Page 38 of Twelve Days and Twelfth Night

seven

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me . . . seven swans a-swimming.

San Diego

Sunday, November 21, 1943

“Maggie makes egg salad the same way Ethel did,” Bill Curtis said.

“It’s good.” At the little kitchen table, Prescott took another bite of his sandwich and resisted the impulse to feed a morsel to the gray-and-white beggar beside his chair.

“Every Sunday, Ethel and I used to have egg salad and go to the zoo.” Mr. Curtis separated a peeled orange and handed Prescott a fragrant slice. “The San Diego Zoo is one of the finest in the world.”

“I’ve never been there.” Prescott let the slice of California sunshine squirt in his mouth. He’d never been to any zoo. Yet another thing that didn’t fit in the worlds of either poverty or glamour.

“It’s still open. One of the few parts of Balboa Park unoccupied by the Navy.” Sad longing clouded Mr. Curtis’s eyes.

Maggie chuckled. “What would the Navy do with gorillas and hippos and flamingoes?”

Prescott smiled at the thought of a flamingo in a sailor hat. “If you miss it, Mr. Curtis, you should go.”

His mouth pursed as if the orange had molded. “In my wheelchair? Never.”

“I don’t mind pushing,” Maggie said.

Mr. Curtis hoisted himself up with one cane and took his plate to the sink. “I’m not making a fool of myself.”

As Prescott chewed the last of his sandwich, the same pressure built as during his first USO hospital visit. “After my accident, I didn’t go out in public unless necessary. I hate the stares. Worse, the pity.”

“See, Maggie.” Mr. Curtis ran water in the sink. “He understands.”

“I do.” Prescott stepped around Tobias and brought his plate to the sink, where Mr. Curtis took it. “I also understand it was killing me, avoiding all the things I loved.”

“I get by.” The man’s voice came out gruff.

Prescott leaned back against the cabinet, so he could see both Maggie and her grandfather. “I know you do. So go to the zoo. I’ll go with you. They’ll be so busy gawking at me, they won’t even notice you.” He winked at Maggie.

She leaned her elbows on the table and grinned. “Can I go too?”

“Of course.” He caught Mr. Curtis’s eye. “All the men will be distracted by your granddaughter’s beauty, and the women will be whispering to each other, ‘Is that Prescott Duke? No, he was such a handsome fellow. Don’t stare. It’s rude.’ No one will even notice you.”

Maggie’s smile wiggled.

Mr. Curtis harrumphed. “You two are ganging up on me.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “What’s the matter? You aren’t chicken, are you?”

“Are you done with that?” Mr. Curtis took Maggie’s plate without waiting for an answer. “It won’t work. I can’t take the wheelchair on the trolley.”

Maggie gestured to the side. “It fits in your truck. You have a full tank of gas.”

Mr. Curtis scrubbed at a plate with a rag. “I’m saving for an emergency. Gas is rationed, you know.”

“Three gallons a week,” Maggie said. “You haven’t used three gallons in the past year.”

Prescott shrugged. “Sounds like a lousy excuse to me.”

“Fine.” Mr. Curtis wiped the last plate under the faucet. “Next Sunday, then.”