Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

Dinner was chicken a la king, but Mrs. Colby called it “fricassee.” Artie could hardly swallow, not only because of the strangling collar and tie, but also because the whole feeling in the room was what Fishy would have called “colder than a brass monkey’s balls in the Yukon.” For a minute, Artie felt kind of good about Fishy and sorry he didn’t hang around with him anymore; he’d have given about anything for Old Fish to get a load of the Colbys. Then Artie figured he ought to keep his mind on what was going on, in case there was anything he could do. Mrs. Colby had told everyone where they had to sit at the table, and Roy and Shirley didn’t get to sit next to each other. Once, Dad tried to bring up the Subject they were all supposed to hash out, but Mrs. Colby coughed and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and said she thought it would surely be more appropriate to discuss such a delicate matter after dinner. That made Artie wonder why in Sam Hill they had to eat the dinner at all, unless it was some kind of strategy, like making the enemy weak from nerves before you attacked him. Roy and Shirley kept shooting these eyeballing glances back and forth, like prisoners of war trying to signal each other in the presence of the enemy. It made Artie think of the psalm where it said, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” He had always wondered what that meant, and maybe it was something like this.

Mr. Colby said he thought War Bonds were not only patriotic, they were a sound investment. Everyone agreed, and Artie told how he had already covered up four pages of his War Stamp book with dime War Stamps.

“Attaboy,” Roy said, and managed to give Artie a nice wink.

“Laudable,” Mrs. Colby said.

Then she went on about what a harsh winter it had been, and after everyone agreed with that too there was just quiet all around, until out of the blue Artie’s Mom spoke up.

“All at once I looked and saw a crowd of daffodils,” she said.

“Dot loves her poetry,” Dad said proudly.

He would probably have patted her on the knee, except he hadn’t got to sit next to her.

“I’m afraid I was spoiled by the Bard,” Mrs. Colby said. “I can’t seem to fathom contemporary.”

“To each his own,” Artie’s Mom said brightly.

Then it was quiet again, right through dessert, which was chocolate pudding, but Mrs. Colby called it Moose.

Artie had to pinch himself hard on the leg and think about Japanese torture to stave off a giggling fit about the Moose.

Everyone “retired to the living room” as Mr. Colby put it, and they all got a glass of sherry wine except for Artie, who didn’t want anything anyway except for a stick of the Doublemint he’d brought to chew for keeping his mind off the awful itching of the wool suit.

Mr. Colby hooked his thumb in the pocket of his vest and finally got down to brass tacks.

“I’m sure we would all agree,” he said like a judge in a courtroom, “that any sort of formal engagement between these two fine young people would be precariously premature.”

“If anything’s ‘precarious,’” Artie’s Mom said, “it’s my son going off to fight in a foreign war.”

“I fully sympathize with you,” Mrs. Colby said, “and I lay the blame squarely on F.D.R., who solemnly promised that none of Our Boys would be sent overseas to settle other people’s differences.”

“That was before Pearl Harbor,” Dad said.

“F.D.R. could have avoided Pearl Harbor,” Mr. Colby said. “He let it happen just to stir up the kind of hatred that would plunge us into war.”

“Horse manure,” Dad said quietly.

“Really!” Mrs. Colby snapped.

“Excuse my French,” Dad said, “but Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the President of the United States, whatever we may think of him.”

“That is no less tragic for being indisputable,” Mr. Colby said.

Shirley stood up, locking her pale hands together in front of herself.

“Roy and I are in love,” she said.

“You’re a child of seventeen,” Mrs. Colby said.

Now Roy stood up, squaring his shoulders and putting his hands behind him like at the position of Parade Rest.

“I am nineteen years old and a, Private in the United States Marine Corps. I am in love with Shirley, and she has accepted my engagement ring.”

“Not with our permission,” Mr. Colby said.

“Then I am officially asking you to grant such permission, sir,” Roy said.

“Out of the question,” Mrs. Colby said.

Shirley went to Roy and took his hand.

They stood together, like facing the firing squad.

“They certainly make a nice couple,” Mom said.

“This is not a high school prom!” Mrs. Colby shouted.

“You are right as rain, ma’am,” Dad said calmly. “This is Wartime, and young people have to grow up fast.”

“My daughter does not have to grow up one whit faster than God intended,” Mrs. Colby said, “no matter what F.D.R. wants.”

“She is going to graduate from high school,” Mr. Colby said, “a recognized milestone on the road to maturity which, if I am correct, young Roy here has not yet passed himself.”

“He enlisted is why!” Artie shouted.

“Children should be seen and not heard,” Mrs. Colby said with a fake sweet smile.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Dad said, one-upping the old crow.

“I can still be engaged and finish high school!” Shirley said.

“One thing leads to another,” Mrs. Colby said. “You could end up being a War wife, living in one of those tin-roof huts.”

“ Quonset huts,” Artie corrected her.

“I only want Shirley to wait for me,” Roy said, “until I get the job done and come back to finish my own education.”

“She can wait without getting engaged,” Mrs. Colby said.

“It’s not the same!” Shirley shouted.

“Exactly our point, my dear,” Mr. Colby said smugly.

“She already has my ID bracelet anyway,” Roy said. “The ring is just the next step.”

“High school mementos are perfectly acceptable,” Mrs. Colby said.

“Is that some kind of rule out of Emily Post?” Roy asked her angrily.

“I’m happy to know you’re aware of her existence,” Mrs. Colby snapped.

“Mother!” Shirley cried.

“My son may not be a scholar, but he’s always been a gentleman,” Mom said. “Roy, I mean. Artie is something of a scholar as well.”

“If your son is indeed a gentleman,” Mr. Colby said, “he will refrain from pressing his suit.”

Suddenly Artie got this picture in his head of Roy in his underwear standing at an ironing board with his Marine dress uniform draped over it all wrinkled and Roy trying to iron it out when old man Colby comes rushing in and yanks the iron away, telling Roy he can’t “press his suit.”

“Hey, Roy, you can’t press your suit! ” Artie blurted out and this time even though he quickly tried to pinch himself hard and think of dirty Japs lighting straws underneath his fingernails he couldn’t stave off the new laugh attack; this was a real blitzkrieg of laugh attacks, one that burst out with a howl and had him rolling on the floor with the tears running down his cheeks and stuff coming out of his nose.

“The child is possessed!” Mrs. Colby cried, which only made Artie’s laugh attack all the worse, doubling him up with hysterics, sending him rolling across the Colbys’ living room floor as he yanked at his collar for air, gasping and gulping between the wild giggles, seeing his contorted reflection in the mirror of Roy’s glossy-shined black Marine shoes, which made his laugh even wilder, and then he heard the giggling spread to his mother and father and Shirley burst into sobs but it was too late to stop himself.