Kiss Me Once Again, page 1
KISS ME ONCE AGAIN
A Women of the Heartland Story
by
Gail Kittleson
WordCrafts Press
Copyright © 2018 Gail Kittleson
Cover Design by David Warren
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About the Author
Dedicated to all the women who sacrificed so much.
Chapter 1
“ANYBODY HERE?”
Glenora replaced a bolt before digging her heels into the floor to coax her mechanic’s dolly from the bottom side of a ’37 Chevy truck. When the garage’s bare light bulb glared in her eyes, Slim Anderson stared down at her.
“Ah, there you are. Knew your dad wouldn’t leave the shop unattended.”
Glenora pulled a rag from her back overall pocket and wiped a gooey grease patch from her cheek. Unattended? Oh, no! Never the shop. Maybe her hair, her clothes, even her heart, but never this busy garage, the only one in Halberton, Iowa.
Slim held out his hand and pulled her to eye level. Glenora shook out her arms and the kinks in her back. “Whew—this old rattletrap’s seen better days, I’d say. Been under there an hour, but it seems like I just got started.”
“Delivering eggs takes a toll on trucks, that’s for sure. Harm can’t just not show up—those housewives’d have his hide if he messed with their egg money.” Slim gave her a minute to orient to the upright world. “Your daddy around today?”
“He’s taking a part over to Benson.” She waved a hand toward the back of the brick building, where line after line of partially rusted vehicles filled the pasture separating the garage from their house. “Somebody needed a starter for a... Anyway, he said he’ll be back before noon.”
Slim fingered a grimy mechanism in his big brown farmer hand.
“I’m guessing that came from your Allis Chalmers?”
“Right, a Model RC.” Slim paused for effect, but Glenora had heard it all before, how he’d saved to purchase the orange tractor when it came out in ’39, and how putting the engine of the Model B on the chassis of the larger model WC had birthed the amazing machine. Not to mention how well the trusty tractor had served him until...
“Somethin’s haywire with the gearshift. Took the blamed thing off to check on a squeak, but after I greased everything to kingdom come and went to put it back together...”
Glenora took the small iron piece from him and turned it over. “I know what you mean, but I’ve never seen this piece before. Sorry.”
“That’s all right. A fella can’t know everything these days.” Slim’s already sunburned face reddened. “I mean a gal...”
Glenora’s chuckle eased the lines in his forehead. “It’s all right. Daddy’ll know. Maybe he can drive out to your place later this afternoon. I’m sure you’re anxious to get your crops in.”
“Yeah.” Slim glanced around the shop, twitching his nose at the mélange of odors. “Betcha it sure helps, you takin’ care of everything around here when your dad’s gone.”
“As much as I can. Red would have recognized this piece too, I’m sure he would.”
“That boy’s always been a smart one.” Slim slid his stained hat back from his receding hairline. “Can’t help but wonder how all our fellas are doin’ over there.”
The backs of Glenora’s eyes burned to think of her tenderhearted little brother at war. With almost four years between them, Red became her charge when Mama got sick, and his fear of losing Mama had torn him apart. How many nights had he run to Glenora for comfort?
And then the worst happened—overnight, Mama faded away. A raw wave washed Glenora’s throat as she stared across the street through the big filthy garage window. Halberton’s morning traffic crawled bug-like down the main two-lane concourse. Right now, the flow consisted of an old green farm truck and a boy lucky enough to own a bicycle...and the mountain of dust they raised.
“We keep believin’ they’re all right, don’t we—our Sam and your Red?” Slim studied the Red Cross office, too. The full-length window boasted several posters—in one, a wild-haired girl in a navy-blue sailor shirt grinned out at the world. Glenora had memorized the words marching beside the portrait, “Gee, I wish I were a man. I’d join the Navy.”
The entreaty at the bottom stuck with her, too. “Be a man and do it. United States Navy Recruiting Station.” The appeal worked—Red and nearly every other eligible young man in Mitchell County had done it—joined up, endured boot camp, and shipped out long ago.
“Our Sam couldn’t take his eyes off them posters his last year of high school. Still wake up in the morning when our cranky old rooster crows and can hardly believe he’s gone.”
“I know what you mean. I thought Daddy’d never recover when Red enlisted. Still, he signed the papers that let him go before he turned eighteen.”
“’Course. Just like me. What choice did we have?” Slim gave a massive sigh. “Gotta save the world from the Japs...and then there’s Joe Lundene. Been three years already since he went down at Pearl Harbor.”
Slim seemed to have no intention of leaving soon, but Glenora could think of plenty of topics she’d rather discuss. Slim cocked his jaw to the side, which signaled he was about to meddle in someone’s business.
Preparing herself for whatever gossip would emerge, Glenora decided to slip back under the egg truck. I swanny, these older men go on and on—maybe even more than the ladies in the church kitchen.
Just as she opened her mouth to tell Slim he needn’t squat down, she could hear fine from underneath the vehicle, a screech from the back door saved her. It wasn’t that she’d put Joe out of her mind, if that were possible—but she’d far rather keep her thoughts about him to herself. The mention of the Pearl Harbor attack still caused something in her to shrivel.
Joe, her high school beau, had been so proud of the Arizona. Being on that ship meant the world to him. Just yesterday, she’d finally tucked his last letter into the shoebox where she kept the rest. Thirty of them altogether, in his easy-to-read penmanship. He’d taken his English classes seriously and intended to become a history teacher someday.
For the life of her, she couldn’t see what good talking about that horrible attack did, but people seemed incapable of leaving it alone. Maybe because Joe was the first from town to give his life for the cause, they clung to the catastrophe. She supposed folks like Slim would still be chattering about Joe twenty years from now, but she focused on moving through each day and taking the memories that still inundated her one at a time.
The back door hinges whined again, and thankful for this reprieve, Glenora left Slim to study the metal piece he’d brought in. With singular intent, she scuttled across the dirt floor toward the back of the garage and caught her dad’s eye.
“Glad you’re home early, Dad. Slim’s out front with a tractor part I don’t recognize. I’ll run home and make us some lunch.” She slunk out the back way beyond the garbage barrels and made her way down the first line of rusting old trucks and cars in the otherwise empty lot.
The roof of their house showed through a pleasant grove of tall pines that blocked this half-acre from view—good to have a destination. Around her, birdsong and rustlings in the overgrown grass reminded her life still existed outside the garage, where she’d spent far too much time the past few months. She breathed deep of early summer—lilacs and honeysuckle still in the air. Soon enough, August would descend with its humidity.
But halfway down the row of cast-off cars, the thought of Joe perishing in those murky Pacific waters overcame her. She slid down the fender of a 1929 Model L-29 black Cord and leaned back into its solid warm metal. A few weeks earlier, she’d overheard Slim and Dad talking about her.
“She doin’ all right ‘bout Joe n’ everything?”
Probably Joe, handsome and as friendly as apple pie, would’ve found some other girl, pretty and petite, if he’d come back from the war. He showed her attention back in high school, but until he kissed her on their junior prom night, she thought he was just being nice to a lanky, awkward girl who hadn’t yet grown into her own body. His lips barely brushed hers, but she’d never forget that moment.
Joe knew full well she was almost two years older than him, having started school late and then losing a year to a bout with scarlet fever. He couldn’t miss the mass of freckles speckling her nose and outstanding cheekbones, and also knew that no boys were lined up to ask her out—with less than a hundred students in the whole high school, everyone knew.
She closed her eyes and clasped the locket Joe gave her later that summer after they watched the fireworks display down by the river. He’d walked her out back in their yard, and under the rose trellis, gave her their first real kiss. The tingle of his touch still burned Glenora’s lips. She’d just turned nineteen the week before, and believed she’d never experience anything like this.
“I know we’re young, but my mind’s made up, Glen. You’re the one for me.”
Looking into her eyes, Joe pulled out the locket with his picture inside. “With all the war talk, we can’t know what the future will bring, but this’ll remind you that you’re my girl, in case you ever forget.”
By that fall when he entered boot camp, Mama lay in her grave. And when some Iowa boys got called up early for duty in the Pacific, Joe was among them. No high school graduation...no senior prom.
Then came Pearl Harbor. Even though final word had been slow in coming, she’d known Joe had perished. But she went through the motions at school and took Mama’s place at home. Then, in February, Red signed up, too.
When the Principal notified her that Iowa State University had given her a scholarship, she could hardly rejoice. With Dad alone in the shop, how could she leave? He needed help, so of course, she plunged in right after graduation.
As for romance, she figured she’d had her chance. In a recessed corner of her heart, she sealed that compartment and marked it O-V-E-R.
Sunshine on the dilapidated Cord warmed her through, and Glenora shook herself back into the present. Better race home to make those sandwiches. She leaped over a straggly fence and up the three back porch steps. Inside the kitchen, she opened the Frigidaire and slapped together a quick meal. As on every other weekday, she carried the food to the garage in a brown paper bag, along with a quart jar of water from the kitchen pump.
Just in time to hear a snitch of conversation between Dad and Slim...he was still here? She paused on the threshold. “Got our nephew comin’ out t’ the farm, Roy. Back from the fight, wounded in the face and leg and spent the last few weeks convalescin’ out t’ Walter Reed, but now they’re releasin’ him.”
Dad scraped something along the cement, so Glenora lost some of Slim’s words. “...smart guy—always wanted to go into engineering. Wish he’d take advantage of the GI Bill n’ go down to Iowa State.”
“Makes sense.” Whatever it was Dad dragged, he timed it just right to block the first part of Slim’s reply, but not the rest.
“She still sweet on Joe Lundene?”
“Glenora keeps her thoughts to herself, like her mother. Strong women. Just wish Eleanore hadn’t caught that awful flu bug.”
“Yeah, tough times for you. Well, we might could use some help getting Hank back on his feet. You don’t s’pose...”
Glenora cleared her throat and banged the door open. Dad fiddled over Slim’s broken tractor part as Slim backed toward the front door, still jabbering away. “Prob’ly brought this on myself, Roy, tryin’ t’ fix that squeak, but a man’s gotta try, doncha know? ’Sides, you ain’t never failed me yet.”
“Nope.”
FOR SOME TIME, THE sign above the shop had needed repair. That was an understatement. Anybody driving down Main looking for Carson Garage would have a tough time. A violent May rainstorm had brought down a massive hard maple that narrowly missed the window. In mid-July sun, a jagged mark still curved right through the r in Carson. Arms akimbo, Glenora stared up at the open wound on her return trip from the post office.
“Maybe if I climbed up there and...” She opened the door, but turned when boot steps approached.
“Miss Carson?”
A giant of a man peered at her from at least ten inches above. She’d grown used to looking down at folks, but this fellow towered a full head beyond her five-feet-eleven, maybe more, and looked as though he could lift a tree by the roots if he had a mind to.
“Yes?”
He held out his hand, a worker’s hand, tough and muscled thick. His deep tan highlighted a slash across his left cheekbone, with white stitch marks embedded in the grown-over skin. The gouge meandered up between the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, before finding a home in the middle of his forehead.
“You may not remem...” He blinked and started over. “I’m Hank McCarthy. I knew your older brother Tom years ago.”
Try as she might, Glenora failed to dredge up a memory. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall...”
“I wouldn’t expect you to... I only came to my aunt and uncle’s for a month in the summer, but me and Tom got to know each other pretty well.”
Glenora looked away. The last thing he needed was someone staring at his scar. Then it came to her—this must be Slim and Minnie Anderson’s nephew. Dad mentioned something about Slim’s sister having trouble—the kind of trouble you only referred to, never described in full.
“She’s always been fidgety and flighty, doncha know, even as a little girl. But this—guess the doctor’s got a mind to send her down t’ Independence for a spell.” The name of that town, somewhere around Waterloo, always brought a shudder with it, since the state mental institution was there.
Something niggled at the back of Glenora’s mind, and she glanced up at this man’s raw, but kindly face. “Oh, wait—I think I do remember something—you and Tom went fishing a lot?”
Hank nodded. “That’s right.” He turned his farmer cap in fingers the size of the long johns Lucille Fletcher sold to Olsen’s Café.
“Tom left years ago to work for Hormel up in Austin, but he’d remember you, for sure. How can I help you?”
“Your father, ma’am—is he inside?”
Being called ma’am seemed peculiar, but Dad’s whistle from the shop reminded Glenora of her manners. “Yes. He’s finished with your uncle’s tractor part. Go right on in.”
The ramshackle door creaked open to a flood of thick greasy dust, tire rubber, and that nameless underlying scent Glenora attributed to the town stable being here for so many decades before Dad bought the place twenty years ago. Hank followed her, and she noticed he shut the door without a bang—not easy with its broken springs.
Dad peeked out from under a Studebaker’s hood. “Hello there, Hank. Welcome to the center of Halberton.”
Hank ‘s stiff bearing relaxed a bit as Dad waved him over. “Hear you’ve got some experience with engines. Would you mind taking a look under here, son?”
Soon, the two of them mulled over the motor. Glad to be out from under the hood herself, Glenora took the chance to work on the accounts. So Hank might work here? She wished Dad had given her fair warning, but then, when did he ever?
And heaven knew, they needed help. Even with gas rationing and the new speed limit, a never-ending stream of folks still required repairs. For one thing, the need for food for the troops had farmers increasing their production, which meant more tractor and truck breakdowns.
An ever-growing list of customers with broken items listed beside their names occupied the counter, front and center. Every morning, Dad shook his head over it. “Don’t see how we can whittle this down much today—gotta get finished with what we’ve already started.”
Accounts receivable showed seventeen unpaid jobs, plus all the ones Dad neglected to write down—if only people brought in their payments as promptly as they expected him to answer their pleas for help. He met himself coming and going, but already today, several men complained about how long they’d had to wait.
As usual, he calmed them down. “I’ll get to you soon’s I can.” He gestured to the five motors forming a pentagon on his left. “Got your engine lined up right over there, but fair’s fair.”
By late morning, a gaggle of customers, in addition to some who’d come in for the news, gathered in one corner. On this sunny July day, the temperature rose by the minute, so they sought the shop’s cool brick interior, just as they gathered around the pot-bellied stove during the winter months.
“Can’t believe we’re still breakin’ through them Normandy hedgerows.”
“But didja hear? Last night they said our boys captured St. Lo, and Saipan fell, too. More ‘n twenty-five thousand Japs killed. We’re on the win, fellas.”
“Our bombers made the diff’rence. Them air strikes done it for us in France. I’m figurin’ Al Hanson’s son mighta prob’ly been in on that one. Flies across the channel regular-like.”
Glenora wrote troops took St. Lo under July 18 on the wall calendar behind the counter. Even if she happened to miss a war report in the evenings, somebody would carry the latest in the next day.
Under the running board of a Studebaker, Hank’s huge boots stuck out a foot farther than Dad’s, so she took care to skirt them en route to the back door. Intermittent clinks, clunks, and exclamations provided certainty that the two of them would work out this mechanical puzzle in due time.
