Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

Artie himself hadn’t bought a War Stamp for over a month. He had spent all his money from holiday tips on his paper route for Christmas presents, and the only one that had anything to do with the War Effort was the carton of Camels he had sent to Roy. At least he hadn’t cashed in his Bond that would someday be worth twenty-five dollars, like lots of people were doing. So many Americans had lost their patriotism and cashed in their Bonds that there were ads now in magazines pleading with people not to “make a coward out of your cash!” There was even a magazine article on “Wartime Slackers” that told how lots of demoralized citizens had taken the money out of their Bonds and gone to Florida to spend it betting on horse races, drinking champagne, and lolling around swimming pools. Artie wasn’t that bad—at least not yet—but if he kept on the way he was going, he might end up squandering his hard-earned money betting on horses and buying champagne while he lollygagged around swimming pools.

Just then he happened to look out the window of Bob’s Eats to see none other than Caroline Spingarn ambling by.

That’s what she did now when she walked.

She ambled .

It was part of the amazing change that had come over Caroline almost overnight. Artie barely even noticed around Thanksgiving that her knees stopped knocking together when she walked, and instead of hanging her head and scrunching her neck down into her little shrunk-looking dresses, she stood straight and acted like she didn’t even mind that she was taller than most of the other kids. Instead of babbling and asking questions about everything she just got kind of quiet, not like she was scared, but more like she was waiting, biding her time. Then she went to her Grandmother’s house in Rock Island for the holidays, and when she came back to school she not only had these terrific new dresses that fit her, she had her hair curled under real sleek and shiny without any bows and ribbons sticking out of it, and she walked in this ambling, movie star rhythm that made her behind sway like it was moving in time to some sultry music. She acted real calm and cool and took her time about everything, like she was waiting for everybody else to catch up.

Artie slammed down his money to pay for the food he hadn’t finished at Bob’s and rushed outside to catch up with her.

He ran as fast as he could and then when he got about five yards away from Caroline he started creeping up on tiptoe to surprise her. He got right behind her and reached around and clapped his hands over her eyes, at the same time making his voice as deep as he could and singing in a hoarse, colored kind of tone, “Is you is, or is you ain’t my ba-by?”

Caroline sighed, like she was weary of the world.

“Really,” was all she said.

“Guess you forgot to invite me to your party tonight,” Artie said.

He figured there was no sense in beating around the bush.

“Really?”

This time her eyebrows arched when she said it, sort of like Bette Davis in Watch on the Rhine .

She stood there staring at him grandly, and he felt like some kind of worm. He remembered back to the time he’d called her a pest and she had cried and threatened to make him sorry for it and he hadn’t believed she could ever do it. That just showed how you couldn’t predict anything when it came to girls.

Now he was already sorry, in a way he had never imagined possible.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose if you think you can act like a grown-up you might as well come.”

He was going to say something smart-alec about her new hip-swinging walk, but instead he just kicked at the sidewalk and looked down humbly at his shoes.

“Gee, thanks,” he said.

Caroline yawned and delicately tapped her fingers to her mouth.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, like she was Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver .

Then she turned and walked off, swaying like mad.

They had eaten all the pretzels and potato chips and drunk all the Cokes. Caroline went over to her new plug-in Victrola that you didn’t have to crank up to play; you just turned on the switch. She was wearing this shimmery blue dress and real stockings that glistened too, and shiny black shoes with heels that made her even taller. She turned to look at the kids and her bright reddish blond hair, which now fell clear to her shoulders and turned under, swung across part of her face, sort of like Veronica Lake.

“Requests?” she asked coolly.

“‘Pistol-Packin’ Mama’!” Ben Vickman shouted.

“‘Winter Wonderland’ again!” said Marilyn Pettigrew.

“Why don’t you get out the milk bottle?” Warren Tutlow asked.

There was a sudden hush, a general intake of breath, and everyone stopped whatever they were doing, except for Fishy Mitchelman, who sat by himself in a corner of the basement, drumming his drumsticks on an old washpan he had turned upside down.

“Milk bottle?” Caroline asked, pushing the hair back from her eyes with a slow, delicious gesture. “What in the world do you want with a milk bottle?”

Ben Vickman let out a whoop and suddenly the girls were all shrieking and giggling and the guys were pounding each other on the shoulders with their fists and yelping. The reason for all the commotion was that just before Christmas at Edith Lynx’s party they had played spin-the-bottle, and the guys and girls had really kissed , not just the little pecks on the cheeks like they’d done the year before playing Post Office, but real grown-up kisses where you put your arms around each other and mashed mouths together, just like in the movies, right in front of everyone else!

Suddenly the door at the top of the basement steps opened, and Mrs. Spingarn looked down from the kitchen.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

All the kids quickly shut up and settled down, the boys straightening ties and coats, the girls smoothing their skirts.

“Everything’s hunky-dory, Mother,” Caroline said, and put on “Winter Wonderland” again.

Mrs. Spingarn went back in the kitchen and closed the door.

Caroline reached behind the record player and pulled out an empty milk bottle that she must have had there all along. In no time at all the girls were sitting on the cold cement floor of the basement, their skirts carefully spread over their legs. Warren Tutlow got to go first since he was the one who was brave enough to ask about the milk bottle. He looked at Caroline Spingarn like he was taking aim for her, gave the bottle a quick spin, and it ended up with the open mouth pointing directly to Betty Sue Beam. She was short and chubby and when Tutlow kissed her she kept her eyes squeezed shut and held her hands behind her back, so it wasn’t much of a kiss at all.

Artie pushed in next ahead of Ben Vickman and they started to argue about whose turn was first when Caroline looked over in the corner and called, “Monroe? Aren’t you going to play?”

Everyone looked at Fishy, who rattled off a few more beats on the washpan, then tossed his two drumsticks in the air, caught them, shoved them into his hip pocket and walked over to the circle of girls. Artie and Ben forgot their argument as everyone watched Fishy flop to his knees, rub his hands together, blow on the palms, and say, “Seven come eleven!”

Then he grasped the milk bottle right in the middle with his long, bony hands, gave it a terrific spin, and watched it end up pointing straight at Caroline Spingarn.

You could have heard a pin drop as Caroline stood up and walked to the center of the circle, very calm and composed, like it didn’t mean a thing for a nice girl like her to be kissed by a sex maniac wearing a zoot suit.

Fishy got up and stood in front of her, looking slightly down at her eyes, she looking back up at him. Artie figured maybe she just liked the idea of Fishy being the only guy taller than her, and that’s why she asked him to get in the game. So she wouldn’t be embarrassed by having to bend down to kiss a guy.