Five Brides (42 page)

Magda sat near her. “Tell me,” she said.

Inga cut her eyes over. “I suppose I deserve this.”

Magda took her sister’s hand in her own. “No. No. Tell me.”

Inga chuckled sadly. “He said we could live together but he won’t marry me. At least, not yet. Not until he knows for sure . . .”

Magda’s hand flew to her lips.

Inga sighed. “I was thinking—on the flight home—how I deserve this . . . this punishment. I’ve not always been the nicest person.”

Magda wouldn’t argue that. They both knew Inga could be hurtful when she became too full of herself. Still, Inga was her sister.

So she waited until Inga said more. “I was thinking,” she finally continued, “how God must really hate me.”

“No, Inga. That’s not true.”

Inga turned her face fully to Magda’s. “I sinned against him. And now I have to pay the price.”

Magda could hear their father then, speaking in one of the many assemblies at the college where he taught, telling the students that Jesus had paid the price for sin. That while people often had to endure the circumstances, the price had been paid, once and for all.

She opened her mouth to remind her sister, then closed it. Now was not the time. “What will you do now?” she finally asked.

“Well, I’m not going to live with Frank; that much is for sure.” She reached for her glass of milk and drank from it. “I actually prayed last night, Magda.”

“Praying is good.”

“And I came to the conclusion that two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Oh, how many times had they heard Far say that? More than a dozen. More than two dozen. Maybe a hundred. “When will you tell Mor and Far, then? About the baby?”

Inga reached for one of the paper napkins in the chicken-shaped holder, which sat in the center of the table along with chicken-shaped salt and pepper shakers. She dabbed at the corners of her lips. “I’m nearly four months along,” she said, staring at the
wadded napkin in her hand. “Retta said her sister didn’t show until she was nearly eight months and that she and I are built a lot alike. I figure if I’m careful with what I eat, I can continue to work until at least the end of my seventh month.”

“But . . .”

Again, Inga’s eyes found Magda’s. “I’m going to have to figure out a way to support a baby on my own. I have to make as much money as I can. When I can no longer hide it, I’ll tell them and . . . whatever happens, happens.”

Magda felt the wind rush out of her. “Oh, my. I don’t know what to say.”

Inga stood. “Say nothing.” She reached out, bracing herself by placing a hand against her sister’s shoulder. “Promise me you’ll say
nothing
.”

She hated being put in such a position, but— “All right. I promise.”

Long-distance calls were cheaper on Sunday afternoons.

Evelyn dragged herself out of bed, shuffled into the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then trudged down the hallway, through the living room, and into the building’s main hallway where the pay phone hung on the wall.

She waited for the operator, then gave her aunt’s name and address in Savannah and deposited the coins that would buy her three minutes.

“Hold for that number,” the operator said, leaving Evelyn to wonder if one of the requirements of the job was to master a nasal voice.

When her aunt answered, the operator announced, “I have a long-distance call for Miss Dovalou Smith.”

“I’m Dovalou Smith.” Alarm rang in her voice.

“Aunt Dovalou?” Evelyn said quickly, not wanting her aunt to worry one second longer than she had to.

“Evelyn? Evelyn, is that you?”

The operator cleared her throat. “You may go ahead now,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Operator,” Evelyn apologized. “Aunt Dovalou?” She realized she nearly shouted the woman’s name, as if screaming were the only way to be heard from Chicago to Savannah.

“Evelyn? You sound just awful. Have you been crying, sweetie?”

“I have a cold,” she said. “A doozy of a cold.”

“Oh. So glad to know you haven’t been crying. Is it cold in Chicago? It’s miserable cold here, so I imagine it’s
very
cold up there. Your mama tells me she hasn’t gotten a letter from you in nigh on two weeks.”

Had it been that long? She supposed so. “I know, Aunt Dovalou. Listen, I only have three minutes. I’m . . . I’m calling from a pay phone outside my apartment.”

“Well, darlin’, what’s the matter?”

“I was wondering, Aunt Dovalou, if I could come—you know—there?”

“For a vacation or something? Honey, why wouldn’t you just go see your mama and them?”

“No, Aunt Dovalou. I mean to live. I want . . . I want to come home, but I don’t think that, after living in Chicago for the last couple of years, I could move back to Portal.” Not to mention that Hank would be there. And not just Hank. Hank and Dixie . . .

“Why, darlin’, I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Aunt Dovalou, I really want to come home, and I’ll only stay with you until I can find my own place. I won’t put you out for long.”

“Now, listen here. Don’t be silly. I got this big ole rambling house all to myself. I’d love to have you live here with me. But, hon, have you talked to your mama about it? I don’t want bad feelings between me ’n’ her, you know.”

“Mama will be fine,” Evelyn said, hope springing inside her. This had gone easier than she’d anticipated. “She’ll just be so happy to have me back in George—
Georgia
.”

“Well, when are you thinking?”

The operator’s voice chimed in. “You have one minute. Please insert five cents more or end your call in sixty seconds.”

Evelyn desperately wanted to say “tomorrow,” or, at the very least, “two weeks,” which would be after she gave her notice at Hertz. But she was to be a bridesmaid in Betty’s wedding, and it seemed silly to move to Georgia only to return a few weeks later. “The end of March,” she said, speaking as quickly as possible. “My roommate gets married on the twenty-first. I can take the train down on the twenty-second. I’ll start looking for a job as soon as I get there.”

“Well, sugar, I look forward to it. I’ll even put some feelers out to see about a job for you.”

“Oh, thank you. And I’ll write,” Evelyn said, knowing her time was almost up. “I’ll write this week. You and Mama. I love you, Aunt Dovalou.”

“Love you back.”

Evelyn disconnected the line, wiped her nose on the wadded handkerchief she’d stuffed into the sleeve of her robe, and smiled. She had done it. She had made a plan and carried it out. “Now, Lord,” she whispered to the face of the pay phone, “if you’ll be so kind as to direct my path.”

Munich

In mid-March, on a Saturday pretty much like any other, Joan sat curled in one corner of the sofa while her roommate sat cross-legged in a nearby chair. They both drank from their morning cups of coffee as they read the newspaper. “Fools Rush In” played from the American Forces Network radio program, warming the chill right out of the room while adding a sense of hearth and home.

After Joan had read the last page of her section of the paper, she stretched her legs beneath the warmth of a terry-cloth robe and pointed her slippered toes. “Why don’t we go to Ludwig’s castle today?” she asked Ruby.

Ruby looked up from her reading. She placed a hand on her hair, still in pin curls, and opened her mouth to form a perfectly shaped O. “But . . .”

“I know. How will we get there?” If Ruby had asked the question once, she’d asked it a dozen or more times.

“Last night at dinner, Jackson said he was going to stay in today. Remember? To try to nurse the cold that’s been hounding him for the last week?”

Jackson. One of their fellow American civil servants stationed
in Munich. A man from Tennessee whom Ruby clearly had her eyes on . . . and who, unfortunately, had his eyes on Joan. But besides all that, he had also been handy when it came to hailing cabs or borrowing cars to get places. “I know,” Joan finally said.

“So that means we won’t have him to escort us. Help us onto a bus or walk with us on the sidewalks and streets.”

Joan knew that too. She had been sitting right there at the table in the out-of-the-way restaurant they’d chosen for dinner the night before. She’d heard the same words spoken over the warm sauerkraut and steaming-hot wurst served on large, round plates.

“Ruby, really. Why do you think we need Jackson to do the simplest of things? We didn’t have him when we—either of us—got on the train for New York. Or the ship for Amsterdam. Surely you walked on sidewalks without a man to guide you when you lived back home.” A look on her face—blank and fearful—stopped Joan from saying another word. “
Didn’t
you?”

“My father or my older brother always made sure my mother or I got where we needed to go.” She frowned. “I guess it would be different if we had a car or something.”

Joan bit her lip to keep from smiling, then folded the paper into a neat pleat before walking toward the tiny bedroom they shared.

“Where are you going?” Ruby asked.

“I’m getting dressed,” Joan answered, already at the foot of her unmade bed, peeling off her robe.

“For what?”

Joan walked to the bedroom door in her pajamas and, with one hand on the doorjamb, leaned her head into the living room. “I’m going out,” she said matter-of-factly. She ducked back into the bedroom and called out over her shoulder. “To buy a car.”

That very afternoon, as snow fairies danced in the air and in the
glow of a car salesman’s happy face, Joan purchased an Austin A30, four-door, with just enough room for a ladybug to get in and drive.

The price—the equivalent of six hundred American dollars—was not a problem. She made good money working for the government. She didn’t have to pay rent, and she ate most of her meals on the government’s dime, so she’d managed to save a few pence.

The problem—and indeed she had one—was simple enough.

She didn’t know how to drive.

“I’ve never really been
in
a car,” Joan told Jackson later that day as they stood outside of their apartment building with Ruby gawking nearby. “If I sit on the passenger side,” she continued, “you can show me how.”

Jackson bent at the waist, peering into the car’s interior like he didn’t know what to make of it, all the while wiping his nose with a handkerchief. “Land sakes, I cannot believe you did this. I can
not
believe you did this.”

“Well,” Joan asked Jackson, “can you?” Her words formed a puff of warm air that lingered between them.

Jackson sniffled. He pulled the collar of his coat closer to his chin, his hat lower over his ears. “Can I what?”

“Teach me to drive. Try to keep up, Jackson.” Joan crossed her arms against the brutality of the air—so cold and intense it stole away the delectable aromas from the bakery and coffeehouse down the block.

“Ay-yai-yai. I don’t know.” He eyed it again.

“But you know
how
to drive, don’t you?”

He eyed her, straightening. He pulled the woolen scarf wrapped twice around his neck up to his mouth. “Of course I know how to drive.” His words were muffled. “Been driving since I was a pup.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He wiped his nose one more time. “Can we at least go into the
lobby to talk about this? My nose feels like a dog’s and my head is threatening to pop off.”

She put a hand on his coat sleeve and squeezed. “Jackson. I’m sorry,” she said, feeling genuinely bad for the man. “Of course we can go inside. I only wanted . . . I wanted you to see, that’s all.”

His watery eyes met hers. “Now I have. Take me inside before I die right here on this frigid sidewalk.”

The three found a corner in the lobby—a cluster of mismatched chairs positioned near a radiator—and tucked themselves into them. As always, Jackson sat between the two women. “The problem is,” he said as he unwrapped and pulled the scarf from around his neck, “the Austin itself. The space between the steering wheel and the driver’s seat.”

“I don’t follow you.” Someone behind the front desk had a radio on; “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” jitterbugged on the terrazzo floor of the cavernous lobby.

“I do,” Ruby said. “Jackson is a tall man, Joan.”