Atomic Summer

By Elaine D Walsh

THREE friends, TWO secrets, ONE lie, and the summer that changed their lives.

The world is ripe for destruction in 1953. The Korean War drags on and the Rosenbergs are executed as spies. Senator Joseph McCarthy convinces the country communists are infiltrating the government, and the threat of nuclear war festered in the collective consciousness of the nationWhile the nation worries about communist bombs, sixteen-year-old Bernadette Vaughn holds court in the family bomb shelter, finagling a way to read Kinsey’s groundbreaking work on human sexuality. She obsesses about boys and big city life. Her best friend, Faith McNulty is a devout Catholic who dreams of staying in their small town, marrying Allen Hanlon, and raising a family. Their awkward and unattractive friend, Octavia Mansfield doesn’t have room in her life for boys, dreams, or God. She spends most of her young life caring for her severely disabled brother.

Their conversations about what each of them would do if the end of the world were imminent become the catalyst for a prank that spins wildly beyond control and draws in an entire town.

Left behind in the wake of that summer’s events are their unrealized dreams and open wounds. In 1973, a reunion trip to the small town of their youth returns them to the summer of 1953 and the passion and betrayal that changed their lives.

Atomic Summer received an Honorable Mention at the 2012 Southern California book Festival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elaine D Walsh
• Release date: May 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9780985566357

Elaine D Walsh

Winner of the Chairman's award for excellence, Honorable Mention at the 2012 California Book Festival, and quarter finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.Nimitz Highway and River Street is an intersection on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. It is also the place I impatiently came out of the womb ready to start my own personal history. Plan A was the military vehicle whisking my laboring mother toward the base hospital for a traditional birth. That did not happen. Plan B has been my life since.I was one of two children but with my father being one of nine, I enjoyed the richness and craziness of growing up in a larger extended family. Being brought up Catholic I have an appreciation for the history and tradition of the church that stays with me although I did not stay with the church. My mother suffered bouts of guilt about birth control and other church teachings I never let bother me. I struggled in other ways, dealt with it, and moved on.Mom did her best to prepare me for life as a woman. Secretarial courses and domestic chores would prepare me to be a wife. Growing up in the flowering women’s rights movement as a child of the 70’s, we had differing ideas, and I had other plans. I went off to college in upstate New York majoring in psychology with the intent of being a “death & dying” counselor. This would be my paying job while I wrote the next great American novel. Plan B kicked in and I graduated with a B.A. in English, packed my car, and upset my parents by moving to Florida in search of my destiny.This is where you will find me now, along with tens of thousands of northern transplants who invaded the Sunshine State. I adopted the sports allegiances of my adopted home state (Tampa Bay Rays and Buccaneers) much to the chagrin of my New York Yankee baseball and football Giant family. Without ever having taken one business course, I created my own brand and became a successful business executive by day and women’s fiction writer by night. So far, I have lived a Lifetime Movie Network life, a mixture of extraordinary, ordinary, mundane, and terrifying, providing me great inspiration and fanning my creative flame.My father instilled in me a strong sense of family. Semper Fidelis is not only his beloved Marine Corp motto but also a guiding principle in his life. My family stood by me, accepted me, and supported me during my difficult times. Other times, we laughed and created memories. He brought to life the words unconditional love.From my mother, I gained an appreciation for the complexities of relationships and richness in life one finds exploring and experiencing everything from a recipe, to a historical site, to lunch with friends, or a glass of wine. Material possessions meant little to her. She was a collector of experiences. We journeyed together and grew as individuals and as mother-daughter. I shared her journeys battling cancer, surviving one and succumbing to another. In one of our last soulful conversations before she died, she told me she was glad I also had a daughter and she hoped I would enjoy my own daughter as much as she enjoyed me.Being a daughter, mother, friend, and soul mate are the most powerful influences in my life and my stories. But as a successful women’s fiction writer, does this surprise anyone?

Book preview

I dislike peaches. Cling, whole, half, frozen, or in pies. It doesn’t matter what kind or any way they’re served, they’re still peaches. Savannah Vaughn served peaches twelve months of the year. She was vain about her peaches. Truth be told, she was vain about everything. Her appearance. Her money. Her home. Even her Cadillac. I imagine she figured anything that touched her life others desired for their own. That extended right down to her peaches.

In the winter when a primer coat of snow dusted Port Pompeii, every living soul contemplated how many inches we’d be digging out of in a few hours; all the while hoping the electricity would hold up to the storm. Except Savannah Vaughn. She thought about peaches. Before the snowfall buried the cellar door, she would send Bernadette and Peter out to their bomb shelter to fetch jars she had canned in the spring. Then she would go about making peach pie in the middle of a snowstorm. I knew not to be caught at the Vaughn’s house when the snow was getting deep enough to provoke a might as well stay here until the weather passes comment.

The Vaughns were the only family in town with their very own bomb shelter. In the event of nuclear war, the rest of Port Pompeii’s citizens were to head to the courthouse basement. The whole town would vie for a spot in a place we knew wouldn’t hold us all, plus the ration of supplies needed to tide a town over while the radioactive atmosphere became safe again. First come; first serve. I shudder just thinking that thought today, but that is what it would have been, everyone racing to beat his or her neighbors there. Except for me. I was Bernadette Vaughn’s best friend and therefore entitled to a place in the Vaughn’s shelter. After all, Savannah declared her children would need friends after such a horrible event, which we all knew was not just a question if it would occur, but when. And when it did, I would be saved. Savannah Vaughn expected those she invited in to her world to feel privileged, and for this one honor, I did.

Besides being a sanctuary that would save us when the inevitable nuclear war came, the Vaughn’s shelter was a favorite place to lounge around, cool off, grow bored, and grow up. It afforded us the privacy that sixteen-year-old girls believe they need from their families. The shelter was stocked with all the necessary supplies nuclear holocaust survivors needed: a first aid kit, chemical toilet, gas masks, flashlights, tools, water, an air blower, and a generator. An entire wall housed wooden shelving stocked with canned goods and glass canning jars crammed with peaches. After escaping radiation poisoning, we wouldn’t escape Savannah Vaughn’s peaches.

Photographs of the Vaughn children decorated the remaining three walls of the shelter. One wall was devoted entirely to pictures of Stephen Vaughn. He was Savannah Vaughn’s eldest. The pictures told the story of his transformation from baby boy to young man. Savannah Vaughn was proudest of Stephen. One could tell just by the way all the other pictures were arranged around the portrait taken just before he shipped off to Korea. In a uniform with a braided cord around his shoulder and medals on his chest, he resembled a prince. His eyes were bright and filled with expectation, but when he returned, they reflected something else. It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul. After Korea, we couldn’t see into them to know what was in there.

Bernadette, Octavia, and I were best friends. Actually, Octavia Mansfield was my best friend, except I didn’t realize it back then because I was sure my best friend was Bernadette Vaughn. Bernadette insisted that she was, and there was no arguing with Bernadette.

Bernadette would not have had anything to do with Octavia if it weren’t for me. My friendship with Octavia subjected her to Bernadette’s company. Sometimes Bernadette could be so mean-spirited that I felt guilty for being Octavia’s friend. Life had been cruel enough to her. She didn’t need the people in her life being cruel too, but on some level, I knew Bernadette’s life wasn’t easy either; or rather, being a Vaughn wasn’t easy, so I excused her many failings. Mostly, I imagine, I thought I could make a difference in their lives without realizing how much they would make in mine.

Octavia was the smartest person I knew. She was forever reading books. She read more in a year than I have read in my entire life. Octavia had too much time to devote to books. She spent her days at her brother’s bedside reading to him or silently reading to herself.

For me, the decision to return to Port Pompeii is an easy one. I was born and raised there, and there was a time Port Pompeii represented all my ideals of what home, sweet home was. But Octavia was never wedded to Port Pompeii in the same way I was. Time has a way of softening the backward glance we cast upon the lives we lived, making those days seem more nostalgic than they really were. But not Octavia’s life. Her days were more like a sentence served than a life lived, but she has agreed to return and for that, I am grateful.

I often ask myself ‘what if’, but I suppose everything I am now is a product of all that came before, and I am satisfied with who I am, finally. But there are times when my unrealized dreams still need consoling.

The summer of 1953 changed us all. Our lives and our friendships were never the same. The world was ripe for destruction in 1953. Senator Joseph McCarthy convinced us communists were infiltrating our government, and the threat of nuclear war festered in our collective consciousness. And while the rest of America fretted about communist bombs, Bernadette obsessed about sex. It is odd how one can be so taken with something they have never experienced. It was as if she had seen sex through the window of a store covered in fancy wrapping paper and tied with a big beautiful bow. She had to have it. Sort of like her mother and that big Cadillac of hers. Sex was Bernadette’s compass that summer, and being a follower by nature, I made it mine as well.

Faith - Friday, June 19, 1953

Below ground in the Vaughn’s bomb shelter, it is cool and moist. Strange how up there is really the place of oppressive and unforgiving suffering while down there is the place we can’t wait to get to. Octavia huddles in a love seat, hiding her face behind the front page of the newspaper. Pictures of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg fill the space where Octavia’s face should be. Their expressions are so solemn and serious. I suppose I would look that way too if I were going to be executed. They do not fit the image I have of spies. I expected Mr. Rosenberg to be dashing and Mrs. Rosenberg to be alluring, but certainly not pathetic, which is how they both appear on the black and white newsprint.

Bernadette stretches out on a wooden lounge chair. It is the kind I have seen in pictures lined up on ocean liner decks cradling the rich and famous. Bernadette is engrossed in the latest issue of Hollywood Review. Each time she moves, her brown hair, pillowed in a tight perm, crunches against the lounge chair. My knees ache from sitting on them so I can hunch over her shoulder to read Hollywood Review with her. Bernadette’s blue eyes appear crossed from this angle. With her light brown hair and pinched nose, she resembles a Siamese cat.

From where I am sitting, it is obvious that her breasts are uneven. Her right one rests slightly higher than the left. Sometimes she asks me if I notice anything peculiar about her breasts. I always say no. Once, I didn’t. Once was enough. The first time she asked, I honestly told her that her bust line did look slightly uneven. I even dared to ask if there were any foreign objects in her brassiere. She glared at me the same way Mr. McBride’s cat did after Peter soaked it with a garden hose with its head sunk low, fur plastered to its skin and ears drawn flat, and parallel to the ground. I thought that cat would fly and roost on Peter’s head. Bernadette launched into a lecture that day. She reminded me that it was she who started having periods first, and that I and all the other girls at school needed to accept that her body matured at a faster rate, including the size of her breasts. She said it as if she was sacrificing something for us all by being the first. I don’t see it that way, but I am grateful not to have been the first either. It would have been too much of a burden to have that happen and be Bernadette’s friend. It was important to her. I am glad my body cooperated.

I speed read through the article on Tony Curtis. If I don’t finish it before Bernadette finishes studying the pictures and reading the captions, she’ll flip the page then ask me if I’m finished. It is easier to say yes and borrow her magazine later, otherwise she’ll snap back the page, and I’ll have to try to read while she holds up the magazine and impatiently jaws away on her chewing gum. It’s impossible to concentrate while her scarlet lips move up and down her face. There’s so much lipstick concentrated in that one place that I can usually spot her lips in the distance before I can make out the rest of her features. Even her crooked breasts.

Cricket Bug, where is that book?

I wince every time Bernadette calls Octavia by that old nickname.

At my house, Octavia’s voice drones through the newspaper. She is much less affected by being called an insect than I am.

Why didn’t you bring it? I told you I wanted it.

I forgot.

Bernadette drops Hollywood Review on her lap. She looks as if she just sucked on a lemon. Forgot? That book is the key that could unlock the secrets of men. Once Delilah knew the source of Samson’s strength, she controlled him. Remember? Oh, never mind. I forgot. The bible is the one book you pay no attention to. Anyway, haircuts just will not do these days; otherwise, women would be barbers. I need that book. Do you understand?

From behind the newspaper Octavia calmly says, If I recall the story, Samson eventually was killed. That might not have happened if Delilah hadn’t found out his secret.

You’re missing the point.

You’re missing my point. Information in the wrong hands could be disastrous. Just look at poor Samson.

I think we’ll be able to figure out men without a book. I rise from my aching knees, rubbing them.

I want that book, Bernadette demands.

It’s not as exciting as you think, Octavia says. It’s complicated reading. Actually, clinical is a better word.

Bernadette bolts upright on the lounge chair. I flinch backwards and nearly topple over. She glares in Octavia’s direction. I can feel the disturbance ripple through me. Are you saying I’m stupid?

The outer rings of her annoyed energy must have passed through Octavia because suddenly she peers over the top of the newspaper. Behind her glasses’ thick lenses, her green eyes look like they are bulging out of their sockets. I just think you’re expecting more out of that book than what you’ll get. It’s very dry. You’ll be disappointed.

I’ll be the one to decide that. You just bring me that book.

You’re in a mood today, Bernadette, I say.

My friend paid me a visit today, she snaps. I don’t know why a woman’s period is called a friend. I’m crampy and bloated. Friends are supposed to make you feel good. She pitches her chin toward Octavia. And she doesn’t make it any better either.

I rustle the magazine in Bernadette’s hands like a bullfighter shakes a red cape in front of a bull to draw its attention. Let’s finish the article.

She reclines on the lounge chair and smoothes out the page with Tony Curtis’ picture. He’s sooo handsome. I would do anything to have one afternoon with him, right here, alone, in this shelter. Wouldn’t you?

I shrug. It is a neutral enough response to stay true to myself and avoid her lobbying for a different answer.

I would kiss him to death. She presses the picture to her lipstick-caked mouth, then props the magazine back on her uneven breasts and sighs. Red paste covers Tony’s lips and jaw. Who would you like to be trapped in this shelter with?

I tuck my legs beneath me on the hard surface. I don’t think you even have to ask.

She flicks her wrist and dismisses my words as if they were floating just above her in a balloon. I’m talking about a movie star.

Oh, I don’t know.

Come on, Faith. Who?

I don’t know.

Faith, there has to be someone.

I am not getting away from this. Okay. Alan Ladd. It’s the first name that pops into my head.

Not another Allen.

There weren’t any rules to this. He’s my pick.

He’s too short. Hollywood Review says that his directors carefully shoot scenes so he’ll appear taller than he really is.

So.

A man needs a handsome face and the right body to go with it. I have one for you. Rock Hudson.

I never heard of him.

You’re going steady, Faith, you didn’t go blind, deaf, and dumb too, did you? You need to keep up with current events. Rock Hudson is a handsome Hollywood bachelor. I’ll give you my last issue of Hollywood Review. You can read all about him. She flips another page of the magazine. You’ve become such a hermit since you captured Allen Hanlon.

I didn’t capture him and I’m not a hermit. I’m here, aren’t I?

I’m surprised you’re not with him now. Where is he?

Working.

Bernadette shrugs, kicks one foot up and examines her white Keds. And if he wasn’t working you’d be with him and not us.

I sit up on my knees again to get a better view of her upside down face. That’s not true. You’re my friends.

Friends forever, she declares.

Yes, forever. My words are just as determined. My declaration seems to soften her. I don’t spend all my time with him. In fact, I hardly spend much time with him at all.

That seems to make her smile. I return one that she can’t see from where I’m crouched behind her. Suddenly, her lips tighten in to a big red bud. I bet you’re going to see him when he gets off of work.

Bernadette, I like him very much.

She stares off at the cement walls sulking in her thoughts. I hope he feels the same way about you.

He does. I wish I sounded confident instead of defensive. But he does. I’m sure he does.

For the sake of your heart, I hope he does.

I stand and move to the side of the lounger and hold out my hand to her to reel her back in to feeling good about us again. Friends forever.

She studies my hand then takes hold of it and gives it a sturdy shake. Regardless of who you marry, remember, I’m going to be your maid of honor.

I hurry out, Of course you will, before I remember Octavia camouflaged behind her newspaper.

Or matron of honor, she says. I could get married first, you know. But make sure whoever you marry is tall. I don’t want to tower over your groom. That wouldn’t look good in the wedding pictures.

I sit on the edge of the lounger. Allen’s tall enough.

Don’t forget handsome too. Octavia chimes in from behind her newspaper.

My, my Octavia Cricket, Bernadette says. You do notice the opposite sex. She glances at her magazine. What if a movie star ever came to Port Pompeii and fell for you?

I don’t think that’s going to happen.

It could.

I don’t know any movie stars, but I know Allen and he suits me just fine.

Faith, just imagine a man that millions of other women adore, falling in love with you. You’d be the envy of every woman in the country.

Not for long. I would have to break the poor movie star’s heart, tell him my heart belongs to someone else, and send him back to Hollywood.

Bernadette rests the magazine on her belly and stares at me. What’s wrong with you, Faith McNulty?

I sit up taller. There’s nothing wrong with me.

You’re willing to settle for so little when there’s a whole world beyond Port Pompeii that’s just waiting for us.

I’m happy with the small piece of the world I have right here. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, Bernadette. Maybe it’ll take you leaving Port Pompeii before you can appreciate it here.

And maybe someday you’ll be eating your words when enjoying how wonderful life is away from here.

No. I refuse her remarks with a quick shake of my head.

She sighs and purses her lips. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her studying me. When she finally speaks, there is a hint of remorse in her voice. Rocket building isn’t an industry that’ll be booming in Port Pompeii any time soon. If Allen wants to be a scientist and build rockets, you’ll have to move away from this boring little town you love so much.

Just the thought is unsettling, but she’s right. And yet, Allen hasn’t even asked me to marry him. He can hardly hold my hand. But he’s shy. That’s all. And I’m patient.

Since Allen is my cousin, I guess we’ll be relatives of sorts if you marry. Did you know we’re considered kissing cousins? Her voice is scrubbed clean from any remorse and compassion, and once again, her tone takes on what a smirk would sound like if it had a voice. The dialect of Bernadette. She seems to have picked it up when we crossed the threshold in to our teenage years. Do you know what that means? The bloodline is so thin between us that the state says it’s okay for us to marry. Mother says kissing cousins usually marry in moneyed families or royalty. Like Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip. They’re related, you know. Considering I’m a Vaughn, I guess you could say I’m from a moneyed family. Bernadette smears lipstick on her finger, examines it, pops her finger into her mouth, and sucks off the lipstick. If there was such a thing as royalty in this country, I’d probably be that too. She picks up the magazine, pulls it close to her face, and disappears.

I desert Bernadette and join Octavia on the love seat. What’s so interesting that you’ve buried yourself behind this newspaper, completely ignoring your friends?

I’m ignoring Bernadette’s friend, she says quietly, tilts the newspaper and invites me to hide behind it with her.

Instead of reading, I slip the rubber band from Octavia’s bright orange hair that is pulled into a ponytail and gather up the stray hairs springing from her scalp like strands of wire. Within a minute, I rewrapped them into another ponytail. A neater one. Sometimes she brushes my hair and tells me she wishes hers could be like mine. I always thought my hair was plain. I would rather have hair like Nelly Castle. It is rich with waves and Nelly’s ponytail always looks so full. My hair is too straight, but I don’t want to perm it like Bernadette’s, so I keep it shoulder length with my bangs parted on the right and pinned to the left with an ever-present barrette. I guess to Octavia, whose hair feels so coarse, my hair is enviable. It makes me uncomfortable that she notices and says so aloud. I want to return the compliment, but she would never accept it and we would both know I was lying, something I can’t do very well.

I was the one who gave Octavia the nickname Cricket when we were eleven years old. It was the same year her family moved to Port Pompeii. The other children at school called her Bug Eyes or Bug Face. She didn’t try to stop them and I couldn’t. My own place in the schoolyard pecking order would not allow it. Instead, I changed it to something less offensive. I told her crickets were nature’s musicians and I liked crickets as much as I liked fireflies and I liked her too. This seemed to please her, so I began calling her Cricket. The name caught on with the other children. At some point, it became an accepted nickname instead of a derogatory epitaph. At the start of our freshman year, she asked me to call her by her given name, which was the same year Bernadette’s voice took on that singsong smirky tone. Still, she can’t completely elude it and Bernadette is the worst about using it.

What’s happening in the world? I ask.

The Rosenbergs are going to be executed tonight.

Why do you read such depressing stuff?

She shrugs. It’s in the paper.

So? You don’t have to read everything in there. It’s too gloomy.

Not reading it wouldn’t make it go away. What would you request for your last meal?

That’s a morbid thought?

It is, isn’t it? Imagine selecting your last meal, knowing you are now participating in a gruesome tradition, with the end of the meal bringing your death that much closer. Her freckles fold into the lines on her forehead as she contemplates this. I wonder what the Rosenbergs are going to have, or if they’ll even be able to share their last meal together.

I heard that, Bernadette says. That’s disgusting. Who cares what the Rosenbergs are going to eat before the state fries them like chicken? They’re spies. Enemies. I’d spit in their food if I was cooking for them.

They’re still people, Octavia says matter of fact.

They’re not people. They’re communists. Those traitors gave away our country’s secrets. Try feeling sorry for America instead of them. Bernadette struts over to us and strips the paper out of Octavia’s hands. What if the communists build a bomb using the Rosenberg’s secrets and drop one on my brother’s head in Korea? Are you still going to think they’re people?

Bernadette, she doesn’t mean anything personal by it, I say.

Bernadette frowns at Octavia, deciding whether to let her off the hook for any evils that might happen to her brother. Finally, she says, I would choose something elegant like escargot and caviar.

That sounds awful. I grab my throat as if I had just placed a snail on my tongue. What do they taste like?

I don’t know. I’ve never had one. Bernadette raises her nose in the air. But movie stars eat fancy foods like that all the time. If it’s my last meal, I want to eat in style.

Yes, but what if you can’t eat it because it’s too awful? I ask, still resisting swallowing the imaginary snail on my tongue.

At least I’ll look sophisticated. It’s your turn. What would your last meal be?

I don’t really want to play this game, but it’s taking Bernadette’s mind off of being angry with Octavia. After my mother’s wake, my Aunt Edna brought a wonderful pot roast to our home. I really liked it.

Bernadette wrinkles her nose. Well that’s appropriate. Pot-roasts. Wakes. Last suppers.

It was the only pleasant thing about that day, I say, remembering Aunt Edna’s sad face hovering over the foil-covered platter she carried into our kitchen.

What about you Octavia Cricket? Bernadette prods.

Octavia stares at the crumpled paper in Bernadette’s fist. I wouldn’t be hungry. I doubt the Rosenbergs are either.

Bernadette lifts her head. I wish Octavia hadn’t tossed their name out like someone standing over a barbecue tosses a match on fuel soaked coals. She should have just played along. But Octavia isn’t one to humor anyone, particularly Bernadette. The two of them have fought an undeclared war that started the day they met. But back then, they were only skirmishes. Lately, it has escalated in to something fiercer, as if there is something tangible at stake other than their pride. Bernadette has a well-prepared army of remarks she slings, and Octavia always seems to dare Bernadette to use up her arsenal with her subtle counter maneuvers. Most of the time, Octavia isn’t looking to pick a fight, but Bernadette will pounce on her just the same. Other times, like now, Octavia mixes the right ingredient of words that will launch an attack.

Bernadette crunches more of the paper into her fist and wets her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her mouth opens but before she can utter a word, light slashes overhead cutting a swath of sunshine across the floor. Something pops at our feet. Through the cellar doors, Bernadette’s towheaded brother peers down at us holding a carton of eggs.

You’re all dead you stupid gooks. He shoots at us with a stick. Choo, choo, choo.

I flinch each time his mouth sputters out another round of imaginary bullets and huddle against Octavia as the egg bombs explode in the shelter.

Bernadette shakes her fist. You little monster.

Smashed eggshells litter the floor and yoke oozes over the carpet and cement.

Die gook. Young Peter tosses his last egg grenade at his older sister. It explodes at Bernadette’s feet. The egg’s clear mucous drips down her legs and runny yellow yoke stain her white Keds.

Bernadette’s uneven breasts rise and fall. Peter! Her screech knifes the air and she shrieks his name until her voice curdles in her throat, then she charges up the wooden steps two at a time.

Peter drops the cellar door. The beams of sunshine vanish. Bernadette’s fists bash the doors and shove them open. Sunlight spills back into our lair. She hollers at him again and disappears through the rectangle opening.

Octavia is smiling. I love Peter.

He has great timing.

He’s so full of life.

And the devil.

I think one needs a bit of the devil in them to survive Bernadette. She looks at me, her smile fading. How many times is she going to remind us that she and Allen are kissing cousins?

Oh Octavia, we’re friends. I feel my cheeks warming up to red.

I’d watch out for her, Faith.

She doesn’t mean anything by it. She was just comparing herself to Queen Elizabeth, not hinting that she’s interested in Allen. I pull away from her eyes and stare up at the rectangle opening framing the blue sky. Do you think it’s safe to go up there?

I’m sure he’s dead by now. Octavia gathers her crumpled newspaper. She pauses over the picture of Ethel Rosenberg’s egg-spattered face and gently wipes the yoke off with the hem of her shirt.

I’m sorry, comes out of my mouth. It’s a reflex to Octavia’s mournful manner.

Maybe we should save Peter. She shrugs and forces a smile so I’ll stop worrying about her.

Good plan. I stare at Tony Curtis’s face. His picture is bloodied, smeared with Bernadette’s red lipstick. Do you think Peter looks anything like Tony?

I hope she spares Peter the same fate. Can you imagine being kissed to death by Bernadette Vaughn?

I skip up the bomb shelter’s stairs with Octavia plodding behind. We surface through the shelter’s two cellar doors in the middle of the Vaughn’s backyard. Immediately, a humid blanket of thick air covers our bodies that the bomb shelter had so effectively cooled. The afternoon sun squeezes my eyes into slits. I shade them with my hand and survey the yard. The Vaughn’s two-story house occupies the corner of Court Avenue and Stable Lane. Mules that once pulled packet boats up and down the Erie Canal were stabled along Stable Lane on the ten acres of land behind the Vaughn’s house. When the harnesses rubbed the mule’s shoulders raw, humane canallers switched their team for a fresh one and the weary mules rested in these fields. Today, the only mule in Port Pompeii is a bronze statue that crowns a marble fountain on Canal Street.

In the front of the Vaughn’s house, four white columns stretch from the base of the porch to the roof. Savannah Vaughn calls it her Tara after Scarlett O’Hara’s mansion in Gone with the Wind. Only Port Pompeii’s courthouse is more impressive than the Vaughn’s house.

Wild flowers and tall grasses grow unchecked in the field. Chicory’s delicate periwinkle flowers dot the field while the golden rod’s miniature yellow sickle slashes out a place among the tall grass. When breezes blow, this field of flowers and grasses sashays and goldenrods shimmer like sunlight off a lake. But the air is stagnating today and the field is more like a still-life painting. Amidst these blooms, an abandoned stable ages and grows ever more feeble from its decades of neglect. Beyond the field is Mule Neck Ridge. Port Pompeii is like an amphitheater scooped out at the base of the ridge. Beyond it are more fields, farms, and neighbors I have yet to meet.

I don’t see either one of them, I say. Peter must have given her quite a chase.

I see something over there. Octavia points to where Bernadette emerges from the flowered field. We should leave before the Sheriff comes and finds his body.

Grass and dirt stain Bernadette’s knees and specks of green seed spores cover her white cotton socks. Got him. I made him eat dirt.

I turn to Octavia. That’s not a last meal I would have chosen.

The poor little guy didn’t have much of a choice.

Poor little guy? Bernadette scoffs. Poor us. The little monster is going to bother us all summer long if I don’t do something about it now.

Octavia glances at the sun and then her shadow on the ground, using her body as human sundial. I have to get home.

You are coming tomorrow for the sleep over, aren’t you? I ask.

Octavia rolls down her sleeves and wraps a rubber band around each cuff. Her body is one big freckle patch that easily burns. I don’t know.

Bring that book or you can’t come, Bernadette says while picking spores off her socks.

I hug Octavia, kiss her cheek and whisper, Come anyway.

She makes no commitments and mumbles something about her mother expecting her home to feed Archie.

I’ll walk with you, I offer.

And just where are you going? Bernadette says this as an order to stay, sounding and looking more and more like her mother.

I’m meeting Allen at the garage.

Is that why you wore that today?

I inspect my white skirt. It’s comfortable. Especially in this heat.

Oh. Bernadette stops picking spores. I thought it might be because it’s easier for a boy to go up a skirt than down a pair of shorts.

Why do you say such things?

Bernadette shrugs. Just an observation. I’ll walk with you. I haven’t seen Allen in days.

Octavia suggests she walk by herself, explaining she will need to run most of the way home or be late then excuses herself from being a trio any longer. She has had her fill of Bernadette today. My heart stumbles watching poor Octavia jog away on her bowed legs clutching the soggy newsprint picture of the Rosenbergs.

It’s a good thing she’s smart. She’ll have no choice but to get a job. She certainly won’t get a man with those looks. There is genuine pity in Bernadette’s voice.

***

Bernadette escorts me down Court Avenue, busily chattering about what she supposes every popular girl from school is doing this summer. Court Avenue hems in the western side of Port Pompeii. Maple trees and sycamores tower over the wood frame houses and shade our way. In the summer, the trees cool the houses and in the winter, they catch ice and snow. As she spatters out imagined details of others, Bernadette canvasses the front porch of every house we pass looking for someone who might be interested in looking at her.

Let’s go down Church Street. I interrupt her flow of details and step off the curb.

Bernadette stops on the sidewalk. We’re going down Canal. We have to go to Hecker’s. I’m out of chewing gum.

You can stop at Hecker’s on your way back home.

You don’t want to walk by the Buxton, do you?

Hecker’s is on the corner of Canal Street and Center Avenue, the bull’s eye center of town. It is also directly across the street from the Buxton Inn, which is owned by my grandfather. He spends his days in the Buxton’s bar serving up drinks and tales to fellow residents and watching everything that happens on Canal Street through the bar’s oversized windows. And when he’s not in the bar, he’s still in the Buxton, up on the second floor where he lives, right down the hall from my room and my father’s.

Are you hiding something from your family?

Reviews for Atomic Summer

[vesper1931 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is June 1953, and the lives of three 16 years old friends living in Port Pompeii NYC is told from the point of view of Faith the gullible and Catholic, and Octavia the socially-awkward with family responsibilities. Then there is Bernadette the last of the trio of friends.

[danahughes_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a fun summer read. It’s one of those stories that you can sit by the pool or on the beach or anywhere you can curl up for a few hours and escape for some R&R reading enjoyment. The first lines intrigued me and from there I kept turning the pages to see what came next and I was not disappointed. The story opens in 1973 with a brief flashback from Faith, who is one of the main characters. She is traveling back to her hometown for a reunion where she will be reunited with her girlhood friends in the small town in upstate New York where she grew up. Something happened that summer that changed her life and the lives of her friends. The way the writer sets up the opening scene made me want to find out. In other words, I was hooked! I didn’t have to give it a few chapters to see if I was interested in turning the pages.The story immediately jumps to 1953. Bernadette, who is Faith’s best friend, is holding court in her family’s bomb shelter. It is 1953 for goodness sakes and the communist “red scare” is in full flight, so what a perfect place for teenagers to hang out, cool off, grow up and grow bored. Bernadette is obsessed with boys. They aren’t quite as enamored with her and who can blame them. She is a narcissist you just want to reach in to the pages and slap. I love it when a character drums up emotion in me, both good and bad. Well, Bernadette doesn’t hide her interest for Faith’s boyfriend which sets up a nice conflict between these supposed best friends. But Faith is too naïve and too good of a friend to do what I would have done which is punch Bernadette right in the kisser. Then there’s the ugly duckling third wheel friend Octavia who you find yourself rooting for as she struggles to step out of the dark shadows of her troubled family.Besides the story’s main characters Faith, Bernadette and Octavia (which BTW, the point of view shifts between Faith and Octavia which makes for interesting story telling), there is the over the top, self proclaimed southern belle matriarch of Bernadette’s family, giving the reader insight as to why Bernadette is the overbearing girl she is. And wait until you meet the mysterious Reverend Flews. Add two teenage boys to this stew of a story to spice it. There’s a lot to taste as you slurp from the author’s spoon and find yourself trying to figure out all of the ingredients that go into this coming of age story. The author’s tag line is “THREE friends, TWO secrets, ONE lie, and the summer that changed their lives”. The author leaves breadcrumbs to follow one secret while she slowly reveals another and the euphoric and heart wrenching impact of each one. And the lie that becomes blatantly clear early on what it is and who is telling it and the entire community gets sucked in to it. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive”. It is deliciously tangled and the next best seller in my eyes.