Nebraska

Soldiers on furlough or medical release were allowed free entrance, and at USO stations on the beach, happy women volunteers dispensed potato chips and hot dogs on paper plates, sodas without ice, and pink towels just large enough to scrunch up on near the water. Young men would queue up next to the spiked iron fence at six o'clock in the morning when a camp bus

dropped them off, and they'd lounge and smoke and squat on the sidewalk reading newspapers, perhaps whistling at pretty girls as the streetcars screeched past. As the golden gates whirred open, the GIs collided and jostled through, a sailor slapped a petty officer's cap off, and little children raced to the teeter-totters and swings as Playland's nursemaids applauded their speed.

The precise date was never recorded, but one morning a corporal named Gordon limped out of the bathhouse and was astonished to see an enormous pelican on the prow of the lifeguard's rowboat. The pelican's eyes were blue beads, and she swung her considerable beak to the right and left to regard Gordon and blink, then she flapped down to the beach and waddled toward him, her wings amorously fanning out to a span of ten feet or more as she struck herself thumpingly on the breast with her beak until a spot of red blood appeared on her feathers. The corporal retreated to the bathhouse door and flung sand at the bird and said, “Shoo!” and the pelican seemed to resign herself and lurched up into eastward flight, her wings loudly swooping the air with a noise like a broom socking dust from a rug on a clothesline.

More guests drifted out of the bathhouse. Children carried tin shovels and sand pails. Married women with bare legs and terry-cloth jackets walked in pairs to the shade trees, sharing the heft of a picnic basket's straw handle. Pregnant women sat on benches in cotton print dresses. Girls emerged into the sun, giggling about silly nothings, their young breasts in the squeeze of crossed arms. On gardened terraces rich people were oiled and massaged by stocky women who spoke no English. Dark waiters in pink jackets carried iced highballs out on trays. A perplexed man in an ascot and navy-blue blazer stood near the overflowing food carts with a dark cigarette, staring down at the pool. Red and yellow hot-air balloons rose up from the apricot orchard and carried in the wind. A rocket ship with zigzag fins and sparking runners and a science-fiction arsenal screamed by on an elevated rail. Children were at the portholes, their noses squashed to the window glass like snails.

A girl of seventeen sat on the beach with her chin in her hands, looking at the mall. Her name was Bijou. A rubber pillow was bunched under her chest and it made her feel romantic. She watched as her boyfriend, the corporal named Gordon, limped barefoot away from a USO stand in khaki pants belted high at his ribs, a pink towel yoking his neck, a cane in his left hand. He dropped his towel next to Bijou's and squared it with his cane's rubber tip. He huffed as he sat and scratched at the knee of his pants. He'd been a messenger between commanders’ posts in Africa and rode a camouflaged motorcycle. A mine explosion ruined his walk. Bijou wondered if she was still in love with him. She guessed that she was.

Bijou knelt on her beach blanket and dribbled baby oil onto her thighs. Her white swimming suit was pleated at her breasts but scooped revealingly under her shoulder blades so that pale men wading near her had paused to memorize her prettiness, and a man with a battleship tattoo on his arm had sloshed up onto the hot sand and sucked in his stomach. But Gordon glowered and flicked his cane in a dispatching manner and the man walked over to a girls’ badminton game and those in the water lurched on.

“My nose itches,” Bijou said. “That means someone's going to visit me, doesn't it?”

“After that pelican I don't need any more surprises,” Gordon replied, and then he saw an impressive shadow fluctuate along the sand, and he looked heavenward to see an airplane dip its wings and turn, then lower its flaps and slowly descend from the west, just over a splashing fountain. His eyes smarted from the silver glare of the steel and porthole windows. The airplane slapped down in a sudden spray of water, wakes rolling outward from canoe floats as it cut back its engines and swung around. The propellers chopped and then idled, and a door flapped open as a skinny young man in a pink double-breasted suit stepped down to a rocking lifeguard's boat.

“Must be some bigwig,” said Gordon.

The airplane taxied around, and Bijou could see the pilot check the steering and magnetos and instruments, then plunge the throttle forward, ski across the water, and wobble off. The rowboat with the airplane's passenger rode up on the beach and retreated some before it was hauled up by a gang of boys. The man in the pink suit slipped a dollar to a lifeguard and hopped onto the sand, sinking to his ankles. As he walked toward Bijou he removed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his shirt pocket. His pants were wide and pleated and he'd cocked a white Panama hat on his head. He laid a cigarette on his lip and grinned at Bijou, and arrested his stride when he was over her.

“Don't you recognize your cousin?”

She shaded her eyes. “Frankie?”

He clinked his cigarette lighter closed and smiled as smoke issued from his nose. “I wanted to see how little Bijou turned out, how this and that developed.”

“I couldn't be more surprised!”

He'd ignored the corporal, so Gordon got up, brushing sand from his khakis, and introduced himself. “My name's Gordon. Bijou's boyfriend.”

“Charmed,” Frankie said. He removed his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. His wavy hair was black and fragrantly oiled and he had a mustache like William Powell's. He had been a radio actor in New York. He asked if they served drinks on the beach, and Gordon offered to fetch him something, slogging off to a soda-pop stand.

“Sweet guy,” Frankie said. “What's he got, polio or something?”

“He was wounded in the war.”

“The dope,” Frankie said. He unlaced his white shoes and unsnapped his silk socks from calf garters and removed them. He slumped down on Gordon's towel, unbuttoning his coat.

“You're so handsome, Frankie!”

“Ya think so?”

“I can't get over it. How'd you find me at Playland?”

“You're not that hard to pick out,” Frankie said, and he gave his cousin the once-over. “You look like Betty Grable in that suit.”

“You don't think it's too immodest?”

“You're a feast for the eyes.”

The corporal returned with an orange soda and a straw. Frankie accepted it without thanks and dug in his pocket for a folded dollar bill. “Here, here's a simoleon for your trouble.”

“Nah,” Gordon said. “You can get the next round.”

Frankie sighed as if bored and poked the dollar bill into the sand near Gordon's bare left foot. He leaned back on his elbows and winked at someone in the pool. “Somebody wants you, Sarge.”

“Say again?”

“Two dames in a boat.”