Secrets of the Red Box Read online

  Chapter 5

  The dream was a jumble of vignettes, glimpses of her mother, fleeting moments long past. She dreamed about the time when she was five years old and her mother was cowered on the floor, her arms shielding her head. She’d run to her mother’s side and glared up at her father with squinted eyes and bold courage. “Don’t hit my mama!” she yelled with defiance. Her father laughed and swatted her away like an annoying gnat.

  In her dream, this time the outcome had been different. She’d flung her adult self at her father, beating him with her fists, pounding at his head again and again. Her assault was relentless; her anger so heated she felt as though she could annihilate him with the very fire of it. But there was no blood, damage, or evidence of any victory. Instead, he laughed at her attempts to wound him, repelling her attack with casual indifference.

  Bonnie’s eyes flew open with a start, her fists gnarled into tight bundles of frustration. Her heart drummed out a wild rhythm in her chest as she tried to focus in the dim light of her hotel room. She sat up and eased her breathing, calming herself from the dream.

  An urgent need to hear her mother’s voice began to rise within her, feeding upon the disturbed remnants of her past. Bonnie had to call, had to absorb that tiny bit of reassurance she might find in speaking to her mother.

  She lifted the handset, asked for a long-distance operator, and waited to provide the number. Bonnie started to return the receiver to its place, changing her mind, then pulled it back to her ear.

  She heard the operator come on the line, and she gave her the number. The phone rang and Bonnie began to lose her nerve. She heard a click and an electric crackle over the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Mama? It’s Bonnie.”

  “Bonnie? Bonnie Blue?” There was a long pause. “It’s been so long…how are you, baby?”

  Bonnie found herself choking back tears. She hadn’t heard her mother call her Bonnie Blue in years. As a southerner, her mother had told Bonnie her eyes were as blue as the Confederate Bonnie Blue flag. It had always been used as a term of endearment. Hearing that now touched her in an unexpected way.

  “I’m fine, Mama. It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “Yours too, baby. Are you well?”

  “Sure, fine. How are you? You sound tired.”

  Bonnie heard a faint sigh on the other end of the line. “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well last night. That’s all.”

  She wanted to ask why, but was too afraid of the answer. “Are you still feeding that stray dog? What was it you called him—Hobo?”

  “No. He stopped coming around about a month ago. I don’t know what happened to him. Just as well, though…you know how your father feels about animals.”

  Bonnie winced. She remembered when he’d swerved the truck on purpose to hit a cat crossing the road. The sound of his laughter still sent a chill down her spine. “Mama, I’m in Omaha now,” she said. “I have a job and it’s really good here.”

  “I’m glad for you.”

  “Listen, Mama, I want you to come live with me. I have plenty of money for a bus ticket or, a train ticket. Ican wire the money to you . . .”

  There was no response on the other end. Bonnie held the receiver closer to her mouth. “Mama? Did you hear me? I want you to come to Omaha.”

  Another thick pause fell between them, the hum of the long-distance cable filling the silence. “I can’t do that, baby. You know I can’t.”

  “But you can,” she urged, her emotions beginning to overpower her. “It’s easy, Mama. Just throw a few things together and leave when he isn’t home.”

  More silence and Bonnie knew there was no coaxing her mother to leave, nothing she could say to convince her otherwise. She held her breath a moment and collected her feelings. She cursed her damnable dream, the thing that had dredged up so many ugly memories, so much unfinished business.

  “Listen,” she said. “At least come for a visit then. He’ll let you do that, won’t he?” The sound of her voice surprised her. It was the sound of a child’s, a small, wounded child.

  “No, baby, I’d better not. But it was sure good to hear from you. I’m glad you’re doing all right. Call again sometime.”

  “Mama, wait, don’t hang up. Mama—”

  The hissing crackle of the line went dead, and the tender feelings resurrected by a dream went dead as well.

  ///////

  Bonnie clocked out for lunch and took the elevator to the fifth floor of the Rose Building. When the doors parted she stepped onto the polished marble floor of the hallway leading to the offices of Johnson, Peck and Sutter. Everything gleamed, from the frosted glass doors leading to the offices, to the crystal chandelier in the reception area. A receptionist sat behind a glass-topped desk, her pad and pencil lined up in precise order before her, the telephone directly to her right. Bonnie gave her a smile. “Can I go back?”

  The young receptionist returned the smile. “You’re looking for Christine, right?” Bonnie nodded. “Sure, go on back.”

  Bonnie located the office where Christine worked and gave her a friendly smile as she approached her desk. “Hi there, Christine.”

  “Bonnie!” she exclaimed. “How’s the newest operator in the Rose Building?”

  Bonnie tucked her purse beneath her arm and slipped on her gloves. “Great. I just stopped by to see if you could come to lunch.”

  Christine glanced at her watch and frowned. “Well, let me check with Mr. Sutter.”

  “Sutter? Of Johnson, Peck, and Sutter?”

  “Junior,” Christine added and smiled. “Be right back.”

  Bonnie let her eyes roam about the office with its dark paneled walls and paintings of woodlands. A deep burgundy leather sofa graced one wall opposite Christine’s desk, and there was a bookshelf filled with framed awards, statuettes, and musty books. The atmosphere, and surely the pay, she thought, was superior to the noisy din of the exchange. Maybe I should go to secretarial school…

  “All set,” Christine said, opening a drawer of her desk to retrieve her purse.

  Christine led Bonnie along 16th Street until they came to F. W. Woolworth. She opened the glass door and turned to Bonnie. “The lunch counter is fast and cheap,” she said with a congenial laugh. “And they make a good cup of coffee.”

  Bonnie and Christine waded through the shoppers, past aisles of kitchen goods and bolts of fabric, stationery, and children’s toys. The smell of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air like a scented trail leading to the luncheonette. The length of the lunch counter sparkled with chrome and bright lighting. Christine spotted two empty chrome-backed stools and hurried forward before they were taken. “We’re lucky,” she said, swiveling the stool and dropping her body onto it unceremoniously. “Sometimes you have to wait.”

  Bonnie sat beside her and reached for a menu tucked away behind the sugar and salt and pepper. “I got an apartment,” she announced.

  Christine smiled and opened her menu. “Good. Where’d you end up?”

  “The Drake.”

  “That’s pretty expensive, isn’t it?”

  Bonnie couldn’t tip her hand about the money she’d brought with her from San Diego, and she didn’t earn enough from the exchange job to warrant the expensive apartment. She ran her finger over her earlobe. “Well, yes, but I have the money from Jimmy’s life insurance—”

  Christine saw the waitress pause in front of them, her order pad in hand. “I’ll have a tuna sandwich and a strawberry shake.”

  Bonnie couldn’t abide the sight of a strawberry. Just the smell of them sent her stomach roiling. She could still feel their sticky juice clinging to her fingers when she pinched the fruit too hard as it was picked. For every strawberry she ruined, it was another strike against her, another excuse to feel her father’s wrath.

  Bonnie sat in the shade of the truck bed to escape the brutal heat. She held the hem of her dirty, ragged dress in her fingers and manipulated the fabric until it resembled a make-believe doll.
She hummed softly to herself, imagining the doll imbued with curly hair, blinking eyes, and a chattering voice.

  All around her, bent and aching bodies trudged up and down the endless rows of strawberries, picking and packing the crimson fruit beneath the broiling California sun. She turned her head and saw her mother’sfrail frame hovering over the plants of ripened fruit, her fingernails lined with dirt, her hair tied into a scarf and topped with a wide-brimmed straw hat. She saw her mother pause a moment and drag her arm across her sweaty forehead, heave a sigh, and return to the harvest.

  Bonnie kept a wary eye peeled for her father. She knew that her stolen moment in the shade of the truck was a danger, but she was exhausted and overheated. She’d worked all morning until her back ached so much she could barely stand the pain. She wondered how her mother could continue for so many hours each day.

  With her attention on her mother, Bonnie failed to see the set of boots land next to her. She jerked her head in panic at the sound and pulled her legs up to her chest in a defensive posture. The man squatted in front of her, and Bonnie smiled and relaxed. “Hi, Pablo.”

  “Hola, Miss Bonnie.” He smiled. His dark eyes were friendly. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the grimy sweat from his brow. “Should you be here?”

  Bonnie cast her eyes to the dirt and slowly shook her head.

  “It is very hot, I know, but you should not anger your papa, no?”

  Bonnie felt a surge of guilt. “I’m just so hot, Pablo.”

  “I know. It is hard work, especially for a little girl.”

  Bonnie cocked her head to one side. “You know what I wish, Pablo? I wish I were a princes s, Princess of Strawberry Land. And no one would have to pick them. If you wanted to eat them, you could just take as many as you wanted and then sit in the shade and drink lemonade. And I would be rich, so I’d never have to work again.”

  Pablo smiled and licked his parched lips. “That is a very nice wish. Maybe someday it will come true.”

  Bonnie’s eyes widened at the prospect. “Do you think so, Pablo?”

  “Maybe,” he said, stuffing his moist handkerchief into his pocket. “But until then, we haveto work, no?”

  “And when I am princess,” she continued, “you can be a knight in my court and you’ll never have to work again either.”

  Pablo laughed quietly. “Si, I will be Sir Pabloand will serve you gladly, my princess.”

  Bonnie giggled.

  Pablo stretched out his brown hand to her. “Now, come on, we have work to do.”

  Bonnie slipped her hand into his and let him help her to her feet. She brushed the dirt from the back of her dress and picked up her straw hat.

  “You know what else I wish?” she asked, peering up at him with longing. “I wish you were my father.”

  Pablo lowered his gaze ,then squatted in front of her. He brushed a lock of her golden hair from off her forehead. “I wish I had a little girl like you,” he said softly.

  “Bonnie!”

  Bonnie froze and her eyes darted up at her father. She glanced at Pablo as if he might somehow help her avoid her father’s wrath. Then Bonnie winced as her father’s meaty hand grabbed her around the back of the neck. Her shoulders hunched up in reflex to the painful grip.

  “What did I tell you about leaving the fields?” he barked while shaking her.

  His grip tightened and Bonnie began to whimper.

  Pablo squared his shoulders and faced Bonnie’s father. “It is my fault, Señor Murphy. I came to get water and started talking to her.”

  He grunted, but failed to releaseBonnie. “I don’t need your excuses. She knows what she’s supposed to do.”

  “But Señor, she is only eight years old—”

  “I know how old she is,” he shouted. “She eats just like the rest of us, don’t she? It takes all our wages just to get by. I swear to God, if I could, I’d get rid of her once and for all.”

  Tears began to stream down Bonnie’s face, but she tried to hold in her cries of pain and fear. She peered up at Pablo, praying he would help her.

  Pablo glowered at him, stepping in front of Bonnie as if to shield her. “Let her go, Señor Murphy. This is not her fault—”

  He shoved Pablo aside as his thick hand released her with a forceful thrust, sending her off balance as she stumbled forward. “Get out there, and if I catch you lollygagging again, you’ll wishyou’d never been born.”

  He jabbed his finger into Pablo’s chest and glared menacingly at him. “And you’d better mind your own business. Get my meaning?”

  Pablo nodded and clenched his jaw. “Si, Señor Murphy.”

  Blinded by tears, Bonnie staggered into the strawberry fields, the back of her neck throbbing. She scanned the acres of cool green foliage, weighed down with their succulent fruit, and saw nothing but sky and endless rows of strawberries. She wanted to run, to escape to a place where there was no sun, no work, no pain. She wished her father were dead, that his body lay rotting in the hot sun, that vultures were circling about him ready to peck out his eyes.

  She located the row her mother was working and dropped to the ground beside her. “Mama,” she sobbed. “Mama…”

  Her mother took scant notice of her daughter. Her fingers continued to work, her body numb with pain. “Why aren’t you picking?” she asked. Her voice was flat and unemotional.

  “Mama, please take me away,” she begged softly. “Please, can’t we just go? Just you and me…”

  Jean continued to pick the strawberries. “Bonnie, I’ve no time for this,” she said. “I have to finish this row before sundown. Now go on and get busy.”

  For a moment, she wished her mother lay beside her father in the baking sun, the vultures waiting to devour them both.

  The impatient voice of the waitress jarred Bonnie from her memory. “What about you?” the woman asked.

  Bonnie closed her menu. “Ham sandwich and a cup of coffee.”

  The waitress spun and hurried off. Christine leaned toward Bonnie, the noise of the busy lunch counter echoing through the high ceilings of the store.

  “I hope the ham isn’t fatty,” Bonnie said.

  Christine picked up her spoon and twirled it between her fingers. “So, how is work going?”

  The waitress dropped a strawberry shake and a cup of coffee in front of them as if she were a dive bomber, swooping in, depositing her payload, and swooping off again.

  Bonnie reached for the sugar. “It’s good. I met an interesting man the other night,” she said swiveling on her stool to better face Christine. “A very handsome man.”

  Christine’s hazel eyes glowed with interest. She leaned her elbows on the counter and peered at Bonnie. “Tell me more. How’d you meet him?”

  Bonnie had no idea why she’d brought up the topic. She wasn’t even going to see Dave Miller again, but she supposed Christine didn’t have to know that. Yet she was committed now, wasn’t she? The fact that Dave was just a plumber and driving cabs at night didn’t sound all that appealing. It wasn’t very glamorous, she thought. “I was walking from the lobby of the hotel, not paying attention because I was searching for something in my purse, when all of a sudden, I walked right into someone. I dropped my purse and everything scattered. I was so embarrassed and bent down to pick up my things. He bent down to help me, apologizing for not seeing me. Well, it was just like in the movies,” she said. “I reached for the lipstick, he reached for the lipstick, and our hands met.”

  Christine laughed and churned her hand in a rolling motion. “And?”

  “And when I stood up to face him, we both smiled, and something seemed to click.”

  Christine gave her a mischievous grin. “Then what happened?”

  “He introduced himself and offered to buy me dinner. He said it was entirely his fault we collided and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  Christine sucked in her breath. “And you had dinner with him?”

  “At first I wasn’t going to, but there was something
about his eyes. Well, next thing I know we’re dining in the Vineyard Cafe, laughing and talking and drinking wine.”

  Laughing, Christine swiveled on the stool and leaned closer to Bonnie. “So what’s he like? What does he do? Is he single?”

  Bonnie paused as the sandwiches were delivered in the same abrupt manner as the drinks had been. “He’s very funny. His name is Dave and he works for Union Pacific…something to do with…I don’t know, I can’t remember. Whatever he does, the military granted him a deferment, so it must be pretty important. Anyway, it turns out he’s from North Dakota and I’m from North Dakota—”

  “Wait,” Christine said, her eyes focused on Bonnie as if trying to read her thoughts. “You said you were born in Nebraska, and that your family moved to New York. You didn’t say anything about North Dakota.”

  Bonnie didn’t skip a beat. “Well, I didn’t mention that we moved from Omaha to North Dakota first and then we went to New York.”

  Christine waved a hand. “Oh, okay. So, back to Dave.”

  Bonnie sighed dreamily and picked at the ham extended over the crusts of bread. “We talked and talked—we have so much in common. And he’s such a gentleman. He took out two cigarettes and lit them both, then handed one to me, just like Paul Henried did for Bette Davis in Now, Voyager. Isn’t that wild?”

  “Just like in the movies,” Christine sighed.

  Bonnie gave a little laugh. “Except I don’t smoke. It was a little awkward, but I took the cigarette so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. Anyway, we have a date for this Saturday.”

  Christine picked up her tuna sandwich. “Oh, Bonnie, I’m so happy for you. If I weren’t waiting for Joe, I’d ask if he had a brother on deferment.” She laughed and bit into the sandwich. ///////

  Bonnie opened the phone book and ran her finger down the page. She found the listing she was looking for and dialed it.

  “Checker Cab, how may I help you?” said a staid voice over the line.

  “Is Dave Miller there?”

  “No, he doesn’t come in until eight.”

  “Would you tell him to meet Bonnie at the secondhand store on Farnum tomorrow at four o’clock?”