Little Red Lies Read online

  Text copyright © 2013 by Julie Johnston

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, One Toronto Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York, P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947608

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Johnston, Julie, 1941-

  Little red lies / Julie Johnston.

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-314-8

  I. Title.

  PS8569.O387L58 2013 jc813′.54 C2012-905815-7

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  Edited by Kathy Lowinger and Sue Tate

  www.tundrabooks.com

  v3.1

  For Diane

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Other Books by This Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to Kathy Lowinger for coming out of retirement to edit my manuscript and to offer her unfailing support and spot-on comments. I also want to thank Kathryn Cole, who, early on, gave me invaluable advice and encouragement. Many thanks, also, to Sue Tate for her fine-tooth copyediting and for her inestimable help and insightful suggestions. Also, I am indebted to Doctor Arthur Turner for his medical advice concerning the treatment of leukemia in the late 1940s. As always, a heartfelt thank-you to my writing sisterhood for their advice, encouragement, comfort and cheer, and to my family, close and extended, for their much-appreciated support.

  CHAPTER

  1

  “Rachel! Come along.”

  “In a sec.”

  “The train will be here any minute.”

  “Coming!”

  Nag, nag! My parents dash away, my mother clutching my father’s arm, his coattails flapping.

  I take a bright shiny lipstick from my pocket. Don’t want to rush this job of sophisticating myself, but the train wails in the distance, distracting me. I wrench the rearview mirror around for a closer look. Where my mouth should be, there’s an uneven gash, the color of fresh blood. I do look older, though. I leer happily into the mirror. Slamming the car door behind me, I race to the station platform.

  My parents are near the front of the crowd with, oh rats, Mary Foley. I inch my way through and say hi to her with my hand over my mouth. She’s eyeing my plaid skirt and the baggy knees of my stockings.

  Folding my lips in, I slouch and plunge my hands deep into my pockets to make my coat longer. The pockets rip a little bit, but who cares? It’s all part of turning into a classy woman of the world.

  The steam engine wails. The line of dark red coaches snaking behind it sways as it rounds the long curve before the station. For a brief second, I have an eerie feeling that the train is taking Jamie far away instead of bringing him home. The bell clangs, the moment passes, and I have goose bumps up and down my arms.

  Aha! The good old days are on their way back. Can’t wait—sunshine, fishing with Jamie at Granny’s farm, cloudless nights in our backyard searching out the Dippers and Orion and Betelgeuse. He has a map of the night skies, both northern and southern constellations. Once he said, We are just tiny specks!

  I’m not, I said. I remember being soaked from the dew, from lying in the grass looking up. I’m huge. I meant tall. I was only about eight at the time, so what would you expect? Not only that, I was the tallest, skinniest person in my class. Still am, pretty much.

  As my mother eyes my Hollywood lips, her jaw drops in surprise. Actually, it’s more like horror. Like a peevish hen, she makes a clucking sound and rummages through her handbag for a handkerchief to wipe them off. The engine steams to a halt before she finds one. Forgetting me, she peers through the crowd, watching for Jamie to emerge through the billowing steam. I tower over her by almost an inch and a half, winner of the first round of the Lipstick Battle. I’m practicing my knock-’em-dead smile.

  The war has been over for ten months, but, like many over there, Jamie’s just returning, now. A boy of eighteen when he left, he’s finally coming home a man, a soldier, a conqueror.

  And what have I conquered? I curl my fingers around the lipstick. Childhood. Gone. Finished. The lipstick shade is Little Red Lies.

  The coach doors open. I can’t stop trying to scratch the insides of my elbows through my coat. I have eczema, which gets worse when I’m excited. So here I am, bouncing up and down, trying to see, scratching like mad, and worried that I won’t recognize Jamie.

  Taking time out from her own excitement, my mother frowns at me. “Do you have to go to the bathroom, Rachel?”

  “I’m just trying to see!” Up on my toes, back on my heels. She puts a heavy hand on my shoulder, but I squirm out from under it and skirt behind her to wait beside my glowing father. Everyone around me is eager, too, including the passengers, as they step down to the platform and search the crowd for a familiar face.

  “The two biggest disappointments of my life,” Dad says, removing his hat and smoothing back his thinning hair. “Too young for the First World War and too old for the Second.” He says this a lot, so I can ignore him. I just hope he won’t find it necessary to salute anyone. He puts his hat back on, stares at my glorious lips, then looks away quickly. He’s not one to make comments of a personal nature. I scratch my arms.

  Jamie wrote to us while he was overseas, but I could count the letters directed to me on two hands with all my fingers sawed off. They all started Dear Family and ended Yours truly, James H. McLaren, as if he were president of a large corporation. I always checked the back of the last page to see if there was a Hi, Rachel, I miss you. But there never was. Not even a Hi, Rachel, I sometimes think about you. Too sentimental, too personal for my brother. Hi there, old Rache. Would that have been too much for him? I wrote scads of letters to him, but did he write back to share a single thought? Not once.

  Letters not sent.

  You may never get a chance to read this, Rachel, but I hope you will. They censor everything over here, so I’m not too keen to put it in the mail. I was going to keep a diary but decided I needed a face in my mind, a personality whose reaction I could imagine. So I’m directing this to you.

  It’s quiet here tonight. I can’t sleep. In about five hours, some of us new guys are being shipped out for our first real tas
te of war. I guess I’m a bit scared.

  For some reason, tonight I’ve been thinking about home, about lying on the dewy grass at night searching out constellations. Remember the sky map? Once you said you wouldn’t want to live in Australia because you’d be looking at the stars upside down.

  Another time you asked me what God looked like, and I said, like a lit-up lightbulb, and you said, how many watts?

  I think about you a lot, especially when I need to bring my deepest thoughts to the surface, the ones you always tried to drag out of me, whether I wanted them out or not.

  I watch the soldiers closely. Some who have farther to go wave through the train’s open windows, yelling garbled toasts and nonsense advice to their buddies getting off. One of the smart alecks snatches the cap from the head of a handsome young guy with a slight limp, but he jumps for it and gets it back with a wince of pain.

  “It’s Jamie!”

  It really is. His hair’s shorter, he’s favoring one leg, but he hasn’t changed all that much. Edging through the crowd, Mother gets to him first, grabbing him amid a fluster of tears and yelps. “Oh, my boy!” she shrieks. “You’re limping. You didn’t write home about a limp. My poor darling! What happened? Show me where it hurts.”

  “All over,” he says, laughing at her.

  She leans away from him to take a good look, then grabs him again, nearly squeezing the breath out of him. She looks young and pretty in her wild enthusiasm, even with a few strands of gray in her dark hair.

  Jamie shrugs and cocks an eyebrow over her shoulder at our beaming father, who has removed his fedora again. His high forehead glows like a sunrise.

  “Careful, Dora,” he says. “You’ll break his ribs with those bear hugs.”

  I keep bobbing beside him, trying to get a piece of him, and at last he grins at me. But then his eyes move to Mary and his smile broadens. He grabs Mary Foley by her coat lapels and plants a great smacking kiss right on her lips, a decorous pink, I can’t help noticing. I am shocked.

  At last, it’s my turn. His khaki uniform is rough against my cheek and smells of sweat and grown-up boy and the world. He peels me away from him, finally, and says, “So how’s the old skinny-minny?”

  I hang on to his wrists, not ready to release him until I can give him full benefit of the debonair look I’ve been rehearsing. I stretch my Joan-Crawford lips, sling out my jaw, and bat my eyelashes for all I’m worth, but he just laughs.

  “Yikes!” He tries to shake free. “Get her away! What’s that red stuff on your mouth? War paint?”

  “It’s called Little Red Lies.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t called Big Red Lips?”

  I let him go. How embarrassing! I’m such an overboard person!

  No, I’m not.

  I’m Pathetic with a capital P.

  No. Magnificent. Capital M!

  By the time I finish arguing with myself, Jamie and Dad are shaking hands and giving each other hearty pats on the back.

  Jamie keeps glancing at each of us in turn, looking a little dazed. “Instead of only three years, I feel as if I’ve been away for ten!”

  In the car, squashed between Mary Foley and me, Jamie tries to hold Mary’s hand, but she glances shyly at the backs of our parents’ heads and tucks her hands between her knees.

  “What’s the best thing about being home, son?” Dad asks.

  “No one’s in uniform,” he says. “I can’t wait to shed mine.”

  On the short drive home, no one can think of anything momentous to say. Jamie was the one off firing guns and throwing grenades. All we did was cope with ration tickets and a shortage of gasoline.

  I sneak a sideways glance at Jamie while he looks out the window for changes on the streets of Middleborough. Is this really Jamie? I have a vague sense that the boy I grew up with isn’t the one who got off the train. I keep taking peeks to catch him off guard, hoping the authentic Jamie will show up.

  He does for a moment, when he turns suddenly and catches me staring. I bite my lip, trying to look innocent. “Pow!” he says with a pretend punch to my jaw. The real Jamie’s there, lurking just below the surface.

  “The best thing about Jamie being home,” I say, “is that now we can go right back to where we left off before he went away.”

  “That would certainly be nice,” Dad says.

  “It’s so good to have you back!” Mother repeats at least three times, twisting around to make sure he’s still there.

  Dad keeps saying, “Quite a change in the weather, yes siree. It’s what we expect in early March, though, isn’t it?”

  A little chorus of agreement rises from the backseat, as if we are all strangers.

  “They’re calling for snow this evening,” Dad says.

  “Gosh,” Jamie says. “What next?” Briefly, he eyes the ceiling.

  “By the way, Jamie,” Dad says, “I saved some newspaper clippings about the Invasion of Normandy and about our troops in Belgium and Holland. Maps, too. I’ll give them to you.”

  “Oh, swell.” Jamie is kind of slumping now.

  “Oh, Howard, I would think he’d want to forget the war,” Mother says.

  “Not at all. Am I right, son? Sometime down the road, you might want to talk about …”

  “You never know. Hey, any word about Coop?” His best friend Coop’s plane was shot down over Germany three months before the war ended.

  “Nothing,” Mother says. “His parents were told to contact the International Red Cross, but they haven’t heard anything.”

  “He’ll turn up,” I say. “He has to.” Jamie looks at me as if he isn’t all that sure. “You know Coop,” I say, “usually late, but he always shows up in the end.”

  He grins. “The teachers used to call him the late Mr. Cooper. I’ll go visit his family. They might know something by now.”

  Granny arrives just before we sit down to dinner. “You’re all out of breath,” I tell her.

  “You would be, too, if you’d driven that blasted truck as fast as I did all the way in from the farm. Where’s my boy? Let me get my hands on him.” She gives Jamie a good hard Granny-hug and says, “You’re not so big that we can’t still make you mind.” She holds on to his shoulders and blesses him with her fierce loving gaze until he has to look away.

  “Jeez, Granny,” he says.

  “I’d have got here sooner,” she says, “if it hadn’t been for that new vet, who takes off early on Friday as if nobody’s cattle get the bloat on a Friday. I had to hunt him down at home.”

  We’re standing around the kitchen leaning against things, watching Mother take the roast out of the oven, watching her make gravy.

  “That’s what the world’s come to,” Granny says. “Nobody wants to work. That’s what a war does for you.”

  Granny’s eyes are on my lips. Here it comes, I think. A war paint crack, or raspberry jam, or here’s a hankie, wipe it off. But, no. She grins at me and winks.

  Mary Foley has been asked to stay for dinner. “Sit down, please,” Mother says, bustling us ahead of her into the dining room, “before everything gets cold.”

  We bow our heads while Dad, from his end of the table, disposes of the blessing: “GraciousHeavenlyFather-grantusthyblessingonthesemerciesforChrist’ssakeamen.”

  I keep my eyes open to see if Mary will cross herself. She does. In this town, almost half the people are Catholic and the rest are Protestant. A lot of petty rivalries go on because of it. Not much here in the way of any more exotic religions, though.

  As Dad carves the roast in thin slices, the way Mother likes it, plates are passed down to her for helpings of roast potatoes, carrots, and canned peas from the matching china serving dishes. “Now, Mary,” she says, “I know your religion dictates fish on Friday. I’m sorry you won’t be able to enjoy roast beef with the rest of us, but I’ve made you a little tuna casserole.”

  “Ugh!” I say. “Poor Mary. She’s probably missing out on good old macaroni and cheese at home.” Mary turns red
and scowls at me.

  Mother plops a beige dollop, the consistency of porridge, onto her plate. “May I give you carrots and peas with your casserole, Mary?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. McLaren.” She has good manners and says thank you a second time. Again her cheeks turn pink.

  I can tell by the dainty bites she takes that she hates tuna casserole. Jamie frowns down at his plate. “I’d like some of that, too, Mother, if there’s enough. I’ve gone off roast beef a bit.”

  “Now, don’t be silly, Jamie. Just eat what’s put before you. It’s the first decent roast we’ve had since the war, and it’s always been your favorite. We’re having it especially.”

  “Tell us all about the war, Jamie,” I say. “It must have been so exciting being right in the thick of it, firing guns and everything.”

  “Exciting?”

  “You know. Kill or be killed.”

  Jamie doesn’t answer right away. He stares at his plate as if he’s trying to figure out what’s on it. “Some of my friends were killed,” he says.

  “Now for dessert,” Mother interrupts, “we have two kinds of pie.”

  Dad says very quickly, “My-oh-my, two kinds of pie.”

  I can’t look at Jamie. Instead I stare down at my ragged fingernails and wish I’d never said a word. His Dear Family letters never mentioned friends getting killed.

  “Jamie!” Mother taps the table beside him. “You’ve eaten almost nothing. There’ll be no pie for you, young man, until I see a good portion of that plate cleared.”

  “Sorry, it’s delicious. Too excited to eat, I guess.”

  Mother fetches the pies, apple and pumpkin, and places them in front of Dad to serve while I clear the table. Mary helps me, even though she’s a guest, and is rewarded with a large slice of each of the pies to make up for the disappointing casserole. Jamie asks for a small piece of pumpkin and eats most of it.

  I can tell Granny’s getting agitated about something. She always sits very straight and wiggles her shoulders when she’s about to make a pronouncement. Her probing eyes are on Jamie. “You’ve got too thin, my boy. Look at the neck on him, scrawny inside that shirt collar.”