Shining Sea by Anne Korkeakivi Read Free Book Online Page B

hips, smoke trailing from her cigarette, watching him.
    He speaks low into the receiver. “You missed dinner.”
    Patty Ann laughs. “That’s not the half of it. Guess where I am?”
    From outside the house, he can hear night sounds, a creak of a screen door, a lone car driving past. There’s noise behind Patty Ann’s voice, too, over the telephone line, but he can’t make it out. “I don’t know. With Lee.”
    Patty Ann laughs again. “And how! We’re in Las Vegas .”
    He turns away from his mom, as though she might otherwise be able to hear, and the receiver slips in his hand. He grabs it before it hits the floor. This time Patty Ann is really going to catch it.
    “Francis? Are you there?”
    He looks out the picture window, through his reflection and into the dark glow of the street lamps, avoiding the feel of his mom’s eyes on his back. Why did he stay up? He should have gone to bed when Mike did. He really would rather not be around when she finds out about this. “Yes.”
    “Were you guys listening to the radio this evening?”
    “Yes. It was a bad game.”
    “No, I mean the news . Did you hear the news? Did Mom hear the news?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think so. We were listening to the baseball game. She was listening with us.”
    “Well, Lee and I weren’t. We were sitting in his car…and a newscast came on. President Johnson signed an executive order this afternoon saying couples married after midnight tonight will no longer be eligible for the draft deferment for married men without children.”
    “So?”
    “So we drove straight to Las Vegas. Me and Lee. We got married.”
    For a few moments earlier today, he was air, he was lighter than air, he was as free as the tern that skimmed right over his and Eugene’s heads. He felt no fear. He felt no weight. There was nothing but his body moving through the sky and then into the water.
    And then he plunged into the cold, and the sea pushed him back up.
    “Hold on,” he says. He can’t slip out the door unseen now. Could he hand over the phone and make straight for his bedroom? Or the bathroom, like he needs to pee? He’d need to be peeing for a long time, though. What comes next isn’t going to end swiftly. “I’ll put Mom on the phone.”
    “And Francis! Don’t tell her. I want to tell her myself.”
    That will not be a problem. He cups his hand over the receiver. “It’s for you, Mom. I mean, it’s Patty Ann.”
    He holds the phone out, stretching his hand into the night, waiting for his mom to take it. Figuring out how he can make like air. Like water.

Memorial Day / May 29, 1967
Barbara
    T HE D ODGE M ATADOR PULLS up to the sidewalk in front of the florist’s. Behind the steering wheel, Patty Ann’s face, too pale for Southern California, strains over the head of the baby to see out the passenger window.
    “Mom,” Patty Ann says.
    She bends down to look in at her daughter. “I was starting to worry.”
    She stows the basket of daisies, daffodils, and blue carnations in the backseat, then tucks the bouquet of roses and baby’s breath in next to it, pushing them close together for stability. They look like odd lovers snuggled there, one sunny, the other red and formal, against the dirty vinyl. She lifts a wad of papers and other trash off the front seat and slips in, scooping the baby onto her lap.
    “Jeepers, Patty Ann. A person could catch something just sitting here.”
    “So which bouquet is for which?” Patty Ann says, ignoring her complaint, surveying the flowers through the rearview mirror. “I mean, don’t you think it’s a little weird? ”
    With that, Patty Ann tears away from the sidewalk.
    She clutches the door handle to keep herself and the baby from jerking sideways. The baby plays with the cheek curls of her bouffant, then grabs for her cigarette. So maybe the timing is a little strange. The bottom line is Jeanne couldn’t come out to California twice but was determined to be here for both events, to