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"If I don't find Ocean View or Homer Wells," Melony said.
"So I'll see you next wint
er," Lorna said. "You're lettin' a man make an asshole out of you."
"That's just what I'm not lettin' him do," Melony said.
Mrs. Grogan's coat had seen better days, but the bundle of belongings contained within the grasp of Charley's belt had grown substantially. Melony had made money in the shipyards, and she'd treated herself to a few sturdy articles of a workingman's clothing, including a good pair of boots. Lorna gave her a present as she was leaving.
"I used to knit," Lorna explained. It was a child's woolen mitten--just the left-hand mitten--and too small for Melony, but the colors were very pretty. "It was gonna be for a baby I never had, 'cause I didn't stay married long enough. I never got the right hand finished." Melony stared at the mitten, which she held in her hand--the mitten was very heavy; it was full of ball bearings that Lorna had swiped from the shipyards. "It's a super weapon," Lorna explained, "in case you meet anyone who's a bigger asshole than you are!"
The gift brought tears to Melony's eyes, and the women hugged each other good-bye. Melony left Bath without saying good-bye to young Mary Agnes Cork, who would have done anything to please her, who asked all her school friends--and everyone who appeared at Ted and Patty Callahan's to browse the antiques--if any of them had ever heard of an apple orchard called Ocean View. If this knowledge might make Melony her friend, Mary Agnes Cork would never stop inquiring. After Melony left Bath, Lorna realized how much she missed her friend; Lorna discovered that she was asking about Ocean View all the time--as if this inquiry was as necessary and loyal a part of her friendship with Melony as the gift of that woolen weapon.
This meant that now there were three of them, all looking for Homer Wells.
That summer they moved Wally from San Antonio to Coleman, Texas. "I wish someone would declare war on Texas," he wrote Homer. "That might be some justification for being here." He claimed he was flying in his undershorts and socks--that was all any of them could stand to wear in such unrelenting heat.
"Where does he think he's going?" Candy complained to Homer. "Does he expect a perfect climate? He's going to a war!" Homer sat opposite her on Ray Kendall's dock, the snail population forever influenced by their conversation.
In the cool cement-floor classroom at Cape Kenneth High, Homer would unroll the map of the world; there would rarely be anyone present besides the janitor, who was no better informed about geography than Homer Wells. Homer used the summer solitude to study the places of the world where he thought it would be likely that Wally would go.
Once Mr. Hood surprised him in his studies. Perhaps Mr. Hood was visiting his old classroom out of nostalgia, or perhaps it was time to place an order for the next year's rabbits.
"I suppose you'll be enlisting," Mr. Hood said to Homer.
"No, sir," Homer said. "I've got a bad heart--pulmonary valve stenosis."
Mr. Hood stared at Homer's chest; Homer knew that the man had eyes for rabbits only--and not very sharp eyes, at that. "You had a heart murmur, from birth?" Mr. Hood asked.
"Yes, sir," Homer said.
"And do you still have a murmur?" Mr. Hood asked.
"Not much of one, not anymore," Homer said.
"That's not such a bad heart, then," Mr. Hood said encouragingly.
But why would Homer Wells feel that Mr. Hood was an authority? He couldn't keep his uteri straight; he didn't know rabbits from sheep.
Even the migrants were different that harvest--they were both older and younger; the men in their prime had enlisted, except for Mr. Rose.
"Slim pickin's for pickers this year," he told Olive. "There's too many fools think the war's more interestin' than pickin' apples."
"Yes, I know," Olive said. "You don't have to tell me about it."
That harvest there was a woman Mr. Rose called Mama, although she wasn't old enough to be any of their mothers. Her allegiance seemed quite exclusively assigned to Mr. Rose; Homer knew this because the woman did what she wanted to do--she picked a little, when she felt like it or when Mr. Rose suggested it; she cooked a little, but she was not the cook every night, and she was not everyone's cook. Some nights she even sat on the roof, but only when Mr. Rose sat there with her. She was a tall, heavy young woman with a deliberate slowness that made her movements seem copied from Mr. Rose, and she wore a nearly constant smile that was not quite relaxed and not quite smirking--also copied from Mr. Rose.
It surprised Homer that no special sleeping arrangements were made regarding the woman; she had her own bed, next to Mr. Rose, but no attempt was made to curtain-off their beds or otherwise construct a little privacy. There was only this: every once in a while, when Homer would drive by the cider house, he would note that everyone except Mr. Rose and his woman was either standing outside the house or sitting on the roof. That must have been their time together, and Mr. Rose must have orchestrated those meetings as deliberately as he appeared to direct everything else.
There was a ban on shore lights by the end of that summer; there was no Ferris wheel to watch at night, no magic lights to call by other names, but these blackout conditions didn't keep the pickers off the roof. They would sit in the dark, looking at the dark, and Mr. Rose would say, "It used to be over there--it was much higher than this roof, and brighter than all the stars if you hitched the stars all together. It went 'round and 'round," Mr. Rose would say, the tall, heavy woman leaning against him, the dark heads above the roofline nodding. "Now there's stuff out there, under the ocean--stuff with bombs, underwater guns. That stuff knows when there's a light on, and the bombs get drawn to the lights--like metal to them magnets. It happens automatically."
"There's no people, holding no triggers?" someone asked.
"There's no triggers," said Mr. Rose. "Everythin's automatic. But there's people. They just there to look the stuff over, make sure it work right."
"There's people out there, under the ocean?" someone asked.
"Sure," said Mr. Rose. "Lots of people. They real smart. They got this stuff so they can see you."
