Authors: John A. Heldt
As he sat across from Grace at their small round table, Joel thought about how strange and wonderful it was to see the world through her eyes. Until stumbling back in time, he had never known life without computers, jetliners, cable television, and modern medicine. Grace, on the other hand, had not known indoor plumbing until her seventeenth year. She had done without comforts her three affluent friends took for granted yet had arguably lived a richer life than all of them. Joel smiled as he watched her adjust a purple swing dress she had donned for the first time in months and play with a beaded bracelet he had won by throwing softballs at weighted bottles.
"I see you like your trinket," he said.
"I do. I shall wear it proudly, as a reminder of the effort needed to obtain it."
"That's killing with kindness, pal," Tom said with a hearty laugh. He lit a cigar and leaned back. "What did you spend on that, five bucks? I saw at least twenty pitches."
"Thirty."
"It's the thought that counts, Tom," Ginny said.
Joel grinned and took a stogie from his colleague, wondering how many minutes would elapse before his tobacco-loving granny lit into him about hypocrisy. She said nothing. Instead she smiled and studied him – not like a member of a long-lost tribe but rather like a long-lost family member she was just beginning to understand.
"So what's the deal with the house, Ginny?" Joel asked. "Does your cousin own it, or is it a family-owned toy that gets passed around twice a month?"
"My parents built it ten years ago. They own it and come here about every other weekend in the summer. They would be here now if not for a wedding today in Portland. You will meet them on Monday. We're having lunch in Forest Grove."
"Where does Carol fit in?"
"She and Eddie maintain the place. They live just up the street with their girls. We'll be there for breakfast tomorrow," she said. "They're our chaperones, by the way."
"And I must say they're doing a mighty fine job," Tom said.
The girls laughed.
"How do you put up with him?" Joel asked.
"I don't," Ginny said. "I see things differently. I believe men are creatures to be managed, not endured, and I think I've managed him quite nicely."
"Well put, sweetie," Tom said.
"Now, if you gentlemen will excuse us, I think Grace and I will run to the ladies room before that line around the corner gets any longer."
"Bon voyage."
A moment after the women departed, Tom tapped a few ashes and settled into his chair. He looked at Joel closely, nodded, and smiled.
"You look happy, buddy."
"I am."
"Well, that's what a good woman will do for you."
Joel laughed.
"You're one to talk."
"Yes, I am. Ginny's been good for me." He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. "So have you. I'm glad you two could join us this weekend. I have to admit I wasn't so sure about Grace. She was a sight after the spat with Linda. But it's pretty obvious she's happy to be here and even happier being Tonto to the Lone Ranger."
"I'm not complaining."
Tom settled into his lightly-padded folding chair and shifted his eyes to the action beyond, from couples walking across the dance floor to those sitting on benches along the perimeter to those passing though two doors that led to a carpeted concession area. With each observation, his smile dimmed and his face and posture appeared more reflective.
"Do you ever think about your future?"
"With Grace?"
"With Grace, Linda, Betty Grable, anyone. That's not my point. Do you ever think about where you might be in a year?
"I do, sometimes. But I don't obsess over it."
"I wish I could think that way."
"What do you mean?"
"Look around."
Joel did as instructed and saw roughly two hundred people in the Bigelow, a skating rink turned dance hall that had hosted the likes of Benny Goodman, Harry James, Duke Ellington, and Les Hite. Most were well dressed. All appeared well behaved. None seemed relevant to the conversation.
"OK. Is this a trick question?"
"How many uniforms do you see?"
Joel paused and scanned the room again.
"I see twenty, maybe twenty-five. It looks like most are enlisted men."
"Exactly," Tom said. "And how many uniforms did you see at Lake Wilderness?"
"Maybe a third that many."
"Change is coming, buddy, and it's coming fast."
"Have you heard anything from the draft board?"
"Not yet. But I have a low number and it's coming up. I have a feeling I won't be selling dining sets in six months. We'll see." Tom pushed his cigar into the tray, watched an Army lieutenant walk by, and turned to Joel. "What about you? You never told me what your number is. You don't seem all that concerned."
Joel scrambled to discuss a matter that was on the mind of virtually every young American male. He had had three months to work up a story and pick a high draft number. But he had not. Remembering something he had recently read about Ted Williams, he pulled a number out of thin air.
"I'm a 648."
"You have a while then," Tom said. "But they'll come for you, too, just as sure as they've come for some of my friends. Hell, they even drafted two football players. I hate having the war hang over our heads. I hate it. You can't make any plans. You can't do shit. You can't believe what you read in the papers. Sometimes I want to just say 'to hell with it' and live for the moment."
"I know what you mean."
Joel, of course, knew nothing of the sort. Focused initially on economic survival and then on wooing Grace Vandenberg, he had not given a lot of thought to what he would do after Pearl Harbor. Would he enlist? Was not enlisting even an option, even for someone so far off the grid he had yet to be born? He tried to picture a future with Grace, post-December 7, but each time he did that picture turned into a blurry mess brought on by three hundred fighters and bombers one quiet Sunday morning.
As the band started back up with more swing hits, Joel took in the ballroom and saw more than forty happy couples hit the floor. Even more came in from the sea air outside and reclaimed unoccupied tables. Most of the military had hung around.
Joel looked over his shoulder toward the rest rooms and saw a line that now worked its way toward the entrance. Ginny and Grace had barely moved in the queue but appeared no worse for wear. Returning his glance, they smiled and waved.
Finally, he turned to Tom. He was no longer the cocky, cheerful man who had strolled into the Bigelow with Ginny on his arm but rather someone else. Talk of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 had left him depressed and beaten. For the first time in a long time, Joel had no answers for a friend in need. He had no suitable jokes or flippant advice. So he did the next best thing and commiserated. Lifting his glass, he gestured toward Tom, then the girls, and finally the crowd beyond.
"Here's to us, here's to them, and to living for the moment."
CHAPTER 50
The ocean proved as predictable as a late summer day in the Pacific Northwest. It churned, surged, and roared, and produced a cool breeze and thick mist that prompted jackets even at noon. But to Grace Vandenberg, child of the jungle, it was as strange and wondrous as snow.
"I could never tire of this place," she said, holding Joel's hand as they walked northward on the Promenade. "It's so different than anyplace I've known."
"Haven't you ever seen the Washington coast? I'd hate to think you've spent three years of college hiding behind books."
Grace smiled.
"I spent only one year hiding behind books. But I've spent three in the library, which is essentially the same thing. When I was a freshman, some girls from my dorm went to Ocean Shores, but I did not go. Ginny did, though."
"I remember that trip," Ginny said. She walked with Tom a few steps back. "We missed you."
Looking at Joel, Grace realized that she had missed a lot of things: dances, dates, football games, beach trips, and certainly new friendships. Her thirty-six months at the university were less a full educational experience than a frustrating, self-imposed exile. With this interesting, extraverted man at her side, she vowed to change in her senior year.
An hour later Joel bought her some salt-water taffy and led her to the historic Turnaround, where the west end of Broadway ran headlong into the Prom and gave pedestrians and motorists one of the best views on the Pacific coast. He put his arm around her as they gazed at the limitless water beyond.
"Do you miss it, living overseas and all?"
"I miss the simplicity. Life is so much more complicated here."
"What was it like in all those places?"
"For my parents, it was a lot of work. But for me, it was paradise. I never had a care. One of my earliest memories was riding an elephant in Ruanda-Urundi, in Africa. I must have been seven or eight. My father never had much time for what he called 'frivolous matters,' but he always had time for me. When I asked one day if I could ride an elephant, he made it happen later that week. We traveled several hours to reach a plantation run by the Belgians. He did all that for a ride that lasted only twenty or thirty minutes."
"You miss him."
"I miss both of them. My parents were my world. They poured everything they had into me, and into most of the people they knew. They were givers."
"What do you think they would have thought of me?"
Grace stepped out of his grasp and plopped on top of a concrete railing that ran the entire mile-and-a-half length of the Prom. Extending her arms along the barrier for balance, she answered Joel as if addressing an audience with prepared remarks.
"My mother would have loved you. I have no doubt. She liked people who were different, people who defied labels and prejudices. She liked learning from those who could teach her new skills and new ways to think. That's how she was able to adapt so well from place to place. She looked at each assignment as an adventure, not a burden."
"What about your father?"
Grace paused and flashed an impish grin.
"He would have had many questions. He was very protective."
"That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement."
"My father was a very traditional man. He would not have approved of many of the things I've done this summer. He would not have approved of my breaking off an engagement for someone I've known a very short time. But I think he would have liked you. He would have appreciated your intelligence and how you care for me."
"I'll take that."
Grace hopped off the railing, put her arms around Joel's neck, and gave him a tender kiss. If she ever had any doubts about returning Paul's ring, they were gone, long gone. Locking arms with Joel, she turned toward Broadway and dozens of shoppers who lined both sides of the street. Tom and Ginny approached with bags in each hand.
"There you are," Tom said with his usual grin. "Are you two just going to watch the waves all day? How boring. There's some good stuff in the stores."
"What did you do, buy a snow globe?" Joel asked.
"Nah. I got something better. You'll see."
Tom put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Say, buddy, do you have a moment?"
"Sure. I'll be right back, Grace."
Leaving Grace and Ginny at the Turnaround, Tom guided Joel a few yards down the Prom to a bench that faced the beach. He put two bags on the bench and hemmed and hawed a bit before getting to the point.
"Are you two having a good time?"
"We are. What's going on?"
"Well, how would you like to have a good time a little longer?"
Joel cocked his eyebrow and gave Tom his complete attention.
"What do you mean?"
"Ginny and I have been talking and, well, I think we need some alone time. We were thinking about heading back to the house."
Joel dropped his head and shook it.
"You need some 'alone' time?"
"That's right."
"Tom, do you know what you're doing?"
You want to make it with my grandma.
"Of course I know what I'm doing. I'm living for the here and now, just like we talked about last night. Or was that all just talk?"
"No. It wasn't just talk. But I didn't think you meant something like this."
"What did you think I meant? Emptying my wallet at the carousel?"
"Just be careful."
"What are you now, my mother?" Tom patted Joel on the back. "I'm not stupid, Joel. But I'm not passive either. I'm not going to wait for some draft board to determine how I spend the next few months. I'm going to take charge of my life, starting today."
"OK. You do that. We'll be fine. We'll meet you back at the house around six."
"Thanks."
When Tom and Joel returned to the Turnaround, they found two best friends staring at each other with expressionless faces. They were not speaking. Ginny had a hold of Grace's hand but dropped it and walked over to join Tom.
"We'll see you back at the house, Grace," she said.
Tom and Ginny turned their backs and joined the flow of tourist traffic moving south along the Prom. Hundreds now crowded the waterfront to milk the second-to-last afternoon of the last weekend of the official Oregon summer.
Grace walked to the railing and stared at the surf.
"So are they going to the boys' room or the girls' room?"
"Don't be too rough on them," Joel said. "This is a hard time for Tom."
Grace turned to face Joel.
"I'm not mad. Just a bit disappointed, that's all. I know Ginny's very independent, and I admire her for that. I just wish she would have picked a different weekend to express her independence."
Joel moved closer to her and put a hand on her waist. In the distance, a lone surfer on a long board tried to ride a modest ripple all the way to the beach.
"I know."
"Are you disappointed that I'm not as progressive?"
Joel grabbed both of her hands and turned her toward him.
"No. I'm not. I love you and respect you for who you are."
"I'm not a prude, Joel. I'm just a little old-fashioned. I believe you should save yourself for some things. I hope you understand."