Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

“Well,” she said, “I hope he doesn’t crumple when he sees me.”

“Not old Roy,” Artie said. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about him sitting under the apple tree out in Eniwetok or any of them.”

“Coconut tree,” said Shirley.

“Huh?”

“I don’t think they have any apple trees out there.”

“Oh. Well, then he won’t be sitting under the coconut tree. With anyone else.”

“It’s a shame, really,” Shirley said, looking as far away as the Solomon Islands.

“What is?”

“Roy, and all those boys, in their prime. Without any girls.”

“But they got the War,” Artie said.

“Yes. That’s what we’ve all got.”

“You make it sound like the measles or something,” Artie said.

Shirley turned toward him and smiled.

“You’re sweet,” she said. “You really do keep my morale up.”

“Shoot,” said Artie, looking down at his shoes and burning with pride.

Just then his Mom and Dad came in, holding hands, and Artie grabbed the scrapbook off Shirley’s lap and slammed it shut. He didn’t want his folks to know he’d been showing Shirley the article about the guys not having any white girls to sit under trees with in the South Pacific. They might think he was being too sexy.

“Are we interrupting anything?” his Mom asked.

Artie scooted away from Shirley to the other side of the davenport, feeling his cheeks get hot.

“Heck, no,” he said. “I was just showing Shirley some stuff about the War.”

Mom winked at Shirley.

“He never shows us anything,” she said.

“It’s the age,” Dad said, sinking into his easy chair and looking philosophical. Mom sat in the rocker, and gently started swaying back and forth.

“Artie was keeping my morale up,” Shirley said. “He always does.”

“So you like being a wage slave?” Dad asked Shirley.

“She’s a ticket girl, Joe,” Mom corrected.

“It’s wonderful for taking my mind off,” Shirley said. “And I’m going to save money. I opened a savings at the Federal.”

“Shouldn’t you just Buy Bonds?” Artie asked.

“A savings is a fine thing,” Dad said. “The rainy day always comes.”

“Or a sunny one,” Shirley said. “Like when Roy gets home.”

“What about college?” Mom asked.

“I’ll wait till Roy gets back. So we can both go together.”

Dad looked real surprised.

“Roy wants to go to college now?”

“Oh, yes!” Shirley said.

“I always knew he would,” Mom said.

Dad sighed.

“It took a war,” he said.

Mom smiled at Shirley.

“And the right girl,” she said.

Shirley looked down at her lap, modestly.

“How do your folks feel about it?” Dad asked her.

“I’m afraid they don’t understand. They think I should go right now. But they can’t make me. You can’t make someone study and learn if their heart isn’t in it. It’s not like washing dishes.”

“Hats off!” Mom said.

“Now, Dottie, we mustn’t take sides,” Dad said. “Against Shirley’s folks.”

“It’s a free country,” Mom said.

“Sure,” Artie put his two cents in. “That’s what Roy and the boys are fighting for.”

“ We didn’t like it when the Colbys told Roy he couldn’t give Shirley an engagement ring,” said Dad. “It works both ways.”

“‘The truth shall make you free,’” Mom quoted.

“The Colbys have rights, too,” Dad said.

“I think I better be going now,” Shirley said, and stood up. “Thank you for the scrumptious meal.”

Artie hurried to get Shirley’s record off the Victrola and put it back in the jacket. Dad beat him to getting Shirley’s coat, and got to be the one to help her on with it.

“Thanks for the wonderful record, Artie,” she said. “Will I see you at the Strand sometime soon? Or don’t you go to the movies anymore?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Mom said.

“I been too busy,” Artie said, looking down at the rug.

“Never knew you to be too busy for the movies,” his Dad said.

Artie felt like scramming up the stairs, but he knew he should just act natural about this so he didn’t give away his secret strategy.

“ Sweet Rosie O’Grady is on till Wednesday,” Shirley said. “It’s beautiful, in color and everything.”

“Wouldn’t mind taking that in myself,” Dad said.

Mom poked him.

“I bet you wouldn’t.”

Dad put his arm around Mom and squeezed.

“We’ll all go,” he said. “How about it, son?”

“I’m pretty tied up till Wednesday,” he said.

“You don’t like Betty Grable anymore?” Dad asked. “Better take the boy’s temperature, see if he’s normal.”

“Come on, Dad,” Artie said, feeling his ears get red.

Shirley started to say something and then she looked at Artie and her expression changed, like she’d just thought of something else.

“Well, I didn’t mean to be drumming up business for the Strand,” she said, smiling. “After all, there’s more to life than movies, especially nowadays. Personally, I want to start practicing up on some of your recipes, Mrs. Garber, like that wonderful kidney bean casserole we had tonight.”

“You can do that one blindfolded,” Mom said, “and I’ll show you how any afternoon in a jiffy if you promise to call me ‘Dot’ from now on.”

“Why, thank you—Dot.”

Mom suddenly reached out and hugged Shirley and then everyone said good night and Dad drove her home. Just before going, Shirley gave Artie a special smile.

He knew darn well she could tell he’d been embarrassed about the Betty Grable stuff and she’d changed the subject to the kidney bean casserole just to help him out of his fix.

That’s what he called a real friend, and a girl his own big brother would be lucky to come home to.

Part of Artie’s plan to stay pure and not spill his seed anymore until he was married and was doing it to have kids was to stay clear of any sexy movies like the one about Princess Tahia that got him in so much trouble at Cho-Ko-Mo-Ko. The only movies he had seen since his talk with Chief Pops Hagedorn were Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman and My Friend Flicka . He figured he was pretty safe from getting sexed up by a couple of ugly monsters, or Roddy McDowall and a horse. By the same reasoning, he knew he would just be asking for it if he went to see Betty Grable in Sweet Rosie O’Grady . He had seen a picture of Betty Grable dressed up as Sweet Rosie in an article about the movie in one of the magazines at Damon’s Drugs, and that was enough warning. Sweet Rosie looked like some kind of chorus girl with this terrific sexy costume, and he knew the movie would show her dancing and shaking her boobs and her behind around and twinkling her long, shapely legs in arousing rhythms.

Artie told his parents he couldn’t go with them to see Betty Grable on account of he had extra homework in Science and had to stay home to do it. He figured that was true in a way, since his effort to keep from spilling his seed until he got married in ten or so years was, he felt, a true “scientific experiment.”

“I thought you didn’t like Science,” his mother said suspiciously.

“I don’t, and I’m not any good in it, which is why I have to work extra hard at it,” Artie explained.

His mother reached over and pulled down the lower lid of his right eye, squinting at it.

“What the heck are you doing?” Artie asked, pulling away from her.

“Are your eyes bothering you? Sometimes going to the movies hurts your eyes, and it may mean you need glasses.”

“I don’t need any glasses!” Artie shouted.