MANY YEARS AFTER THAT:
In 2004 there will be renewed interest in finding the exact location of the ejected bomb. High levels of radiation and unusual magnetometer readings will pinpoint a spot just off the southern tip of “Little Tybee.” This will indicate the possibility that the bomb contained a nuclear capsule after all. On the other hand, the Air Force will report in 2005 that the high radiation reading could most likely be attributed to monazite, a kind of radioactive sand.
One hundred and seventy miles away in South Carolina, a different, terrestrial bombsite exists now only as a shallow depression in the ground, overgrown with vegetation. There were once hand-lettered signs that directed the curious to the spot, but they have been stolen.
Perhaps they were taken as souvenirs.
1959 TIGHT IN NEW YORK
“You’re starting early,” said Janice, turning around so her husband could zip her up in the back.
Cliff set his highball glass down upon the blonde-wood buffet next to him. “No earlier than usual.”
“It’s going to be a long evening, Cliff. No one goes to a New Year’s Eve party with any expectation of leaving before one or two in the morning — even when the party is as boring as Marilyn and Gilbert’s parties usually are.” Janice glanced up at the aluminum sunray clock hanging from the dining room’s grass cloth wall. Its rays were spiny and looked like something that lived at the bottom of the ocean. “It will be 1960 in less than five hours. I cannot even imagine it. 1960. We met in 1949. We’re entering a third decade together.”
Cliff finished with his wife’s zipper and retrieved his glass. “So what are you suggesting?”
“That you don’t show up at the Powells’ drunk. How will that look? Aren’t you expecting Gilbert to move all his business over to you next year?”
Cliff nodded. Then he sighed. “I’ll stop. It’s seven fifteen. I should go pick up Miss Stillwell. Has Rosalie left yet?”
“She’s clearing the children’s dinner plates and then she’ll be off.”
“Why couldn’t she babysit Judy and Dicky tonight?”
Janice rolled her eyes, annoyed. “It’s New Year’s Eve, Cliff. Rosalie’s going into the city. That would have been mean, don’t you think — making Rosalie stay home on a night like this?”
“I wouldn’t have minded it — I mean, if it meant we didn’t have to go to Powells’. Pop open a bottle of bubbly, snuggle up on the couch with Guy Lombar—”
“You can’t snuggle on that couch. I hate that couch. I hate Danish Modern. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s so sterile.”
“That’s your bailiwick, baby. I’m quite content with my Herbert Hoover armchair in the study.”
“You’re sloshing,” said Janice, pointing to Cliff’s glass. “You’re very drunk. Now what are we going to do about Miss Stillwell? We can’t get her a taxi. Not tonight of all nights.”
“I’m fine. I’ve driven far more intoxicated than this.”
“That’s supposed to set my mind at ease?”
“You need to learn to drive, Janice. It’s almost 1960, as you’ve already noted. Women drive these days, maybe you’ve heard.”
“I’ve told you already that learning to drive is my New Year’s resolution. Go on. Be careful. Westchester County is probably swarming with highway patrol officers just looking for people like you to give tickets to. Or worse.”
“I’ll go slow. Miss Stillwell’s only ten minutes away.”
Janice Fredericks had called Miss Stillwell, whom she knew from their work together on the Tarrytown Library Committee, in early December to make sure that she would be available for New Year’s Eve. Janice knew that babysitters in Westchester County were a valuable commodity on the last night of the year, and even more so on this particular New Year’s Eve. The 1950s were about to bow out, to have their place taken by a decade that held great promise. At least this is what Americans were told. Wasn’t the New York World’s Fair’s “Futurama” exhibit, which Janice had seen as a girl in 1940—wasn’t it all about 1960, about that portal year to all the glories and wonders of an enterprising, utopian future?
Janice thought about this as she watched her husband go out to the garage. She thought about all the little model cars she’d seen in the World’s Fair exhibit. She wondered if there had been any tiny drunk drivers in any of those tiny cars — especially drivers like her husband, who seemed to do a fairly competent job of keeping his Eldorado on the pavement, despite obvious mental impairment.
Miss Stillwell answered the door. She was a little more smartly dressed than Cliff anticipated. It was New Year’s Eve, after all, even though she expected she’d be spending it first playing Candy Land with a five-year-old and seven-year-old, and then sitting alone in front of the TV and watching the crowds make noise at Times Square thirty miles away.
Miss Adelaide Stillwell used to be a schoolteacher. She was retired now, but she still enjoyed being around children. Adelaide volunteered at the library; she read storybooks aloud during story hour. And, of course, she babysat. Adelaide had made her peace with spinsterhood a long time ago. (Although she would forever detest the designation “old maid.”)
“How are you tonight, Miss Stillwell?” Cliff affably inquired.
“I’m doing just fine. Let me get my purse and my snacks.”
Cliff waited on Adelaide’s porch while she fetched her purse and tray of snacks and then locked the front door. He let her go ahead of him down the brick walk that bisected the neatly trimmed front lawn of her small, fairytale stone cottage. Halfway down the walk, she heard a scraping, scuffing sound, an “oof!” and then a “damn!” She stopped and turned.
“I’m okay,” Cliff said, tipping slightly to the left. “I just got tripped up by one of your bricks.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible. My bricks are all fairly even.”
“Well, at least one of them wasn’t. But it’s all right. I don’t think I did any damage. Not to me or to the bricks.”
“Have you been drinking?” Adelaide moved in closer so she could smell the air in the vicinity of Cliff’s mouth.
“A cocktail before I left the house.”
“You’ve had more than a single cocktail, Mr. Fredericks.”
“Does it matter? I’m a better driver tight than most men are sober. I’ve been behind the wheel since I was twelve.”
“A drunk man praising his driving skills.” Adelaide whistled her disbelief. Then she folded her arms and straightened up her lower back to show resolution. “You’ve been drinking. I have a hard and fast rule about not being driven by people who’ve been drinking.”
Cliff frowned, his brow narrowing. “Is this a new rule? Because I can name at least a half-dozen times I drove you home after you babysat for us when I was nowhere near sober and you clearly knew it. And may I add, Miss Stillwell, that I got you home in one piece each and every time.”
“It’s a recent rule, I’ll admit, but I’m sticking to it.”