Gerald Again
The high heels gave me blisters and aching toes, and I spend the afternoon soaking my feet, while Grandpa takes a walk. Daddy can’t expect me to watch him everyminute.
It’s near supper time when Grandpa comes back. “We’s goin’ to a restaurant,” he says, “so dress proper.”
“Can I wear my old shoes?” I extend a red, blistered foot.
“The soakin’ done ‘em good. Ya kin wear the new shoes fer one supper.”
The restaurant seems a dab fancy, but smells of good food. After walking the battlefield, I’m empty as a bull’s milking pail. I study a menu and order pork chops.
While we wait for our food, Gerald Simms walks through the door, a small nosegay of bluebells in his hand. His eyes dart around the room, and he comes to our table.
He extends the bouquet. “Virginia bluebells for the lovely Virginia.”
Not accustomed to the attentions of a gentleman, I am flustered. Accepting the flowers with a thank you would be proper, but proper does not occur to me. “Where’d you find bluebells this deep into June?”
His laugh is polite. “One can find many kinds of flowers in a shop.” I reckon one’s funds arrived from one’s father.
He extends the flowers again. I take them, hoping he can’t see how my hands shake like prickly-ash leaves in the wind.
“Care ta join us fer supper?” Grandpa offers. Before the last word is out of his mouth, a man brings a third chair to our table. Grandpa’s politeness makes me look downright uncivil. I almost feel the stab of Mama’s fingernail between my shoulders.
It’s hard to eat pork chops with Gerald Simms’ eyes on me. My knife and fork feel clumsy in my hands, and I swallow a chewy piece of fat I would’ve spit out were it just Grandpa and me. Mr. Simms eats soup without slurping.
As Grandpa pays the waiter, Mr. Simms stands, extends his elbow to me, and asks if he can “escort” me back to the hotel. Grandpa nods permission, so I slide my hand through the crook of Simms’ elbow.
We stroll down the Gettysburg sidewalk, Grandpa’s footsteps clicking behind us. The sound both comforts and flusters me.
Simms pulls a sack of gumdrops from his pocket and offers them to me. I don’t know whether to take the bag or reach in for one gumdrop. I take two. As we walk, I partly listen to Gerald while I pay mind to my every breath, every step, and the coarse feel of his sleeve beneath my fingers.
At the hotel door, before I take my hand from his arm, he strokes my fingers. I jump at his touch. He laughs and gives me the sack of gumdrops.
“Wouldn’t you like some?” I offer.
“No, thank you. Sweets to the sweet.”
“That’s from Hamlet.” I’m thankful Mama made me read Shakespeare, glad I can finally say something intelligent.
He pats my hand. “Perhaps tomorrow we can take that flivver ride.” Even in the shadow of the hotel, his smile beams.
“You’ll have to ask Grandpa.” I say Goodnight and carry my flowers inside while Grandpa speaks with Mr. Simms. By the time Grandpa comes to the room, the flowers are in water and the gumdrops eaten.
“Simms seems right took with ya,” he says.
“I reckon he was being a gentleman.”
“Does look like a gentleman.” He strokes his beard and touches the bowed head of a bluebell.
“Come mornin’ I’ll take ya ta where you’ll stay whilst I’m at the Reunion.”
“I thought we’re staying together.”
“Cain’t have a girl a-stayin’ with old soldiers.”
Grandpa perplexes me something fierce. He tells me one thing, and quicker than a minnow flits through water, he says something different. If his haints have found him, it might be good for him to stay with other veterans. But I will be uneasy away from him.
Something else makes me uneasy. Gerald Simms came upon us this evening, flowers in hand. How did he know where we’d be?
Virginia Lee Kent
Grandpa sleeps late again on Thursday. I slip a few coins from his pocket and sneak out to the bakery. I buy a pastry filled with raspberry jam. With nobody to tell me not to, I lick my fingers and take joy in it.
I stuff the rest of the pastry in my mouth and reach for the doorknob. The door flies open in front of me, and I am greeted by the same young man who stood here yesterday.
His mouth stretches into its gap-toothed grin. “So you went inside today. You talking yet?”
I can’t smile proper with my mouth full of crust and jam. I surely can’t talk. I shake my head and hurry back to the hotel.
Grandpa wakes as I slip into the room. He believes I have been to the water closet.
After breakfast, Gerald Simms comes by with a bouquet of pinkish foxglove. His attentions make me giddy, but his familiarity discombobulates me. Grandpa hovers close, but Gerald throws out sweet talk and compliments with no mind who hears.
I pine to see more of Gettysburg, but time with Gerald eats right through morning and takes a sizable bite from afternoon. That slicked-back man could talk water right out of the creek bed. Even Grandpa seems taken.
Gerald offers me a ride in his automobile. I yearn to go, but Grandpa doesn’t care for horseless buggies and makes no promises.
