Chapter 24 #2
I offered everyone seconds. Only Peg, still silent, declined.
I poured drinks and looked at the fading light on the water.
I told myself that the people who adopted my daughter might be good people, piano or not.
It seemed like someone who took the trouble to adopt a baby might cherish one more than someone who’d just had one by accident.
On the other hand, Mae had recently called to tell me how the man who’d moved in next door kept his sweet dog in the backyard where it had no shade, and where it had nothing to do but lie there and be lonely and miserable.
If the neighbor ever came out to pet or play with the dog, Mae hadn’t seen him do it, not even once, and she said that Janet spent more time than anyone feeling bad for the poor thing, and scratching his nose as best she could through the chain-link fence.
“Why get a dog if you’re going to treat it like that?” Mae asked me, as if I would know, which I didn’t. I only knew that most people who got dogs wanted to be good to them. But something made that neighbor think he needed a dog, or wanted one. And now that dog was suffering.
Buddy snapped his fingers. “Hey. Here’s something that might be of interest to Nora.” He grinned at me from across the table. “Her old boyfriend is back from Korea. I saw him downtown last week.”
I took this information in, holding it like a breath. I braced for what would come next: A report of Leonard’s new girlfriend, or wife. How pretty she was. How in love they seemed. I was in no mood to hear it.
“Oh yeah?” Russ said. “I heard he got captured over there. How’s he look?”
“Like Nora made a trade up.” Buddy flexed his brows. “He was a block away, just crossing the street. But, you know, I was surprised to see that he could still walk, after…” He made a low whistle.
“After what?” I asked. I was surprised. Leonard’s mother said he wasn’t injured.
“Well, you know…”
Buddy appeared uncharacteristically somber. I turned to Russ, who looked back at me and shrugged.
“We don’t know what you mean,” Peg said. She seemed generally annoyed. “So spill it.”
Buddy pushed back his chair and stood. “I mean, it’s got to be hard to walk upright…” He got behind his chair and leaned over it, his belly flat against the table’s surface. “…after bending over for the enemy for soooooo long!”
Russ clapped and laughed his hyena laugh. Peg put her face in her hands. Buddy remained bent over the back of his chair, one fist pounding the edge of the table. “I’ll sign your petition, Mr. Mao! Please! Please! For you, my love, I’ll do anything!”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I understood that he was insulting Leonard, and I didn’t mind that. But I worried he would tip the table.
Peg looked at her watch. “May I remind you there are ladies present?”
“Ladies? Where?” Buddy stood and made a visor of his hand. Peg told him to take a seat.
“What petition?” I asked.
Buddy looked at me. “You don’t know?”
Russ set down his drink. “Nora doesn’t pay attention to the news.” He gave me a woozy, affectionate smile. “She likes her books, her made-up stories. With the television, she likes to watch people talk. Or sing and dance.”
That embarrassed me. “I used to pay attention,” I said.
Russ reached over and cupped the back of my neck. “It’s okay, honey. You’re still the sweetest.”
He was drunk. I could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. No good would come from giving him a hard look, or even pushing his hand away. I turned to Buddy. “What petitions?”
Buddy explained that the Chinese had gotten American prisoners to sign petitions against our government. Now that the war was over and the prisoners were coming home, most everyone who signed was saying they didn’t mean it.
“But they knew what they were signing,” he said. “Traitors, every one of them. They were weak. They caved in.”
“He says sitting here in the US,” Peg said. “His belly full, drinking spiked lemonade.”
Buddy held his ground. He said that compared to Americans who’d been held in Germany and Japan, the prisoners in Korea had been on easy street.
Peg said she didn’t see how he could know that, and Buddy said he’d seen pictures of a big inter-camp Olympics that the Chinese organized for the prisoners.
“Looked like a good time,” he said. “Volleyball and baseball. Track and field. None of them appeared to be skin and bones. Maybe they got extra treats or what-have-you for turning traitor, trick ponies for the Chinese.” He lifted his napkin to dab at a wet spot by the embroidered parrot.
“I heard their biggest problem was boredom,” I said. I said this partly so I wouldn’t look so ignorant about the news. But it was exactly what Mrs. Lifton had said.
Russ looked at me, amused. “Where? Where did you hear that?”
I sipped my drink, wishing I’d stayed silent. I’d never told Russ about biking over to the Liftons’ that day, or seeing Leonard’s name on the list of prisoners. I never mentioned Leonard to him at all.
“Everybody knows it,” Buddy said. “I guess technically they were prisoners, in that the Chinese didn’t let them leave. But it looked like a far better deal than being a prisoner in Leavenworth, which some of them are about to find out.”
Peg grimaced. “Let’s stop this. It’s disrespectful, talking about any soldier like this.”
“They disrespected us, honey. They disrespected the country.”
“All of them?” I asked. “All the prisoners over there signed?” I felt slow from the vodka, thick of skull. But I was trying hard to keep up. Obviously, Leonard wasn’t on his way to Leavenworth, if Buddy had just seen him crossing the street in St. Pete.
“Not all,” Buddy allowed. “Some stood strong. But they were the exception, not the rule.”
“I’m sure you would have held strong,” Peg said. “Given you suffer so much as a cold and you’re the biggest baby I ever met. And your sister told me that when you tried to go out for football, you fainted at the first practice. Right out on the field.”
She was truly irritated, not joking at all, but both Russ and Buddy howled with laughter.
“In his defense,” Russ said, “I recall it was a very warm afternoon.” He turned serious. “I wouldn’t have let myself get captured in the first place. I would have died fighting.” He shrugged. “That’s just how I am.”
“But you think Leonard signed?” I asked. I tried to make the question casual, as if I had only a passing interest. But I clutched to the idea of Leonard having a general lack of integrity.
Buddy said he didn’t know for sure if Leonard Lifton had signed a petition.
“Talking through your hat all around,” Peg said.
Russ nudged my arm. “You’re probably the one who can make the best guess on that, Nora. You went steady with him. What’s his character like?”
I hesitated. I didn’t know what Leonard had signed over there, or what he got in exchange. But that wasn’t what Russ was asking.
“Weak,” I said. “He had everything handed to him, his whole life. And he doesn’t really think about the consequences of his actions. Not in my opinion.”
Russ and Buddy were both pleased with this answer. Only Peg looked at me with disapproval. I held her gaze, no problem, no regret. I was sure I’d spoken the truth.