Stars Over Clear Lake Read online

  Perhaps a kiss would break that barrier between us, the one we’d been tiptoeing near for most of our lives. We weren’t little kids anymore. But should I act so forward? Mom would say that only a hussy would kiss a boy in public. What if that boy was going to war? Scotty wasn’t, but I’d seen lots of girls kissing their army boyfriends in public. The war had changed many things.

  Scotty spit out water and smiled at me. Stella had an advantage in living so close to Scotty. But Scotty liked me, not her. I felt emboldened and reached out and put my arms around his neck. But suddenly my feet were pulled out from beneath me and I sank down, gulping water.

  The water stung my open eyes. I could see Scotty’s knobby knees and his long, white legs. I flailed about, splashing, trying to discover what had pulled me under. Someone behind me, but I couldn’t see who. As I tried to stand, Scotty’s arms reached down and pulled me back up. I gasped for air and wiped the wetness from my eyes.

  Scotty was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him through my waterlogged ears.

  “Who did that?” I whirled around, looking for the culprit.

  “Lance,” Scotty said, laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” I said, turning back and splashing him.

  “Hey. I didn’t dunk you.” He splashed me back.

  Suddenly we were having a splashing war and others joined in. Kids and adults alike splashed each other. Scotty was much better at it, and I put my hand up to block the waves of water that were threatening to overtake me.

  Finally, I turned and retreated to shore and sank down into the hot sand. I was used to Lance Dugan pulling girls’ braids and knocking boys down in grammar school. Lately he’d even started busting windows out of cars and running wild at night. Only his father’s influence kept him out of serious trouble. Now he’d managed to destroy my afternoon with one swift jerk of my legs underwater. Instead of a first kiss, I’d gotten soaked.

  “So, you didn’t answer me,” came Scotty’s voice from behind me.

  “What was the question?” I wiped my face off with the towel, still a bit angry at him for laughing. The towel spread grains of sand across my forehead.

  “Will you go to the movies with me? Next week?”

  I stopped wiping and looked at him. I nodded, barely aware of the “yes” that came out of my mouth. Then I realized what a sight I must look with my swimsuit pulling at my rear, the bathing cap scrunching my forehead, and water dripping off my nose. I recovered and pulled off the bathing cap, shook out my hair, and smiled at Scotty. The moment had been saved after all, and I hadn’t had to act brazen, even though a part of me still wished I had.

  Five

  1944

  The next morning I woke to the sound of a truck’s wheels on our gravel. I rushed to get dressed and quietly slipped down the stairs. I took in a breath when I saw Mom sitting at the kitchen table, snapping the ends off string beans and dropping them into a bowl of cold water.

  “Don’t feed the animals just yet,” she told me. “Have your breakfast first. There’s a pot of fresh-made oatmeal on the stove.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Mom glared at me. “I don’t want you out there where they can see you. Understand?” She snapped a bean, the movement quick and sharp, and reached for another.

  I nodded. At least she was out of bed.

  A copy of the Globe Gazette sprawled open on the table. On page three, right next to an ad for the Navy’s WAVES, was an article titled “War Prisoners Provide Labor.” I sat down and snapped beans with Mom while straining to read the article. It was about the Algona POWs and how they were willing farm workers. I wondered if Daddy had shown Mom the article, if that’s what he’d used to convince her. Had he convinced her?

  “Daddy got a good section of the field done already,” I said, hoping that would impress her.

  “He did? Then maybe they won’t be here long.”

  I didn’t remind her that the hay needed to be stored in the barn and the corn would need picking. Mom turned the radio on. News of the war flitted across the wire, filling the room with the drama of our boys half a world away.

  “The Allies have reached the French capital of Paris, and Patton and his army continue their march over the Seine River.”

  “Do you think Pete is in France?” I asked.

  “That’s where all the fighting is taking place,” Mom said, clutching a bean so tightly that a seed burst out from the end of the pod.

  Bill Slocum interrupted the news for an Admiral commercial advertising for workers for its Chicago factories, noting that “no experience is necessary and new workers will be paid while they learn.”

  I used to wake to the songs of Dick Haynes. Now the only channel Mom listened to was the CBS World News Program.

  “Scotty Bishop asked me to the movies,” I said. “Can I go?”

  Mom looked at me, a sudden focus in her eyes. She hadn’t been interested in anything about me since Pete came home from basic training. Of course, she hadn’t ever been much interested in me.

  “We know his family from church. He’s supposed to be such a good basketball player, isn’t he?”

  I nodded. “He’s been offered a scholarship to college.” Scotty was the golden boy of our school, smart, athletic, and good-looking. His father worked as an accountant.

  “Well, I don’t see what it would hurt as long as he brings you home at a reasonable hour.”

  I remembered my promise to Daddy, that I’d find a way to bring some extra food to the POWs today. But Mom didn’t even want me anywhere near them. I’d always had so much freedom around the farm, and now I felt imprisoned by not being allowed to go out into the fields.

  When noon came around I found Mom in the front breezeway ironing shirts. Three gigantic elm trees stood guard over the front of our house and kept the porch cooler than the rest of the house. But the air in the breezeway felt sticky today. A drop of sweat was running down the side of her face.

  Mom kept her dark hair in a tight bun, and her fair skin always made her look pale. Even though she could pluck a chicken in record time, Daddy said she had a “fragile countenance,” which I didn’t understand.

  “Are you going to town?” I asked her, knowing we needed some supplies. “I have a letter for Pete.”

  She glanced at the kitchen clock. “I’ll go as soon as I get this ironing finished. Unless you’ll finish it for me?”

  “Okay.” I ran to my room and retrieved the letter. Mom took off her apron and handed it to me. Then she put on her hat and picked up her purse. I was pressing Daddy’s white church shirt as Mom got into the car and drove onto the road. Even with all the work he’d been doing, Daddy never skipped Sunday morning mass at St. Patrick’s, although he did doze off during the sermon and Mom had to nudge him a few times. I waited until the gravel had settled back onto the road and Mom’s car was out of sight before I cut up thick chunks of bread and smothered molasses in the middle of the sandwiches. Then I gathered a bunch of fresh tomatoes from the garden and some apples from the tree behind the barn. I covered the food with napkins and hauled it out in a deep basket with a handle that I could carry more easily. I knew Mom might notice the missing bread.

  When I arrived at the field I spotted the boy with blond hair I had encountered yesterday. He and another man were raking the long rows of hay into piles. The boy was tall like Pete. The back of his T-shirt was drenched in sweat. When he saw me approach, he smiled as if we were long-lost friends.

  Daddy was tamping down the hay in the wagon while four other men pitched round mounds filled with the freshly cut stalks into the side. The guard, who’d introduced himself as Norman, sat off to the side, watching.

  I called out to Daddy. “Food’s here.”

  “Time for a break, men,” Daddy said. “Help yourself to grub.”

  Norman raised his eyebrows. “They’re prisoners. They’ve had their rations.”

  “They’re underfed,” Daddy said, “and they won’t last the afternoon. It�
�s my farm.”

  Norman scowled. He stood tall, his gun at attention, as though he were in charge of guarding Hitler himself. When I set the basket down, Daddy stretched out his arm to the men. They came forward cautiously and took the food.

  Daddy gave me a hug. “Where’s your—”

  “In town. I didn’t tell her.”

  “She’ll see it my way,” he said. But I knew better. If Mom and Daddy had to name a favorite, Pete would be Mom’s and I would be Daddy’s. It was Daddy who encouraged me to dream, who clapped the loudest at my singing recitals.

  Pete knew before he could walk that he’d work the farm. He grew up happy and secure in that knowledge. But I wasn’t sure where life would take me.

  “Maybe someday we’ll be listening to you on the radio,” Daddy always said. Mom rolled her eyes at the notion of me being anything other than a wife. But Daddy had opened up the possibility that I could do whatever I wanted. So much freedom was both exciting and scary.

  I knew I had to get back home before Mom returned. My hand moved toward the empty basket, but the boy got there first. “Tank you,” he said in a thick accent as he picked it up and handed it to me.

  Our hands touched for a moment. I looked at him and his ears flushed red. Was it sunburn or was he shy?

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and hurried away.

  I thought about him on the way back. Did his family worry about him the way we worried about Pete? What if Pete were held prisoner? Wouldn’t we want him to be treated with kindness? Maybe the little food we shared with this boy would make his time in prison less painful.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  Six

  1944

  “You won’t be going to the movies next week,” Mom announced in the middle of dinner.

  “What? Daddy!” I shot a look of protest at my father.

  Daddy cleared his throat. “I think with all that’s going on, it would be good for Lorraine to get out,” he said.

  “She needs to be punished.”

  “Now, Gladys,” he said.

  “Don’t ‘Now, Gladys’ me. She stole bread as if she was a common sneak thief.”

  “She did it for me. Those men would have dropped from exhaustion before the day was over.”

  “They’re the enemy,” she said. “Not houseguests.”

  “They’re just men who speak German, like the Mennen family down the road. No difference.”

  “The Mennens have two sons in the United States Army. That’s a huge difference.”

  “We’re all caught up in the war, but we’re all people. Can’t you see that?”

  “No. I see that my son is headed to a foxhole in France while Nazis are in my fields eating my bread.”

  “Pete wanted to sign up. You think an overprotective mother was going to keep him here?” Daddy pounded the table and I jumped. Silence filled the room. I wanted to find a dark corner to hide in.

  Mom finally spoke. “No. I expected you to keep him here. You needed him. He’d have understood that.”

  “I couldn’t ask him to give up his honor.”

  “There’s no honor in death.”

  “Our son was of age. He didn’t need our permission.”

  Mom’s eyes were steely. “No, but I’ll bet you gave it to him, didn’t you?”

  Daddy put down his fork and avoided Mom’s eyes. “Heavens, woman! How long you gonna fret like this?”

  “Until my son comes home.”

  Daddy sighed his I-give-up, can’treason-with-her sigh.

  “And you,” Mom said, turning her wrath on me. “You should be ashamed of yourself, going behind my back.”

  I looked down at my potatoes, pushing them around with my fork. I hadn’t expected this punishment, to miss out on my first date with Scotty Bishop. I wanted to scream. It wasn’t fair. But I thought of what Pete would say, how to handle Mom with diplomacy.

  I took a breath and put my hands together. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have taken food without asking you first.”

  Mom looked as though she didn’t believe me.

  “I was just being a good Christian. You always tell me to think of others first. Didn’t Father O’Connor tell us just last Sunday that even though we are at war we shouldn’t forget that all men are our brothers, and when peace is restored and justice prevails we must heal as a nation? I couldn’t go to confession without saying I’d sinned by letting those men go hungry. I couldn’t eat the bounty of our garden and watch them starving.”

  “I’m sure they’re not starving.”

  “You didn’t see the measly rations they got,” Daddy said. “A piece of dark bread, beans, and some kind of cooked intestines that looked disgusting. I was truly ashamed to eat in front of them. It’s uncharitable to make men work on that. And one thing I pride myself on is charity.” He nodded for emphasis.

  “Well,” Mom finally relented, looking between the two of us like a fish caught on a hook. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to give them something while they’re working here. We don’t want people thinking we’re not charitable.”

  “Thank you,” Daddy said.

  “And even though it was wrong of you to take the bread, I’m not going to spoil your date,” Mom said, as though she was taking the higher ground on this whole thing. “I rather like that Bishop boy.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mom!” I was ecstatic. Daddy winked at me.

  “From now on I’ll decide what food of ours they eat,” Mom said firmly, settling the matter. “And Lorraine will take it to them and come right back. No speaking to those men.”

  *

  Now Mom was making the meals, and she was never one to be skimpy with food. She prepared fresh biscuits, watermelon pickles, and even her apple pie, a bit tart because she didn’t have sugar and had to substitute corn syrup. Sometimes she cooked fried chicken or roast beef sandwiches.

  Pete wrote to say he’d arrived on foreign soil, that he’d never been so happy to be on solid ground because he’d been seasick. Mom placed Pete’s old globe on the dining room table. I once caught her tracing her finger across the Atlantic Ocean, her mind long gone from our white clapboard farmhouse. She barely left the house except to tend the garden, go to mass, and do her weekly shopping. She never wandered out of earshot of the radio, and she cut out every piece of information from the newspaper that might pertain to Pete that she could get her hands on.

  “Now that Paris is liberated, maybe the Soviet army will do their part on the other side of Europe and our men can rest a bit. Seems only fair, don’t you think?” she asked anxiously one day.

  “I suppose so.” I didn’t know much about war, but I doubted they’d sit around and wait for the Russians to work their way to France.

  I grabbed the basket of food on the counter. “You hurry back,” Mom called from inside as the screen door slammed behind me.

  I looked up at the overcast sky. It was one of the wettest summers on record, and if I didn’t keep my hair braided it would frizz out to twice the size of my head.

  “Hi, Norman,” I said to the guard when I found the group over in the east pasture beyond a line of pines that stretched across our property. He was fanning himself with a newspaper.

  “Hiya, Lorraine. What’d you bring me?” he teased.

  “There’s plenty here. You’re welcome to eat.”

  He stood and patted his gun. “I tried to enlist, ya know. I woulda been over there with your brother if I could. I was classified 4-F because I’m deaf in one ear. I got my deferment papers right here.”

  He took out the papers to show me.

  “I wanted to go,” he insisted again. “They wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know,” I said reassuringly, amazed that he carried his papers with him.

  I searched for the boy soldier, who waited for me each day with a new English phrase he’d practiced. Sometimes I saw him take out a small dictionary when I approached. He never asked the interpreter to translate, but seemed intent on figuring
it out himself.

  “Goot morning,” he said.

  “Good afternoon,” I replied, as it was past noon.

  He frowned and turned away to check his dictionary. I kept walking. He pointed at his chest. “My name Jens.”

  “I’m Lorraine,” I said, ignoring Mom’s instructions to not speak to the men. Daddy talked to them all the time.

  “Lorraine,” he repeated. “Pretty name. Pretty Fräulein.”

  “Thanks, but I already have a boyfriend.” Günther, the German with the beret who spoke English, laughed and translated. I put down the basket of food: warm corn biscuits and ripe apples. Jens turned red, retreated to a spot far away, and pulled out a cigarette.

  “I think you embarrassed him,” Günther said, taking a biscuit.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said.

  While Daddy examined the tractor’s engine, I took out an apple from the basket and walked over to where Jens sat. I held out the apple.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his spot. The smile was gone from his face.

  “How do you say this in German? Apple?”

  He tilted his head as though he didn’t understand.

  “Deutsch? Apple?”

  “Apfel,” he said.

  I pointed at the cigarette. “What’s that?”

  “Zigarette.”

  “Cigaretta? Wow! Almost the same!”

  I handed him the apple. “Apfel for cigaretta?”

  He smiled in spite of himself. He had a dimple in the corner of his right cheek. He handed me the unlit cigarette, which I stuck in my pocket, and I gave him the apple.

  He showed me his dictionary then. “I teach Een-glish.”

  “You learn English,” I corrected him.

  “Ya. I learn English.” He nodded firmly and took a bite of the apple.

  I started to walk away but only took a few steps before I spun around.

  “See you later.”

  He frowned as though he didn’t understand.

  “Later. Soon, as in tomorrow. Um, never mind. Goodbye.”

  He nodded then. “Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.”