“The grass is so green it hurts your eyes,” Ethel said. “My grandfather found the land and saved every dollar he made blacksmithing to buy it. There’s nothing I love better than riding on autumn roads at a full gallop. You’ll come someday, you and Barb. We’ll eat barbecue and ride horses and forget everything we saw over here.”
Frankie loved Ethel’s stories about Virginia: the county fairs, the 4-H competitions, the church socials. It sounded like a world that didn’t exist anymore.
“I won’t let you go back without me,” Frankie said. Before Ethel could answer, Jamie stumbled over and stood in front of Frankie.
She was afraid to look up at him. She’d kept her distance all day because her defenses felt weakened by the beer she’d drunk and today’s camaraderie and the strange sense that these were good days, maybe—impossibly—the best of their lives.
Jamie was now officially a short-timer. His DEROS had come in and he had less than three months left on his tour. Like all short-timers, as his leave date neared, he’d begun to worry that nothing would work out for him, that Vietnam had somehow ruined him and he wouldn’t get out alive. And every day Frankie confronted the reality that he was one day closer to leaving.
“Dance with me,” he said, holding out his hand.
He wouldn’t have done it sober, not here in front of everyone, on a night when the longing in his eyes was obvious, and she wouldn’t have agreed on another night, either. But just now, with three beers in her system and Ethel leaving, Frankie didn’t have the strength to say no to him. She let him pull her to her feet.
He led her away, took her in his arms.
His hand slipped down her back, past the curve of her waist. She felt his fingers slip under the waistband of her baggy shorts.
She reached back, moved his hand to the small of her back. “Be a good Scout.”
“You want me, McGrath,” he said. “And God knows I want you.”
She looked up at him. “It doesn’t matter what either one of us wants.”
“Come to Maui for R and R with me tomorrow.”
“Sarah would not appreciate that,” Frankie said. She knew Jamie was meeting his wife for R and R. “Once you see her, you’ll forget all about me.”
He leaned forward so slowly she knew he expected her to stop him, but she couldn’t. He kissed the side of her neck.
She let it go on longer than was smart and then pushed him away, immediately missing the feel of him. “Don’t. Please.”
“Why not?”
“You know why,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Could you have loved me?” he asked quietly.
She wanted to say I already do so badly it took every bit of willpower she possessed to smile. She touched his face, let her hand linger on his skin for a moment, letting it be the words she didn’t dare say. Then she walked away from him while she still had the strength to do so, and sat back down by Ethel.
“That man loves you,” Ethel said quietly.
Her feelings for Jamie were not something Frankie could talk about, even with Ethel. She leaned against her friend. “How can I do this without you?”
“I love you, too, Frank. And you’re going to be okay without me.”
Without me.
Maybe it was the three beers she’d drunk, or the eerie, falling darkness, pocked by the sounds of a distant war, but a wave of homesickness assailed her, made her think of Finley. No remains. She was tired of losing people.
“I must be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” Ethel said. “Certifiable. Because I don’t want to leave.”
“I’m crazy, too, because I don’t want to see you go.”
The fire crackled and popped. Slim roasted a marshmallow over one of the licking red flames. The music had been turned down.
Suddenly the night erupted in noise and color. Red explosions, tracers through the dark sky. A machine gun’s ra-ta-ta-tat not far away.
The gunner from the bird ran over. “Sorry, gang. Riot just called in. The Seawolves are needed at Rocket City. Party’s over.”
Frankie looked at Ethel. “Rocket City?”
“Pleiku. It’s up in the Highlands. Dangerous place.”
The party dispersed; people ran for the chopper, for the boat, for the three jeeps hidden in the brush. Frankie and her friends boarded the helicopter, which lifted up into the air quickly.
The land below was pocked by explosions. In the Huey, up in the air, bombs and rockets and gunfire burst all around them, bright orange stars in the dark. The smell of smoke.