Jimmy's Stars Read online

  Ellie ran upstairs, unzipping her skirt en route. She stuffed it under her bed until she could fix the hem, hoping Sal wouldn’t find it. Sal would be sure to snitch on her to Mom, just for meanness.

  But then Sal pretended Ellie’s half of the room didn’t exist. Sal’s bureau top held April Showers talcum powder, her pink celluloid dresser set – comb, brush, mirror – and a pink-framed picture of Frank Sinatra, all arranged just so.

  Ellie’s bureau top was a tangle of school papers, marbles and baseball cards. In the corner of the mirror frame, she had tucked the card of her favourite player, Arky Vaughan.

  “Traitor,” she said to Arky’s handsome cardboard face as she dug through the drawers for play clothes. Ellie would never get over him leaving the Pittsburgh Pirates, traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers. In her opinion, Arky should’ve quit baseball, rather than play for the rotten old Dodgers. Baseball season was not the same without Arky belting homers into the stands of Forbes Field.

  As she changed into dungarees and a jersey, Ellie caught sight of herself in the mirror, just to the left of Arky. That red blotch would be a blazing black eye by this time tomorrow.

  She tied her sneakers and galloped downstairs. Pop would be home soon from the post office. She didn’t want to run into him just now. But she knew that sooner or later she would have to explain this to her folks. Maybe she’d tell them she got hit by a softball.

  “Mom, I’m going to Stan’s,” she yelled from the cellar steps. She breathed in the sudsy smell of Rinso, along with the spidery mustiness of the basement.

  “Fine, dear,” said Mom. “Don’t forget to meet Jimmy’s streetcar.” Jimmy worked at Kaufmann’s, the big department store downtown, and took the Number 10 streetcar to and from work.

  “Don’t I always?” And I always will, thought Ellie with determination. So what if there is a war? It’s a million trillion miles away from Pittsburgh and Macken Street. And Jimmy and me.

  But as she crossed the street to the Kozelles’, Miss Deetch’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Cherish this time with your brother, Eleanor. You don’t know when he’ll be called into the service.

  Ellie shivered, and tried to forget Miss Deetch’s words as she hopped up Stan’s front steps. She punched shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits on the doorbell. The Kozelles had a modern push-button bell, unlike the McKelveys’ old-fashioned twirling bell handle.

  “Keep your shirt on,” Stan shouted from somewhere beyond the screen door. His grinning face appeared from behind the mesh. “You don’t look bad for somebody who got pasted by Victoria Gandeck,” he added, opening the door.

  “I got pasted?” Ellie gave Stan a playful shove. “Did she say that? The big liar!”

  Stan shoved her back. “Yeah, she said that. What I don’t get is why a shrimp like you would pick a fight with Victoria in the first place.”

  “Shrimp?” Ellie pretended to be insulted. “Look who’s talking.”

  “Are you saying I’m small?” Stan fake-sneered back. They broke up laughing. Stan wasn’t the smallest boy in the class. That was Oscar Jelinek, aka Jellyneck. Nor was he the biggest. That was Ralph Stankavitch, who had been left back so many times he was the only sixth grader who shaved.

  No, Stan was a middle-sized boy, with freckles, a friendly, beaver-toothed smile, and spectacles that he was supposed to wear and mostly didn’t.

  “How’m I ever going to be a pilot, wearing specs?” he’d gripe. “I’m training my eyes to be stronger.”

  “Train them elsewhere,” said Miss Granberry. “I expect you to see the blackboard.”

  This afternoon, Stan wasn’t wearing his glasses. Again.

  “Wanna play Monopoly?” he asked, reaching for the game in the hall closet.

  “Only if you wear your specs. I get tired of reading the cards to you.”

  “Oh, all right.” Stan handed Ellie the box as he fished the glasses from his shirt pocket.

  Mrs. Kozelle clicked into the living room in her spectator pumps, and snapped on the radio. “Time for my story,” she said, settling into an armchair with a knitting bag. “I always listen while supper is in the oven,” she added, as if apologizing for sitting down in her own house.

  I’m never going to be a housewife, thought Ellie. Nothing but work, work, work!

  “And now,” the announcer’s voice oozed, “it’s time for the trials and tribulations of Back Stage Wife.” An organist hit an ominous chord, followed by a fancy arpeggio.

  Stan rolled his eyes. “Too hot to play in here, anyway. Let’s go outside.”

  The two friends set up the game on the front porch floor, the chill of slick cement seeping through Ellie’s worn dungarees.

  “So really, why did you get into it with Victoria?” Stan counted out the Monopoly money.

  “She called Jimmy a slacker. I wasn’t gonna let her get away with that.”

  Stan sorted the property cards without looking at Ellie.

  “Well, aren’t you gonna say something?” she demanded. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “I guess,” said Stan. “But I bet he gets called slacker by adults all the time.”

  Ellie counted out the play money. “Why would they care if Jimmy’s in the service or not?”

  “It burns folks up to see someone like him safe at home, when their relatives are getting shot at. But Jimmy’ll probably get drafted now that your dad is back at work.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Her stomach had that hollow feeling again.

  They played a few turns in silence. Finally Stan said, “What’s with you? You’re acting all squirrelly.”

  “Nothing’s with me,” Ellie snapped. “I want to buy Marvin Gardens.”

  Stan flipped her the deed card. “You know what I think?”

  “I don’t care and it’s your turn.”

  “I think you don’t want Jimmy to go to war. And I’m going to buy Park Place.”

  “So what if I don’t?” Ellie said, rolling the dice.

  “Everybody’s going.” Stan pushed up his glasses. “The Army drafted my cousin Arnold and he’s got a wife, two kids and flat feet. If they took him, they’ll take anybody.” He squinted at the game board. “You owe me thirty-five dollars for landing on Park Place.”

  “And I’ve got doubles,” she said, grabbing the dice and rolling. “Maybe the draft board doesn’t know Pop’s back at work.”

  “Sure they know. If Jimmy didn’t tell them, he’d be in trouble. Going-to-jail kind of trouble.”

  “Jail? Really?” Ellie gulped. “Golly, I never thought of that.”

  Ellie passed Go and Stan handed her two hundred dollars.

  “Yeah, jail,” Stan said. “You’re nuts. I wish I had a brother who was going to go bomb the bejeebers out of the Japs.” He passed Go and collected his own two hundred.

  “Stanley!” Mrs. Kozelle shouted from the living room.

  “Sorry, Ma,” he yelled. Then to Ellie, “Don’t you want Jimmy to be a hero?”

  “No!” Ellie shook the dice and let them fly. They bounced off the game board and rolled under the porch glider. “What if he gets killed?”

  Stan retrieved the dice. “People we know don’t get killed.”

  “Bill Schmidt got killed,” Ellie pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t really know Bill. Not like we know Jimmy.”

  Stan had a point. The only person Ellie knew who had died was Grandpop McKelvey, and he had been very old.

  “I still don’t want him to go.” A softball-size lump lodged in Ellie’s throat. Only Jimmy thought she was smart and funny and as beautiful as Lana Turner, the movie star.

  Stan jiggled the dice in his hand. “I wouldn’t go around saying that, if I were you. People might get the idea you’re unpatriotic.”

  “Me? Unpatriotic? I buy war stamps. I collect metal for scrap drives.”

  “I don’t mean that kind of stuff.” Stan sounded solemn. “Look at all the kids we know with somebody in the war. We all must make our sacrifices.”
/>
  “You sound like Miss Granberry.” Meatless days and giving your skates to the scrap drive were sacrifices. People shouldn’t be sacrifices.

  But she could never tell anyone how she felt. No one would understand, not even her best friend.

  Right now, that best friend was staring over her shoulder with a funny look. Ellie followed his gaze to the sidewalk.

  “It’s just Sal,” she said with disgust.

  “Hey, Peanut,” Sal called. “Better get home and set the table. It’s your turn.”

  “Is not. It’s your turn,” Ellie hollered. “And don’t call me Peanut.” But Sal was already out of earshot, skirt sashaying, red-gold curls catching the sun.

  St. Matthew’s carillon bells tolled the hour, then played a hymn as they did every evening at six. “Rock of Ages” tonight. Time for Jimmy’s streetcar.

  “Gotta go, pal.” Ellie swiped the game pieces into the Monopoly box.

  “How come we never finish a game?” Stan said.

  “Beats me,” said Ellie, jumping off the porch steps. “Next time, okay?”

  The trees cast long shadows across the still-warm sidewalks as late afternoon became early evening. Delicious smells tickled Ellie’s nose. Creosote oozing from telephone poles. Asphalt bubbling around the trolley tracks. Supper cooking in a dozen different kitchens. Familiar, happy smells. Ignoring her sore knees, Ellie hopped through an abandoned hopscotch court on her way to the car stop.

  Because this was the very best time of the day.

  When Jimmy came home from work.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Pardon me, boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?” The jukebox music drifted through the screen door at Green’s Soda Fountain.

  “Pardon me, boy, is that the Number 10 trolley?” Ellie crowded her own words into the song. “Friday is payday, best day of the week.”

  Payday used to mean little surprises for Ellie from Jimmy: a roll of Lifesavers or a pack of Clark’s Teaberry gum. But those things disappeared with the war and sugar rationing. Payday now meant Saturday night movies with Jimmy. Ellie could happily spend the afternoon at the Liberty with Stan and the rest of the neighbourhood kids, go home for supper, then return with Jimmy to see the same movie at the evening show.

  She squinted at the Liberty marquee, two blocks away. Somewhere I’ll Find You starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner. Lana Turner. Jimmy would want to see that.

  Rumble-rattle-click. Ellie turned in time to see the Number 10 screech to a stop, and the door clank open. Jimmy jumped from the top step, jacket over his arm, a rolled Sun-Telegraph in hand. Behind him, Victoria’s father, Mr. Gandeck, lumbered off, mopping his broad face with a hanky.

  “Hi there, Movie Star,” said Jimmy, giving Ellie a one-armed hug. He smelled like Vitalis hair tonic, Mennen aftershave and downtown grit. A Jimmy sort of smell.

  “Hello, girlie,” said Mr. Gandeck. He fanned himself with his copy of the Telegraph. “Hot enough for you? How’s tricks in the sixth grade?”

  “Okay.” Ellie looked away, keeping her bruised eye out of sight.

  Mr. Gandeck socked Jimmy in the shoulder in a friendly way. “I’m gonna wet my whistle before I go home. Care to join me?” He waved a hammy hand towards the Do-Drop-Inn Tavern, across from Green’s.

  “No, thanks,” said Jimmy, jingling the change in his pocket. “Mom doesn’t like to wait supper.” Most of the neighbourhood men stopped for a beer on the way home, but not Jimmy or Pop.

  “Suit yourself,” said Mr. Gandeck. “It’s too hot to go home without a beer or two.” He plodded across the street as the streetcar rattled off around the corner.

  “A beer or three or six.” Jimmy winked at Ellie. “If I was married to Mrs. Gandeck, I might need a beer or two myself. Can that lady yell!”

  “And how!” Ellie agreed. In open-window weather, the McKelveys heard more of the Gandecks’ business than they cared to.

  Ellie tucked her hand into the crook of her brother’s arm. It really was too hot to be so close. But if she held on, maybe he wouldn’t go away.

  “Looks like the Liberty is showing a Lana picture,” Jimmy said. “Got any plans for Saturday night?”

  “Nope.” Ellie grinned up at her brother. Jimmy stopped short, shaking off her hand.

  “Let’s see that face.” He cupped her chin in his hand. “That wouldn’t be a black eye, would it?”

  “Um, I guess,” mumbled Ellie, wrenching free.

  “Have you been in a fight?” Jimmy sounded like Pop.

  “I guess.” She kicked a rock, sending it across the trolley tracks.

  “What do you mean, you guess? Either you were, or you weren’t.” Jimmy held her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Who with?”

  “Victoria,” Ellie admitted.

  “Are you nuts? Victoria’s as big as a Frigidaire. Why’d you fight her?”

  Ellie took a deep breath. “She called you a slacker.”

  Jimmy’s stern expression vanished. “And you had to defend my honour as a patriotic American, is that it?” He laughed and slapped his thigh with the rolled-up Telegraph.

  “It’s not funny,” said Ellie, a little hurt. Then she caught something in his laugh, a hard, almost bitter sound. Not like Jimmy at all.

  “You can tell Victoria your brother won’t be slacking much longer. Now, let’s get a move on. Mom wants us to stop at Hales’.” Jimmy strode off towards the butcher’s, Ellie galloping after him.

  “You mean you told the draft board about Pop?” Ellie panted as she struggled to keep up with Jimmy’s long stride.

  “Of course I did, kiddo,” said Jimmy. “It’s the law.”

  “Maybe they don’t need soldiers so awful bad,” Ellie suggested. “You should see Miss Granberry’s bulletin board.”

  “Miss Granberry?” Jimmy sounded puzzled, but like himself again.

  “She’s got photos of her old students in the service tacked to the bulletin board. Must be a hundred of ’em, at least.”

  “At least.” Jimmy’s hard-soled work shoes made a crisp, grown-up sound on the pavement, Ellie’s tennis shoes softly slapping on the offbeat. “She’s been teaching since Moses was in Sunday School. I thought she retired.”

  “She did,” said Ellie. “But a lot of teachers went to the war plants. So they called back the old teachers that aren’t dead, though Miss Granberry just about is.”

  “She taught Sal and me. Pop, too,” said Jimmy. “For all I know, she might’ve taught Grandpop McKelvey.” He smiled. “I like that.”

  “What? That she’s been teaching a million years?”

  “No. Her students on the bulletin board. Wherever they are, they’re still with Miss Granberry in Room Seven.” Jimmy paused. “Do me a favour?”

  “Sure.”

  “When I go away…”

  “But you aren’t going away,” Ellie protested.

  Jimmy squeezed her shoulder. “All right, if I go away, will you put my picture on Miss Granberry’s wall? A picture of me in uniform? I want to be there with all the rest.”

  Ellie nodded.

  “Shake on it? I’ve never known you to go back on a handshake.”

  Ellie shook.

  “Why so glum, chum?” Jimmy looped a casual arm around her neck. “Not everyone is Gary Cooper, mowing down hundreds of Germans single-handed. That’s just in the movies. I could wind up in a nice, boring job. Making soup or doing the payroll. Washing jeeps. They might not even give me a gun.”

  Ellie grinned. He was right. Somebody had to work in the office, cook the food.

  “There’s no telling where I’ll land. Army, Navy, the Marines, who knows?” Jimmy said.

  “Victoria’s brothers knew they were Marines before they left home,” she said.

  “The Gandecks volunteered for the Marines,” Jimmy said. “When Uncle Sam drafts you, you’re sent wherever you’re needed most.”

  “Oh.” Ellie gulped. Between the newsreels at the Liberty and Victoria’s bragging, Ellie kne
w the Marines were the first to land in an invasion. Dear God, not the Marines!

  “Here we are,” said Jimmy, pushing open Hales’ door. As always, Ellie did a little soft-shoe in the butcher shop sawdust, enjoying the clean, sharp smell.

  “Hi,” Trudy Hale called from behind the meat case. “Got your order all ready. Got them ration books, good lookin’?”

  “You betcha, beautiful,” said Jimmy, taking the books from his coat pocket.

  Trudy tore the coupons from the books and handed them back. Did Ellie imagine it, or did Jimmy’s fingers linger longer than necessary in Trudy’s hand? Jimmy called every female “beautiful”, even Ruthie Green, who was as plain as a mud fence. Ellie knew he was kidding. After all, he never called any of them “Movie Star”. But the way he looked at Trudy…this was different.

  Ellie thought he might say more, but just then, Mrs. Gandeck blew through the door.

  “Hear you have brisket today,” she hollered before the door banged behind her. “Give me what you’ve got.” Catching sight of Jimmy, she added, “Jim McKelvey, was Mr. Gandeck on your streetcar this evening?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jimmy, winking at Ellie and Trudy. “I think he stopped somewhere on the way home.”

  Mrs. Gandeck scowled. “I’ll just bet he did!” Then she caught sight of Ellie’s face. “Where did you get that black eye, young lady? Funny thing, my Victoria came home with one too.”

  “Is that so?” Jimmy scooped the paper-wrapped meat from the counter and nudged Ellie towards the door. “Be seeing you, Trudy,” he called.

  “Be seeing you, handsome,” Trudy called back.

  “Poor Mr. Gandeck,” said Jimmy. “It’s going to be loud across the alley tonight.”

  “Yeah,” said Ellie. But her mind wasn’t on their noisy neighbours. “Is Trudy your girlfriend?”

  Jimmy considered for a moment. “If I had a girlfriend, it would be Trudy. But girlfriends take time and money, and I don’t have much of either. And if I do go in the service, it wouldn’t be fair to tie a girl to me. For now, you’re my best girl.”