Echoes of Us: A Novel by Joy Jordan-Lake

Author:Joy Jordan-Lake [Jordan-Lake, Joy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 39

Joannie

February 1943

At the foot of the lighthouse, Joannie stands still and listens to the smash and suck of the sea, the stars blinking above.

She wills herself to forget the name of the man who’s just bought her dinner and drinks. He’d seemed nice enough when he bought a ticket from her at the Ritz. No, that wasn’t quite true. She detected bluster and a hint of a leer in him from the first, but at the offer of dinner out, she’d been bought, plain and simple, into ignoring her own instincts.

Lesson learned.

It had been weeks since she’d eaten meat, unless fried Spam counted, and it crossed her mind once—but just once—to let his hand stay where it had traveled so fast under her skirt and up her whole thigh, while she finished her spaghetti with meatballs—two of them, very large.

Instead, though, she whipped her fork under the table and poked its tines where she knew he could feel. He would find red sauce on his crotch later this evening.

“Sailor”—she did not use his name even then—“listen here.”

“Lieutenant commander. I’m a lieutenant commander.” It came out more squeak than protest.

“Who’s drunk and out of line. I appreciate that you’re scared, far from home, and about to be farther away. But buy a teddy bear, Lieutenant Commander, and leave me alone.”

“Hold on there, doll. A guy’s bound to get fresh with a dame pretty as you. Not even my fault. Aw, hell, come on back . . .”

She walked out of the restaurant alone, not letting herself smell the aroma of steak or look at the faces that turned to stare as she marched away. It was a shame, Joan’s having no money to come back alone.

But there it was, the price she paid for freedom. Well worth it too.

What a shame freedom didn’t always come served with meatballs.

A figure has followed her out the front door of the restaurant, but the figure’s not nearly as short or stocky as the lieutenant commander she left inside. The figure doesn’t move from the shadow just outside the squares of yellow cast from the restaurant windows.

She knows who it is. He’s appeared in the corners of her days here and there: at the edge of a line at the Ritz, at the far end of the sidewalk from Gray’s, many yards away on East Beach . . .

But this is how they perform this dance: his staying at a safe, watchkeeping distance, her pretending she doesn’t see him.

Palm fronds rattle softly in the breeze. From the far end of the pier comes the laughter of children fishing.

Joannie checks behind her, the figure still there in the shadows but, like always, not moving closer.

The lighthouse has gone dark now along with the blackouts for the war, and no lightning bugs prick holes in the dusk this time of year. But Joan can picture how this all once looked in the summers before the war: fireflies blinking on and off through the twilight, nearly synchronized with the lighthouse’s beam sweeping over the water.

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