In Perfect Time (38 page)

At the head of the table, Dad nodded. “Not a lick.”

Roger swallowed. Honey had never tasted so bitter. “I did fine.”

Joe nudged Dad with his elbow. “Remember, he’s only called a hero because he crashed a plane.”

“No kidding.” Ted, the second oldest, laid down his piece of fried chicken. “How many planes have you lost, Dodger?”

That was what his brothers had always called him, a well-earned nickname for his work-dodging ways. “Three, but—”

“There you have it.” Joe scooped up more green beans. “The real reason they’re sending him on a bond tour—so he won’t crash any more planes.”

“Safer than putting him back in the air,” Ted said.

“Come, now.” Betty gave her husband a reproving glance. “Be nice. It sounds like Roger did his best not to crash, and he did lead all those nurses to safety.”

“More likely they led
him
to safety.”

Dad harrumphed. “In my day they didn’t hand out medals for failure.”

Despite the honey, the biscuit turned to dust in Roger’s mouth. No matter what he did, he’d always be a failure in their eyes. Something reckless lurched in his chest. For the first time ever, he wanted to defend himself.

Roger wiped his fingers on the red gingham napkin in his lap. “You know what? I did good work over there. I worked hard and became one of the best pilots in the squadron, my commander said. And in the evasion, everyone relied on me, and I didn’t let them down. I led, they followed, and we all got home safe. You know what else I did? I taught algebra to the Italian boy who helped us. And I was good at it. Really good.”

His family stared at him, various shades of red hair glinting in the electric light.

Roger picked up his fork and knife, and he shrugged. “Maybe I should be a teacher.”

Laughter galloped around the table, unbridled.

He tensed at the sight of his dream trampled and soiled. He should have kept it inside, pristine and untouched—and unrealized.

Six of his nieces and nephews ran in from the kitchen, where they’d sat at the smaller table. “What’s so funny?”

Harv, the third-oldest brother, ruffled his son’s hair. “Your Uncle Roger, always joking, that one. He said he should become a schoolteacher.”

“Oh yeah!” Ten-year-old Frank grinned at Roger. “You could be my teacher. You’d be a lot more fun than mean old Mrs. Hoffman.”

“Hush.” The boy’s mother swatted the back of his arm. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

“Fun.” Dad shook his head, still covered with more copper than silver, even at the age of sixty-three. “Your uncle would be a fun teacher, all right. Nothing but play and nonsense all day long.”

Roger clutched his silverware so hard, he was surprised it didn’t snap. “I’m thirty years old, Dad. I think I can—”

“Yes, thirty years old. Thirty wasted years.” Dad pointed his fork down the length of the table at Roger, his dark eyes hard. “I tell you what you’re going to do. Tomorrow you audition for that silly band of yours. You play your drums for them if they’ll have you. When you fail at that—or when you get bored—you come home and get to farming, as you should. We’ll always find work for you here or on your brothers’ farms, if you’re willing to work for once. Lord knows I’ve tried to set you straight.”

“Yes, you have, Copper,” Mom said. “You certainly have. We all have.”

Roger’s bravado melted away.

“A teacher,” someone said. More snickers raced around the table, and the family settled back to their meals, still smiling at the thought of Roger Cooper amounting to something.

They knew he couldn’t. They knew he never would. And they’d known him all his life.

Thank goodness he hadn’t dragged Kay down with him.

On his plate, golden fried chicken and crisp green beans and half of a flaky biscuit formed a triangle on the simple white plate.

Roger had lost his appetite.

46

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Kay crossed the black-and-white marble lobby of the Mayo Hotel. All around, officers in uniform and businessmen in tailored suits gave her appreciative glances, and she smiled back.

That was all she was, all she’d ever be—a beautiful woman who could attract men’s attention and use it for her own good. She’d always done that, and tonight would be no different.

Over a decade before, she’d promised a lovesick farm boy a night in this very hotel if only he’d drive her to Tulsa. He’d complied. But then she’d waited outside the hotel while he registered and she’d ditched him for the YWCA. She’d used him to escape from her family, to achieve her goal.

Tonight she’d do something similar. Don Sellers thought he’d use Kay’s desperation to get what he wanted, but Kay planned to use his desire to get what she wanted.

A sleek aluminum elevator door emblazoned with the Mayo’s elegant logo slid open. Kay stepped inside and pushed the button for the fifth floor.

After the door shut, the elevator chugged up, the chains clanking, “Evil, evil, evil.”

She belonged on the fifth floor. Didn’t her own father say
she couldn’t be redeemed? Roger knew it. That’s why he’d kissed her and pushed her away. Don knew it. That’s why he’d propositioned her.

If she was so bad, she might as well use it to get what she wanted, her best chance for success in this world, her best chance for a home.

The elevator dinged. The fifth floor.

Kay stepped out, and the doors shut, leaving her alone in the silent hallway.

Her chest tightened. What was she doing? What on earth was she doing?

She blew off a long breath. She was regaining control. That’s what she was doing.

All along she’d had a policy never to let a man have his way with her. That would give him control. But this time, the situation was reversed. This time she’d regain control.

Kay squared her chin and walked down the hallway. Although she’d vowed never to sleep with a man, she’d also vowed never to sing in public.

Tonight she had to pick one or the other. Not a difficult choice.

One night with a handsome man, and she wouldn’t have to endure the terror of singing in public. She wouldn’t have to bear the pain of seeing Roger every day. She could get away from Oklahoma and its taunting voices. She could go to the chief nurse school, and her life would be as it should.

She strode down the hall, past rooms 501, 503, 505.

Her shoes tapped on the floor, muffled by maroon carpet with emerald green accents. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. Ba-bump, ba-bump.

Like her heartbeat.

“The heartbeat itself is a drum message from God,” Roger had told her almost a year before, drumming on the table at the Orange Club. “With every beat, he sends his message. His life, his love. His life, his love.”

Kay stopped and slammed back against the wall to silence her footsteps, the beat, the message. But her pulse thumped in her ears. Ba-bump, ba-bump.
His
life,
his
love.

She pressed her hands over her ears. “No, I don’t believe it,” she whispered.

His life?

What life? A life of humiliation and pain and solitude? A life with every goal thwarted?

And what love? She’d never be loved. She was only good for the tawdry imitation of love that men like Don Sellers offered.

For almost a year she’d believed a lie, that she could receive God’s love.

But her mind swam with the year’s memories. Hadn’t she indeed felt his life inside? Hadn’t she basked in his love—unearned, undeserved, cleansing, transforming? Hadn’t he changed her?

Kay’s hands squeezed her ears, her temples, as if she could squeeze out the truth. Yes, she’d been changed. Yes, she’d been loved.

“But why, Lord? If you love me, why?” Her voice trickled out.

It was too much—Roger’s rejection, her family’s voices, the singing, the humiliation, the frustration, the blocked goals. “It’s all too much.”

Her Army Nurse Corps pumps formed russet wedges on the maroon carpet, new shoes to replace the Oxfords that had fallen apart during the evasion and escape.

It’s
too
much.
It’s
all
too
much.
Hadn’t Alice Olson spoken those very words in the wine cellar? The dirt, the cold, the hunger, the illness, the danger, the constant worry—all too much. And Kay had comforted her and helped her through.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Was her current situation any worse? Did it really matter that Roger didn’t
love her, or even that her own family didn’t love her? Couldn’t God’s love be enough now, just as it was back in the evasion?

Kay raised her head and smoothed her hair, her mind still churning. But the singing—she couldn’t bear it. And the chief nurse program—she’d worked so hard for it.

She pushed away from the wall and wobbled for a moment. Then she set her feet back on their path, past rooms 507, 509.

Room 511, painted on the door in stark black on white. The brass door knocker glinted in the muted light. This door led to the future she longed for, the position, the chance to lead . . . to home.

Kay reached in her purse and pulled out the envelope with Don’s invitation. It would be so easy. She could take everything she wanted.

Once Roger had told her that if God gave her the chief nurse job, it wasn’t because she’d done something good, but because he loved her and wanted what was best for her. And if he didn’t give her the job?

Kay slid the envelope under the door and walked back to the elevator, her heart straining. If God chose not to release her from this tour, not to let her become a chief nurse, then that was best for her.

She simply couldn’t imagine why.

47

Chicago, Illinois
March 13, 1945

The Marine Dining Room of Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel. Roger stood inside the doorway and scanned the rows of tables on red-carpeted tiers surrounding the stage. How many evenings had he and Lou spent in this room, watching the bands and the dancers, dreaming of making the big time?

Now it was his turn.

A sense of awe at the enormity of God’s gift stilled his feet. How could it be that an Iowa farm boy had an audition with Hank Veerman and his orchestra? Only by God’s mighty hand.

“Thanks, Lord,” he whispered and strode forward, determined to prove his heavenly Father right and his earthly father wrong. Even if he failed, he’d do his best.

Roger crossed the hardwood dance floor. On the stage, a dozen band members lounged and chatted, while the clarinet player laid down a swinging little riff.

“Well, lookie here. It’s the big war hero.” A portly man tooted “Reveille” on his trumpet.

Roger raised a hand in greeting. “Afternoon, fellas.”

The clarinet player rested his licorice stick across his knees.
“Two months in hiding with six delicious dolls? If I’d known the Army offered gigs like that, I’d have enlisted.”

The piano player kept tickling the ivories. “As if they’d take a bum like you.”

The clarinetist adjusted thick glasses that must have landed him on the 4-F list—unfit for military service. “Ah, the Army—”

“Who’s talking about the Army? The dames wouldn’t take you.”

Roger joined the laughter. Nothing like the camaraderie of a band.

“Lieutenant Cooper?” An almost-familiar voice sounded behind him.

He turned to an almost-familiar face. “Major—Mister Veerman. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Pleasure’s mine. My brother raved about you in his letter.” The bandleader shook Roger’s hand. Shorter and younger than the major, but the family resemblance was strong.

“Thanks for the audition, sir.” He swallowed a comment about being rusty. Veerman would find out soon enough, and the major said he’d warned his brother.

“Let’s see if you drum as well as you fly.” Veerman motioned to the drum set. “Drumsticks are in the trap set.”

Roger reached into his waist-length “Ike” service jacket. “Brought my own.”

“Lucky sticks?”

“No, just special.” He stroked the olive wood, carved by Enrico and varnished by Roger yesterday in the Cooper barn. He’d considered bringing Kavi’s
dhol
drum but decided it might be too exotic.

The bandleader clapped his hands. “All right, you lunkheads. Let’s give flyboy here a chance to show what he’s made of. Mary Jean? Where is that dame?”

“Right here, boss. Just enjoying the scenery.” A blonde
sashayed from the corner of the room, her red-flowered dress swinging past shapely legs, skimming an even shapelier figure. She climbed the steps to the stage by Roger. “Well, hello there, Red,” she purred. “I hope you stay on. I love a man in uniform.”

“Yeah?” the trumpeter said. “If that’s so, why do you work so hard to get ’em
out
of uniform?”

The boys in the band howled in laughter, and Roger pretended to rearrange the items on the trap set tray to his left.

“Ah, shut up, Pinky,” Mary Jean said.

“All right, boys. Enough. First song is ‘Let’s Get Lost.’ Lieutenant, all the music is on the stand before you.”

“Thank you, sir.” He didn’t need it for this number. He knew the song well, romantic and painful. He’d danced with Kay to this song at Tom and Mellie’s wedding, where he’d wanted to get lost with Kay.

He shoved away the memory to concentrate on his work.

Veerman raised his baton, and Roger opened with a soft, swishing beat. He was rusty, no doubt about it, but with leisurely songs like this, he’d do fine.

His technique might be rough, but he still knew when to switch it up, when to build, when to add a flourish, when to fade away. He kept his eye on the bandleader, the singer, the soloists, the music, learning the ways of this band.

Veerman led them through four more songs, only one with any swing to it. That was the way of things. When Roger left the States, the sound was big and boisterous. But in the summer of ’42, the musicians’ union called a strike, forbidding its members from making recordings. Desperate for business, the record companies had their singers perform a cappella.