“You know it.” She took a sip of the ice-cold beer. It tasted surprisingly good on this hot day. How long had it been since she’d felt this free and young?
“We got a taker!” Coyote said, untying the mooring line. “Take us out, Renegade.”
The guy at the controls grinned and hit the gas. Frankie stumbled into Ethel, who gave her a raised eyebrow. “What is the most important rule in ’Nam, Frank?”
“Don’t drink the water?”
“That’s number one. Number two: never volunteer.”
The boat sped through the water, a thrilling, heart-stopping ride.
Suddenly they slowed. The boat stopped in the middle of a wide expanse of the river and rolled from side to side.
Coyote tented a hand over his eyes, his gaze scouring both shores. “Don’t see anything to worry about.”
“What, us worry?” Renegade said. Leaning sideways, he pulled up a pair of old, battered wooden water skis.
Frankie laughed.
Then he produced a ratty flotation belt, upon which someone had written KEEP IT UP, BOYS. He tossed the belt to Frankie.
She stopped laughing. “When I said I was game—”
“I knew you were my kind of girl.” Coyote lit a cigarette and gave her a wicked smile.
“I … I’ve never skied before.”
“You will dig it, trust me. Put on the belt.”
Frankie glanced out at the river. She’d heard about bodies floating in this brown water, swollen from death and rigged with explosives. And this was the tropics. Were there poisonous snakes and alligators? What about the VC? Could Charlie be underwater with a plant on his head for camouflage, waiting for an American stupid enough to water-ski in the Saigon River?
Frankie took a deep breath and remembered Jamie’s words.
No fear, McGrath.
She exhaled and stripped down to her two-piece bathing suit and fastened the belt around her waist.
“So,” Ethel said, touching her shoulder. “I started water-skiing when I was a kid at Bible camp. A fun life story for another time. Anyway, hold on and lean back and keep the skis perpendicular to the boat. Let us pull you up, just like getting out of a chair. The rope goes between the skis. If—when—you fall, let go immediately.”
“In case I die, I’ll say goodbye now.”
Ethel laughed. “Goodbye, Frank. It’s been great knowing you.”
Frankie slipped over the side of the boat into the brown, murky river water. Clutching the skis in one hand, she swam out behind the boat and spent more than five minutes trying to put her bare feet into the rubber bindings. At least three times she got the skis on and immediately flipped onto her face and had to fight to right herself, all the while keeping her mouth clamped shut. The idea of drinking this water scared her more than getting bit by a snake.
Finally, she got herself into position. She sat back, put the rope between her skis, held on to the bar, and nodded.
The boat started, dragged her. She fought to keep her skis steady.
They hit the gas, sped up.
Frankie got halfway up and face-planted.
The boat turned sharply, swung back around.
Ethel threw her the rope. “Let us drag you. We’ll hit it when you look steady.”
Frankie nodded, her mouth squeezed shut, trying not to think of the water getting into her eyes and nose.
It took four more tries, and by then Frankie was too tired to fight the rope or the speed. She just leaned back and held on and thought, How many times do I have to try?, and then, quick as an indrawn breath, she was up, skiing behind the boat, struggling to keep her skis steady and her weight equally distributed.
She saw the people on the boat clapping for her. She held herself in the calmer water between the white vee of the wake, her skis thumping and falling on the water. Wind lifted her hair and the hot sun shone down on her, and for a beautiful, heart-stopping moment she was just a girl at a beach party with her friends. She thought of Finley, teaching her to surf in the rolling waves. Catching a wave, Fin. Look at me.
She was overcome by a joy so strong and sweet and pure that there was only one thing to do.
She let out a wolf howl.
* * *
That evening, sunset turned the world purple and red. In the distance, across the ribbon of river, the lights of downtown Saigon shimmered.
The group on the beach had faded along with the daylight. Stuffed with cheeseburgers and potato chips and American beer, half-drunk, they sat around a roaring campfire.
Frankie, pleasantly buzzed on three beers, leaned against Ethel. Holding hands seemed like the most natural thing in the world. “Tell me about it again,” she murmured.