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17
Peggy
JULY 1946
Three days after Donna told me about the job at the pharmacy, I dressed in my Sunday best and walked into town to apply for it. My anxiety mushroomed as I got closer to the store until I could feel the pressure building in my chest, squeezing my lungs. I hadn’t reacted this way when I’d applied at the IBM factory, but then I had been just one among hundreds of women. I didn’t know any of the others and they hadn’t known me. And I had wanted to help win the war.
A chime sounded when I opened the door. Joanie Edmonds stood behind the counter, straightening a display of Life Savers. She cocked her head to the side in her perky way and smiled her perfect smile. “May I help you, miss?”
Was it possible that she didn’t recognize me? I couldn’t remember the last time we’d seen each other. Probably not since high school. I usually shopped in neighboring villages to avoid meeting people from town. “I heard you’re looking for someone to work here,” I said. “I’m Peggy Serrano.” Joanie stared at me, her smile frozen as if she couldn’t put the familiar name and the unfamiliar face together. I nearly turned around and bolted from the store. Then her eyes widened and she suddenly seemed to recognize the “dog girl” behind the adult facade.
“Oh! Right! Peggy! Of course. I’ll get you an application.” She disappeared into the back. I drew a deep breath and took a moment to look around. The ceiling seemed close enough to touch, the neon lights humming and glowing with an unnatural bluish light. Display shelves crowded together, jam-packed with items like Pepto-Bismol and aspirin and Alka-Seltzer. Two barefoot boys stood beside a rack of magazines near the front window, thumbing through the comic books. I glimpsed Mr. Edmonds behind the window of his raised office, wearing a white jacket and dark-rimmed glasses as he filled prescriptions. A teenage couple sat on swiveling stools at the soda fountain, gazing into each other’s eyes and sipping from the same malted milk through two straws.
My panic soared. I couldn’t spend eight hours a day trapped in here, smiling at customers and making ice cream sodas. I was used to the outdoors, with open spaces and views of the mountains. When I had worked for Pop, I never stayed in his office a moment longer than I had to. And the only reason I could work inside the IBM plant all day was because I had wanted to help win the war.
Joanie returned with the application and a pen. “You can sit at the soda fountain and fill it out if you want to, Peggy.” She emphasized my name as if to let me know that she recognized me now. I wondered if she was going to bark and howl at me like she used to do.
My hand shook as I took the application from her. “Thanks. I’ll fill it out at home and bring it back.”
My hands were still shaking when I got home. I fixed myself a glass of Kool-Aid and sat in the backyard with Buster to read through the application. They wanted to know about my education and my work experience, and I was supposed to list three people as references. I had gotten no further than filling in my name and birth date when Joe came around from the garage in his coveralls, a bottle of beer in his hand.
“I’m taking a little break,” he said, lifting the bottle. He tapped it against my glass of Kool-Aid as if we were toasting and sat down on the apartment steps. He purchased his own six-packs of beer now and drank it warm rather than trying to limp up and down the steps to our refrigerator every time he wanted one. “Hey, they drink their beer warm over in Europe,” he had explained. “You get used to it.” Joe still worked in the garage with Pop even though he must have enough money for gas by now. Every day I wondered when he would take off and if I would ever see him again.
“Hey, what you got there?” he asked.
“It’s an application for the job at the pharmacy.”
“You don’t sound too excited about it.”
“I’m not. I’m no good around people, Joe. I’ve been alone too long. And I hate the idea of being cooped up inside that lousy store all day.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“I need a job. A full-time one. Donna wants me to move out so she can have the apartment and Pop all to herself.”
He shook his head, staring down at his feet. “She doesn’t treat you right.”
“Pop is on her side. He says it’s time I moved out on my own, and I know he’s right. I’m not a kid anymore.” I needed to change the subject before I got teary. I didn’t want Joe’s pity. “By the way, you’re still planning to go to Mitch O’Hara’s memorial service on Sunday, right? Jimmy’s father is getting him out of the hospital for the day. Frank Cishek and Chaplain Bill will be there, and I think a few more of your old buddies, too.”
“Yeah, sure.” Joe didn’t sound very enthusiastic. I watched him drain the bottle in two more gulps.
“You knew Mitch, didn’t you?”
“Heck of a nice guy. He didn’t deserve what he got.”
“I’m really hoping that honoring him and taking time to grieve for him will help Jimmy somehow. Maybe he’ll start responding to people again or at least tell us what’s causing his nightmares. When we talked with Jimmy’s doctor at the VA the other day, he told us they’re doing surgery on veterans’ brains now, supposedly to cure their battle fatigue—”
Joe sprang to his feet, interrupting me. “Don’t let them do that to Jim! I’ve seen some of those guys who had their brains cut in half.”
“A lobotomy?”
“Yeah. The guys who had it done shuffled around as if they were sleepwalking! I didn’t know any of them before the war, but it seemed pretty clear to me that there was nothing left of them now. Jim would be better off dead! Don’t let them do it!”
The idea that Jimmy would be in a daze for the rest of his life made me shiver. My heart went out to the men who’d had the surgery. And to their families. “Jimmy’s father spoke right up and told the doctor that he’d never allow it. But Dr. Morgan seemed to think it was the only way Jimmy would ever be able to come home again. I know how much you hated it there in the hospital and I can’t stand the thought of him—”
“Hey, it’s time to get him out of there. If I can get better on my own, Jim can, too.”
But was Joe really getting better? He drank too much, he still had nightmares, he rode around the country aimlessly on his motorcycle, and his future seemed as pointless as mine. I remembered Dr. Greenberg saying that his job and his family kept him moving forward, and I realized that I’d never asked Joe about his family or what he’d done before the war. Did he have any dreams for his future back then?
