Bab 2: Chapter 2
Harvey grinned. Same old Zach.
“Don’t just stand there.” He stepped back and out of the way, holding the door open wider. “Get in here. Tell me what you’ve been doing. You want some coffee? I can put on a fresh pot.”
“Coffee would be great, thank you. It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here. How can you stand it?”
“This? This is nothing. We’ll be seeing snowdrifts before Thanksgiving, I’ll betcha.” Harvey shut the door and beckoned Zach to follow him through the house to the kitchen. “You must’ve gone back out to California after you got out. Your blood’s gone thin again.”
“Back to Anaheim,” Zach confirmed as they stepped into the much warmer kitchen. He shrugged off his coat and settled at the table. His attention darted around the room as he took in his surroundings, but then settled on Harvey once again. “I think the last time I was this cold, we were in boot camp.”
More memories crowded his thoughts. When he turned away to fill the kettle, he knew the smile on his face was more than a little wistful. “It’s hard to believe that was so long ago. We were just kids.”
“In more ways than one. So, where is everybody? The kids at school?”
The question startled him. He’d settled in on being alone for so long, he’d forgotten that others might not necessarily expect it of him. He’d certainly never expected Zach to think he’d come home and get married. “No, no kids. It’s just me out here.”
“Oh, well, that’s good. I mean, it’s not good that you’re all alone out here. But it’s good that nobody’s going to…interrupt us.” Zach cleared his throat. “I’ll take that coffee black, please.”
The thought of having Zach all to himself after all these years made his body tight. It remembered. It remembered all of it, even when Harvey wished fervently it would forget and stop tormenting him. “What about you?” It was easier to concentrate if he focused on chitchat. “I’m sure you had a whole string of starlets waiting for you when you got back. Which one is the lucky girl?”
“She wasn’t a starlet. She was a tennis player named Anne. I met her after I started school and married her right after I graduated. But she…passed away a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was. If there was one person in this entire world Harvey wished good things for, it was Zach Jones. He had always known Zach would come back to civilian life and lead the American dream; not even his most fervent hopes could erase the kind of man Zach was. He was the kind others looked up to, with all the charisma and brains to go far. Harvey had always been grateful he’d noticed the scrawny redhead who happened to be good with his hands. Their friendship had made grueling situations—many of them life-threatening—tolerable.
Pouring out two cups of coffee, he carried them over to the table and sat down. “How much longer were you in after I got discharged?”
“I had enough points to go home after V-E Day. So a very long, very lonely twenty months.”
That was longer than the time they’d known each other, even taking into consideration boot camp. To think Zach had spent that time without someone to help him through it…Harvey had convinced himself of a lot of things over the years, including the fact that Zach would replace him. Why shouldn’t he? He was gregarious and well liked. Their friendship had been a deep one, and they’d said and done things he’d never shared with anyone, but that didn’t necessarily mean he expected to be anomalous. It struck hard to think Zach had spent the remainder of the war without someone to help shoulder the load.
“Well, you came home in one piece, it looks like.” Harvey braved a smile. “Always knew they wouldn’t be able to take you down.”
“Lucky me, you were right.” Zach sipped from the coffee. “How are you? I tried to find out your prognosis, or, well, anything I could about your injury. I was hoping you’d write and let me know.” He looked up, his eyes wider. “Did you write?”
“A couple times while I was still in the hospital. When I didn’t hear anything…” He shrugged, more than a little guilty he hadn’t tried harder to stay in touch. “Then I came home, and I was so busy trying just to get by…I know. It’s not an excuse. I guess I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me, and I didn’t want to put you in a position to tell me to fuck off.”
“They must have lost your letters. I wouldn’t have told you to fuck off.” Zach shifted in his chair. “But you’re okay now?”
“I’m holding my own. I still have to wear a brace, but at least it means no more twenty-mile hikes in the pouring rain.” He couldn’t resist a quick sweep over his old friend. “Though you look like you could still manage one. What’re you doing out in sunny California that lets you get all duded up like that?”
“I’m a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. You hear about the freeways we’re building out there? I’ve been involved with that project since its inception.”
Harvey whistled low under his breath. “No wonder you look like you stepped out of a magazine. That’s got to be some serious bucks.”
“It pays the bills, such as they are.” Zach smiled, but it wasn’t the easy, carefree smile Harvey would have expected. “I guess I’m living the American dream.”
“Nothing wrong with that. It beats being a grease monkey in the middle of nowhere.”
“You’re not a grease monkey. Though, you are living in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t see another house on the way up for two or three miles. Doesn’t it get…too quiet out here?”
“Maybe,” Harvey conceded. “But it’s what I’ve got. My parents passed not long after I got shipped home and left it to me. It’s free and clear of the bank, so it seemed dumb to sell up just to move closer to town.” He scratched at his beard. “It’s not so bad. I don’t have to worry about neighbors poking their noses in if I don’t want ‘em to, and it’s just a short drive to get into the garage to work. Plus, I’ve got a view out the back that makes me remember why I enlisted in the first place. You stick around long enough, I’ll show it to you.”
“I’d like to stay…stick around for a bit. I’ve taken some personal time off. They didn’t want to let me go, but after four years, I thought I deserved a bit of a vacation. I was hoping that if I tracked you down…you wouldn’t send me packing.”
“Never.” No hesitation, all sincerity. “Anything you want, you just have to say the word. My door will always be open for you.”
“It was just a matter of finding it. The same goes for you, you know. If you ever want to visit California. It’s nice this time of year.”
Harvey laughed. “You mean, you want me to come out there next time so you don’t have to deal with cold toes.”
“I can deal with cold feet. Even in the War. It’s an icy nose that I hate.” Zach leaned back in his chair. “Can I have the tour? The kitchen’s nice, but I’d like to see everything.”
“Oh, sure.” His chair scraped across the floor as he stood and led the way to the living room. “It’s not much, but there’s more room than we saw bunking together.”
He was glad he kept the place as spick-and-span as he’d learned in the Army. Myrtle was always teasing him that he only did it so he wouldn’t have to pick a wife to clean up after him, but it was such an innate part of who he was, Harvey couldn’t imagine it any other way. The couch was worn but spotless, and the wood stairs were polished thoroughly. He even made sure all the pictures his parents had lined the upstairs hall with were dusted on a regular basis. It would have been easier to take them down, but they were his history. Harvey took comfort in having them there to look at when he went to bed.
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