mouth wide open, his eyes wide open, but his ears had to be blocked. He couldn’t have heard what he thought he heard.

Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t stop them. “It would have been wonderful, so sweet and romantic. If you’d been truthful, that’s what would have happened, instead of this—this—crying and pacing and apologizing and—”

“Wait. You didn’t say—did I hear right? Did you say you loved me?”

She met his eyes and blinked. “You read my letter, didn’t you?”

“That was in the letter?” The air rushed out of his chest.

Allie groaned and covered her eyes. “Oh no. I thought you knew. Oh no. I thought—but you knew everything else— Baxter, the wedding, my parents.”

“Betty told me. The letter—I threw it away.” He stepped closer, he had to be closer. “I thought you wrote a bunch of mush like, ‘God makes us stronger in our sufferings,’ and I didn’t want to hear it. You—you love me?”

She nodded, and she squished up her face with her hand.

With a surge of joy, he reached for her but stopped himself. “You still love me? Even after you saw my—my arm?”

Her hand fell away to reveal all her hurt and anger. “Your arm? How shallow do you think I am? You say you love me, but how well do you know me if you can ask such a thing?”

Oh boy. How much worse could he make this?

“I don’t care about your arm. I care about you being truthful with me.”

Walt stared down at her. So much to love—the vulnerability in her eyes, the strength in her chin, the truth in her words. She loved him, but it didn’t matter.

“Well?” she said.

“What can I say? I could say I lied because I love you, which is true, but it doesn’t make it right. I could point out evidence that I’ve changed—I did tell you the whole ugly truth after all. But I can’t make excuses. I can only take the consequences and pray you’ll forgive me.”

Allie’s mouth softened and quivered.

“I can’t love a man I can’t trust.”

His chest crushed under the weight of her statement. “I once told my crew, ‘Dishonesty always has a price.’ Boy, a steep price.”

49

The blast of a train whistle tore Allie’s gaze from Walt’s resigned anguish. At last, her escape. Walt’s eyes darkened as the train pulled in. “Ironic, isn’t it? I love you and you love me, but what stands between us is bigger than Baxter and Emily combined—trust. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She fumbled inside her pocketbook for her ticket. “I’m glad I found out now before I wasted any more time pining over you.”

A twitch in his cheek told her she’d struck a nerve. Good. He deserved it for lying to her, lying about her, and stomping on her heart twice now. She stepped around him toward the sanctuary of the train.

“Good-bye, Allie.”

The sadness in his voice wrenched her, but she didn’t turn around. “Good-bye,” she said in her coolest tone.

The conductor punched her ticket and eyed her dress. While elegant at a wedding, the gown looked clownish on a train. Allie held her head high and made her way down the crowded aisle. At least there was room, and since she was the only passenger boarding, they would depart soon.

“Here, miss.” A corporal stood and offered his seat.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Say, you’re all dressed for dancing. How ’bout you and me—”

“No, thank you.” She settled in the seat and ventured a glance out the window. Walt stood alone on the platform.

He sat on a bench, set his cap beside him, and lowered his head. His eyes closed and his lips moved. Was this another deception designed to elicit her forgiveness?

It wouldn’t succeed. He said it himself—he was a liar, and she couldn’t trust him.

In a few hours she’d be in San Francisco, away from this selfish man who cared more for his own pride than the feelings of the woman he claimed to love.