“Oh,” Gina said. “I can see where Lacey got her talent.” She nodded to him. “Thanks again,” she said, then looked past him toward Olivia. “Nice meeting you both.”
“Nice meeting you, Gina,” Olivia said from behind him.
After closing the door, Alec walked over to where his wife was sitting on the sofa and leaned down to kiss her, but he knew the mood had long ago been broken. Bocelli was no longer singing, and most likely Olivia had blown out the candles when she left the bedroom. She returned his kiss, but then pulled away to look at him.
“The money is there to salvage the lens,” she said. “You know it is.”
He shook his head. “Olivia …”
“You could help her,” Olivia said. “No one knows the history of that lighthouse as well as you do.”
“No,” he said, letting go of her, standing up straight. “And please, don’t talk to me about it again.” He bent over again to kiss her lightly on the forehead, then turned to walk toward the kitchen, and if he hadn’t disliked the stranger the moment he’d opened his front door to her, he certainly did now. She had ruined his entire afternoon.
Chapter Seven
Saturday, March 14, 1942
MAMA AND I BAKED ALL MORNING, AS WE DO often on the weekend. Today was very cold for the middle of March and I was glad to have the oven heat up the house. I am so tired of going out to use the privy in the cold! This seems like the longest winter ever. First warm day we have, I’m taking off my shoes and not putting them on again until next fall.
Even though I spent all morning with Mama, we hardly talked at all. It is so hard for me to spend time with her. There is a wall between us. I want to hug her and tell her how much I love her and instead, ugly things come out of my mouth. Or nothing at all. We used to sing sometimes when we baked or cleaned together in the house. I can’t imagine that now. It’s not the war or anything like that. It’s ME. I feel like I have a mean guard up and can’t let it down for a minute around her. Can’t be soft. I don’t know why. Except that I am almost fifteen years old. I overheard Mama complaining about me to a friend at Trager’s Store when she didn’t think I was listening, and the friend said, “Oh, it’s just that she’s a teenager, Mary. She’ll grow out of it.” I hated being lumped together with all the teens in the world, but maybe she’s right. Though I can’t imagine growing out of this. Sometimes I miss having Mama’s arms around me, but when she touches me, I stiffen up, so who can blame her for not trying anymore? I can’t help it, though. Everything she ever says to me is “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that.” There’s nothing much else to talk about.
Anyhow, we baked four pies and ten dozen cookies. It being so cold out, I didn’t want to leave that warm kitchen, but then I thought about the choice I had. Stay in the house with Mama, or take the pies to the Coast Guard boys. I didn’t have to think about that too long! I loaded the pies and cookies into the big wooden wagon we keep in the storage shed near the privy, hooked it up to my bicycle and took off down the Pole Road. None of the roads are paved around here. Even the Pole Road, the one used by the electric people to bring in equipment, is just a mess of sand and ruts and crazy curves and turns, but it’s the smoothest road there is for bicycle riding and carrying pies. If I was going to the Coast Guard building by foot, I would have just walked along the beach, although earlier this week we were told not to go out there because the bodies were washing up from that ship that sank last week. Most cars use the beach, too. They just follow each other’s tire tracks and go real slow, but one has to be dug out every once in a while. Ever since the U-boats started attacking us, the sandpounders (that’s what they call the Coast Guard boys) patrol the beach, watching for ships in distress and keeping a lookout for spies and for submarines letting Nazis off on the beach. The drivers of the cars have to give the patrollers a password to be able to go on. The patroller gives the driver a new password for him to use at the next stop, in another three miles, and people make their way up the beach like that. I wanted to have a password, too, when I go walking along the beach, but everybody knows me and they just say, “You go on ahead, now, Bess.”
I had to pedal real carefully because of the ditches and tree roots in the road, and I didn’t want to spill anything out of the wagon. It was so cold, I put my scarf right across my face to keep the wind out. Once I got there, though, I knew the trip had been worth it.
About half the boys were at the Coast Guard station, the other half out patrolling the beaches or maybe training their dogs or working at some other thing. When I walked in the door and took off my coat, I could see every head turn in my direction and smiles come to their faces, and I know it wasn’t just that I was pulling a wagonful of sweets. This is a new experience for me, having boys stare. My body feels different around them. My breasts are not all that big, but those boys stare at them all the same, even though I sure don’t dress to show them off. (I still had a sweater over my shirt, for Pete’s sake!) I could feel how my hips moved beneath my dungarees and how long my legs were. I’m nearly five foot eight now, the tallest girl in my school, although I guess with only thirteen girls from seven years old to seventeen, that’s not saying much. I’m taller than most of the boys at school, too. That’s why these older boys (men, really) from the Coast Guard look so good to me. Most of them are taller than me, some by quite a bit. My hair is brown, and up until last year I always wore it in braids, but lately I’ve been leaving it loose. It’s long and wavy and I can tell the boys like it that way.
So, some of the boys come up to me and started talking. Some of them talk so funny it takes me a minute or two to start understanding them, like last year when Mrs. Cady had us read a Shakespeare play out loud. My favorite accent is the one the Boston boys have. Teddy Pearson, who is from near there, said that Hitler should be “tod and fethahd.” I didn’t understand what he’d said until I was home in my bed that night, and I laughed out loud when I figured it out. Anyhow, they were all talking to me at once, asking me how I was, what kind of pie I’d brought, did I want to go out with them that night. You’d think they hadn’t seen a girl in months! If Mama could see how them boys act when I walk in the door of the Coast Guard station without her or Daddy, she would never let me go there alone again.
Jimmy Brown, another of the Boston boys, is my favorite of all of them at the station and not just because he’s the sandpounder who patrols the beach near Kiss River. Today, like always, he pretty much ignored me. That’s probably why I like him—he’s a challenge! Doesn’t drool over me and my pies when I walk in. He sat in the corner whittling something out of a piece of driftwood, looking up with those dreamy blue eyes every once in a while, smiling just a bit, though more at how crazy the boys were acting than at me, I think. So I chatted with all the boys, and with Mr. Bud Hewitt who came out to see what the racket was about, and all the while I had one eye on Jimmy Brown (he looks like Frank Sinatra!) whittling in the corner.
I would like the work they do. I wish they took women into the Coast Guard. I know the beach better than any of them, and would love to be out there at night, watching for danger. Mr. Hewitt told me that if I was a boy, I’d be the first person he’d recruit for the beach patrol. After all, some of those boys had never even seen the ocean before, much less know the beaches and the woods around them! I mentioned this to my parents one time and Mama just laughed at me, but I heard that she used to actually work with the lifesaving crew. She says that’s only a rumor, but even my father told me it was the truth and said that she doesn’t want me to know about it because it might give me ideas.
On the way home from the Coast Guard station, I bumped into Dennis Kittering. I was surprised to see him. He’s usually on the beach, not on the Pole Road, but he said he was just exploring a bit. I told him where I’d been and he said, “Why didn’t you bring me any pies?” I said, “I bring pies to the men who are fighting for our country. What exactly are you doing for the country?” Right away, I could