Read Online The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bobbie Ann Mason
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U.S. soil again. The last months were fading into a dark dream. Yet she was a stranger, like somebody’s kid sister, altogether too silly and carefree to take seriously. He had not seen a woman behave this way in months. This girl Loretta might have been going to taffy pulls.
At the nearest soda fountain, crowded with GIs and their families and sweethearts, they had Cokes and he ate a genuine hamburger. The sumptuousness of the hamburger, paired with its sweet carbonated companion, sent him into a reverie. Here was this girl showering him with devotion. She was swinging from side to side on the spinning stool next to his. Her dress was white, with red polka dots, and the skirt flounced at the hem. She crossed her legs and deliberately showed her knees. She wasn’t petite like the French girls, he thought. He held her waist and stopped her singsong swinging. She sucked the straw of her Coke, leaving lipstick. He had kissed off all her lipstick, but she had reapplied it. It was bright red, for the polka dots of her dress.
FROM CINCINNATI, HE MADE an obligatory visit to his relatives down in the mountains. The bus ride to Harlan was a strange, grim little trip. He found an uncle dying of lung disease and his wife unable to grow her garden because she no longer had the breath to climb the hill behind their dog-trot house. Marshall hated this place where the coal mines had destroyed his parents and grandparents. He had never wanted to go back there.
If they had been worried about him during the war, no one said. They all said Marshall looked older. They wouldn’t have recognized him. No one wanted to hear about the war. His Uncle Jimmy refused to believe that Marshall had been a bomber pilot. His cousin Herman tried to get him to come back and work in the mines. One of his aunts accused him of gallivanting and pleasuring himself while his kinfolks needed him. His Aunt June Bug insisted on living alone after her stroke. His cousin Dan had moved to Richmond and was working at an ammunitions depot—doing what, no one could say exactly.
Marshall knew he had been an oddball in that family for years because his parents had moved north to Ohio. After they died, he had lived with Aunt Shelby in Cincinnati and learned proper English in school. He would never have tolerated being teased the way some of the backwoods boys in the Army were. Marshall never apologized for seeking an education. He went to college for a couple of years before the war. What he wanted in Loretta was everything he didn’t find in his relatives. She listened to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio. She liked museums. She lectured him once on the historical significance of the gargoyles on the buildings in downtown Cincinnati. He liked seeing Loretta parade her culture. She had class. When he saw gargoyles on Notre Dame in Paris, they seemed almost like old friends.
11.
C APTAIN VOGEL HAD BEGUN HIS INITIAL DESCENT INTO PARIS IN the early-summer dawn. It had been dark only briefly during the night, and Marshall dozed, Molesworth memories swirling in his mind. He always had trouble sleeping on an airplane. As soon as sleep shut down his hearing, he would awake with a jolt, thinking the engines had quit.
When both his seat mates left for the lavatory, Marshall leaned across to the window, to see if the plane was flying over the Channel, as he had guessed. Spotting England’s familiar shore, he yearned for Molesworth. Molesworth was where he had lived up to his ideal of himself. Before everything fell apart.
The morning they took off on the mission, their tenth, Marshall was making a secret bet with himself on how far he would get with Nurse Begley when he returned. Her front teeth were like Chiclets, shiny and squared off, and she framed them with bright lipstick the color of cherries—not pie cherries, but whiskey-sour cherries. She tasted more like pie, though. He was a fool. She was from out west, with bony hands and long legs and thick, radiant hair, and
At the nearest soda fountain, crowded with GIs and their families and sweethearts, they had Cokes and he ate a genuine hamburger. The sumptuousness of the hamburger, paired with its sweet carbonated companion, sent him into a reverie. Here was this girl showering him with devotion. She was swinging from side to side on the spinning stool next to his. Her dress was white, with red polka dots, and the skirt flounced at the hem. She crossed her legs and deliberately showed her knees. She wasn’t petite like the French girls, he thought. He held her waist and stopped her singsong swinging. She sucked the straw of her Coke, leaving lipstick. He had kissed off all her lipstick, but she had reapplied it. It was bright red, for the polka dots of her dress.
FROM CINCINNATI, HE MADE an obligatory visit to his relatives down in the mountains. The bus ride to Harlan was a strange, grim little trip. He found an uncle dying of lung disease and his wife unable to grow her garden because she no longer had the breath to climb the hill behind their dog-trot house. Marshall hated this place where the coal mines had destroyed his parents and grandparents. He had never wanted to go back there.
If they had been worried about him during the war, no one said. They all said Marshall looked older. They wouldn’t have recognized him. No one wanted to hear about the war. His Uncle Jimmy refused to believe that Marshall had been a bomber pilot. His cousin Herman tried to get him to come back and work in the mines. One of his aunts accused him of gallivanting and pleasuring himself while his kinfolks needed him. His Aunt June Bug insisted on living alone after her stroke. His cousin Dan had moved to Richmond and was working at an ammunitions depot—doing what, no one could say exactly.
Marshall knew he had been an oddball in that family for years because his parents had moved north to Ohio. After they died, he had lived with Aunt Shelby in Cincinnati and learned proper English in school. He would never have tolerated being teased the way some of the backwoods boys in the Army were. Marshall never apologized for seeking an education. He went to college for a couple of years before the war. What he wanted in Loretta was everything he didn’t find in his relatives. She listened to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio. She liked museums. She lectured him once on the historical significance of the gargoyles on the buildings in downtown Cincinnati. He liked seeing Loretta parade her culture. She had class. When he saw gargoyles on Notre Dame in Paris, they seemed almost like old friends.
11.
C APTAIN VOGEL HAD BEGUN HIS INITIAL DESCENT INTO PARIS IN the early-summer dawn. It had been dark only briefly during the night, and Marshall dozed, Molesworth memories swirling in his mind. He always had trouble sleeping on an airplane. As soon as sleep shut down his hearing, he would awake with a jolt, thinking the engines had quit.
When both his seat mates left for the lavatory, Marshall leaned across to the window, to see if the plane was flying over the Channel, as he had guessed. Spotting England’s familiar shore, he yearned for Molesworth. Molesworth was where he had lived up to his ideal of himself. Before everything fell apart.
The morning they took off on the mission, their tenth, Marshall was making a secret bet with himself on how far he would get with Nurse Begley when he returned. Her front teeth were like Chiclets, shiny and squared off, and she framed them with bright lipstick the color of cherries—not pie cherries, but whiskey-sour cherries. She tasted more like pie, though. He was a fool. She was from out west, with bony hands and long legs and thick, radiant hair, and
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