Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

“Simmer down, son,” his father said, and then smiled and took Mom’s arm. “Boy just doesn’t appreciate the finer things of life yet, like Betty Grable’s gams.”

Mom poked Dad with her finger right in the midsection.

“I’ll gam you ,” she said, and they both nuzzled each other and giggled.

“Mush,” Artie said beneath his breath, and hightailed it up to his room before they got going on him again about the movies.

Now that Artie didn’t go to movies anymore unless they were about horses or monsters or other stuff he knew wouldn’t get him sexed up, he didn’t have any ordinary way of running into Shirley. He missed her not being in high school, when he could go by and wait for her at cheerleader practice and walk home with her talking of life and Roy, and singing sad songs in the late blue afternoon. He missed her, and he figured she must miss—well, his company at least, if not exactly him as a person. He thought she must be lonely without anything to do all day but practice her cooking, knit sweaters and socks for Roy, and roll bandages for the Red Cross once a week with the mothers, sisters, and wives of the Town’s servicemen.

The only way Artie could see her was simply to walk on over to Pine Street and ring her doorbell, but the truth was he dreaded the idea of Shirley’s mother coming to the door. He had a pretty good idea that Mrs. Colby hated his guts, just because he was Roy’s brother. Actually, a person like Marcelline Colby probably didn’t “hate your guts” because she was too high-falutin; she probably just sort of despised you, but it pretty much amounted to the same thing. A couple of times when he walked Shirley home she invited him in for hot chocolate or something afterward, but Mrs. Colby would be there huffing around with her nose in the air and making you feel like you were some kind of escaped convict, so Artie just made excuses and said his goodbyes on the sidewalk.

It really was chicken to let a stuck-up old bat scare you out of doing what you wanted to do, especially when you knew it was the right thing, and in fact was helping the War Effort by keeping up the morale of a girl who was keeping up the morale of a fighting man, so Artie just got up his gumption and set out for Pine Street one day after school.

As he walked to the Colbys’, Artie went over the reasons why he was just as good as anybody else and shouldn’t let Mrs. Colby make him feel like a worm. He was good in school and sports, he had earned the rank of First Class Scout and got his first three merit badges, and on top of everything else he had done about everything a kid on the Home Front could do to help the War Effort. Anyway, the whole point of fighting a War to save the world for democracy was so everyone could be free and equal, like Washington, Lincoln, and God Himself had intended, which was all the more reason to stand up proudly and fearlessly to Mrs. Colby.

Still, when Artie knocked on the door, he prayed that Shirley herself would answer it.

No such luck.

Mrs. Colby stood there looking down at him with an expression on her mug like she’d just eaten a lemon.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked.

Artie whipped off the old felt cap he was wearing with funny buttons on it, wadded it into a ball and stuck it in his pocket.

“Is Shirley home, please?”

“Shirley is indisposed.”

“You mean she’s sick?”

Mrs. Colby looked like she’d taken another bite of the lemon.

“She is not ill . She is indisposed.”

Artie wasn’t quite sure what this meant unless it was a fancy way of saying Shirley was in the bathroom, or maybe it was just some kind of upper-crust language for giving you the bum’s rush. He started to turn and take off when he heard this amazing shriek from inside the house.

“ Mother! How dare you! ”

The voice didn’t even sound human, but more like some deranged monster on the scariest radio program of all, “The Inner Sanctum.”

Mrs. Colby’s body jerked in a funny way, like someone had poked a broomstick in her behind.

Artie wanted to disappear, and at the same time he wanted to know what in blazes was happening.

Shirley exploded into the doorway.

She was wearing an old Bearcat sweat shirt, faded dungarees, and men’s black socks. She didn’t have on any makeup and her hair wasn’t combed, but Artie thought she was weirdly beautiful, like some kind of Illinois Joan of Arc who had just burst out of her chains.

“How nice of you to come by and see me!” she shouted at Artie. “Please come right in, and forgive some people’s poor hospitality!”

Mrs. Colby looked like she might spit, but instead she just spoke at Shirley through gritted teeth.

“You keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady.”

“I was just stopping by to say hello,” Artie said. “Hello. I guess I better be going now.”

He turned and started off but Shirley yelled after him, “You come right in and make yourself at home!”

Artie doubted he could “make himself at home” but he knew if he didn’t go in he was no friend of Shirley’s. For all he knew she had been locked away in her bedroom or something and maybe Artie was her only chance to get a message out to the forces of freedom.

In the living room, Shirley sat down on the davenport and patted the cushion next to her, so Artie sat down there.

Mrs. Colby didn’t sit down but she didn’t leave either. She stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded, tapping her left foot noiselessly on the rug.

“Nice of you to come by, Artie,” Shirley said. “How have you been?”

“Oh, I can’t complain,” he said.

He felt like he was in a play, where you and the other person were pretending to be other people in some other place than you really were. Mrs. Colby was like the audience that you had to pretend wasn’t there. But then she spoke up.

“You really ought to go and lie down, Shirley. You’re not yourself today.”

As if on cue, Shirley became like the Illinois Joan of Arc again, with the avenging shriek.

“You don’t know who I am!”

“I know I didn’t raise you to be a tramp!”

Shirley jumped up and squeezed her arms across her chest like her mother was doing. It looked like they were about to start some kind of Japanese jujitsu match where you had to begin in the arms-folded position before you struck out with a deadly blow.

“How dare you insult patriotic American women!” Shirley yelled.

“Tramps in uniform, using the War as an excuse to mingle with men!”

“They don’t mingle with them, they serve with them!”

“Brazen hussies!”

“Patriots!”

Artie cleared his throat.

“You talking about the WACs,” he asked, “or the WAVEs?”

Mrs. Colby looked at him blankly.

“ Waves? ”

“That’s the WACs, only for the Navy,” Artie explained.

Mrs. Colby rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

“Spare me,” she said.

“You see!” Shirley yelled. “ Artie understands!”

“Don’t drag that child into this!”

Artie felt his ears get hot. He stood up and folded his arms on his chest like the other combatants.

“I’ll be twelve and a half the eighteenth of this month,” he said.

“He’s old enough to love his country,” Shirley said, “which is more than I can say for some people.”

“ My ancestors settled in Massachusetts two years after the Mayflower .”

“They’re my ancestors, too!” Shirley shouted.

“They must be turning over in their graves,” Mrs. Colby said, “to think a young lady of their own lineage wants to join the Army .”