Chapter 12
Just the stroke of a pen, really. Just a signature on a piece of paper declaring Yes, war, yes.
I hope the men who did this, those powerful and vainglorious men, rot in hell.
I hope they rot there forever.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
The foamy tongue of the wave lapped over her feet in a thousand sizzling bubbles before vanishing against the sand. The Pacific Ocean was cobalt and glitter, although, if Rita was being honest, not as warm as she’d thought it would be.
Inez stood at her side, feet planted in the surf like Rita’s, hands planted on her hips like Rita’s, her blond braid swaying with the wind. They stood in silence, in similar but not-quite-matching black bathing costumes, both of them gazing out at the horizon.
It was their first time in California, although Rita had been here over a month already, shooting Cecil B.
DeMille’s romantic thriller. Inez had arrived just yesterday, after long hours and hours aboard trains, ready for a two-week respite in this sun-soaked land.
The first thing she asked to see was the beach.
“Santa Monica,” Cecil had advised, when Rita had telephoned him to ask about the best one to visit.
The shooting schedule was so intense she’d barely glimpsed anything beyond the sleepy hills and vales of Hollywood and Burbank, but even Cecil allowed Sundays off.
“Or more specifically, Ocean Park. The streetcars won’t get you all the way there, though.
I’ll send an auto. No, don’t,” he interrupted, as she started to thank him.
“The call for Monday is six in the morning. The last thing I need is for you to take the wrong line and end up in goddamned Reseda.”
So here they were, two young women from far, far away, enjoying the tug and surge of the newly acquainted Pacific along their ankles, allowing it to rock them both in its timeless rhythm thanks to the generosity, or unvarnished practicality, of the famed Mr. DeMille.
Cutters and sloops with sharp white sails glided by. Yachts, thicker and heavier, moved far more slowly in regal rows. Seagulls and brown pelicans squawked and soared, kiting beneath silvery clouds.
A pack of golden-skinned children splashed nearby, slapping palms in some game of their own invention, darting in and out of the waves.
Well beyond them, the Municipal Pier stretched its long, concrete pilings far out into the water, so far Rita could hardly make out the end of it, its wooden-planked top swarming with people.
From this distance, the pier looked sprinkled with ants, scores of bodies coming and going.
“It’s not quite the Thames, is it?” said Inez.
“Not quite.”
“It smells nicer, for one thing.”
“Bluer,” said Rita, after a moment.
Inez flicked a hand toward the water. “More rich people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many yachts in one place before, not even in Monte Carlo. Where are they all going?”
“Here and there and anywhere. I don’t believe going is the point. Just seeing and being seen aboard one’s floating mansion, I imagine.”
The surf rushed and retreated, rushed and retreated; the sand gradually crept higher, engulfing their feet.
Neither of them said aloud what both were surely thinking, which was how serene it was here, how idyllic, how far from the reality of boiling blood and guns and regiments of eager young men that were now everything and all back home.
“How is your count?” Inez asked.
Rita smiled. “Still handsome, still wonderful. A letter a week, which I appreciate. How is your husband?”
“Still handsome, still wonderful. I don’t get a letter a week, though. I’m envious of you.”
Rita looked at her. Inez had her eyes closed, her chin lifted. The sun sculpted her profile in bright lines, tipped her brown lashes translucent. “Do you know where he is now?”
“No. It’s been … difficult, occasionally. Especially after …” Her left hand lifted, passed briefly over her womb before falling to her side again.
The wind changed direction, tossed Rita’s hair into her face. She pushed it back. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you in New York when it happened.”
“It’s all right. You have your obligations here. To be honest, I hardly knew I was enceinte before I wasn’t. And this was the fourth time. I guess—I guess I’m more used to it now.”
“Next time. You’ll have all the luck in the world next time.”
“Yes.” Inez opened her eyes and smiled, but her lashes were now moist. “Next time.”
A trio of sandpipers dashed near, almost close enough to touch. They pecked at the sand, chasing clam bubbles as the foam pulled back into the glass sea.
“I did receive a letter from Maman,” Inez said.
“I’m sure you get the same news from her as I do, but apparently Alfred is itching to enlist. There’s a whole group of them from Medmenham who plan to sign up together next August, as soon as they all come of age.
They want to be in a pals battalion together. ”
“What does Maman think?”
“She didn’t say, but how could she not be beside herself? You know Alfred, though. Once he gets an idea in his head, he doesn’t let go of it.”
Rita gave a laugh. “Remember when he was so determined to get to Antarctica? And he thought if he could sneak away to the docks in London, he could find a ship to take him?”
“Thank heavens Father caught him trying to hide the sugar pot in his school satchel, the one he meant to sell for his fare. Who knows how far that pot would have gotten him?”
“Well, it was only silver plate. He didn’t have the sense to nick the solid sterling one, so probably no farther than a knock on the head for his troubles.”
They both laughed then, softly beneath the wind; the children splashed and screeched.
A small, perfect cowrie shell tumbled by the sisters’ toes with the next gushing wave, smooth and glossy, cream and hazel and brown.
Inez bent and scooped it up before it was sucked away again.
She didn’t lift it to the light to examine it, as Rita would have, but only kept it between her fingers and thumb, rubbing it over and over, like a solitary bead from a rosary.
“Perhaps the war will be over by August anyway. Apparently back home they’re saying it will only take months to defeat the kaiser. The papers and government officials, I mean. They’ve said it from the beginning.”
“Perhaps,” Rita said, without pointing out that the war had already chewed through six brutal months and millions of souls, with no clear end in sight.
Inez turned to her. “I think you should marry him. Your devoted count. Honestly, Rita, marry him and be happy.”
Rita had a brief and unwelcome flash of Freddy, his face from that night in the alleyway, one eye already swelling shut as he smiled down at her and helped her to her feet. Even then, he smelled of gin and ambition, and she’d found it so stupidly wonderful.
“I might.” She lifted a leg, extending it in front of her long and straight like a ballerina, marveling at the fact of her bare shin and ankle in public daylight. She flexed her toes, and wet sand dribbled back to the earth. “Someday,” she added, and went back to balancing on both feet.
“Don’t wait for someday. Don’t wait for a dream to become real. Take the reality and make it your dream.”
“You’ve turned into a philosopher, I see.”
“No. I’m just sort of standing apart now, if that makes sense.”
Rita sent her a quizzical look.
“I’m a wife,” Inez said, earnest, “and I adore being a wife. Someday, God willing, I’ll be a mother too.
But when George is gone, I feel almost like I’m not around anymore.
Almost like I’m a creature born of his glow.
I can thrive there, but nowhere else. Even on the trains, even on my way here, I would catch my own reflection in the windows, with all the prairies and mountains rushing by, and I was a ghost against them. I was less.”
“You’re not a ghost,” Rita countered, more harshly than she intended. “You are real and alive for all of us, not just him, trains or glow or whatnot. You always have been.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m saying it all wrong. Don’t get upset.
I don’t think I’m nothing without George.
I’m simply so much better with him than without, that’s all.
And that’s love, isn’t it? He’s my heart and hope.
When he’s away, especially when I don’t know where he is or how he is, it’s—it’s as if I can’t quite take a full breath any longer.
I need him beside me to inhale, exhale, and without him, I can’t quite remember how to do any of it.
Or at least I can’t until I know he’s safe.
” She beamed up at Rita. “That’s what I hope for you, too, with Giuseppe.
That you find that pure, deeply moored love that pumps your heart and fills your lungs, and you exist for each other. ”
“Good gracious,” she said, truly appalled. “No, thank you!”
Inez laughed, unoffended, facing the ocean again.
Rita only stared at her, replaying her words in her mind, trying to find the flaw in her reasoning—because to exist only for another was certainly flawed, wasn’t it; it would be a weakness, and who would hope for that?
Strength was what carried anyone forward.
Especially a woman. Especially a woman ensnared by love, whatever that was.
But all she saw was her beloved little sister, her cheeks and chin and nose already turning pink, her hair tangled with sunshine. Her body slightly too thin, too frail to be fashionable.
It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, she thought. It’s been too long, and she’s changed so much. Sage and breakable at once. When did that happen?
Inez finally stopped rubbing the shell, gave it a bounce in her palm. “Everything’s so vibrant and alive here, even this close to Christmas. Is it always like this? Palm trees and green grass and blossoms, all year long?”
“I think so,” Rita said, glad for a tamer topic. “It reminds me of Italy, actually. Or parts of Spain.”