“You were dressed the whole time, if that helps. And there was no public vomiting. You may or may not have used the men’s bathroom.”
The waitress returned with a second Bloody Mary, which she handed to Frankie.
“I know I was drunk as shit last night, but you were acting weird,” Barb said.
“Was I?”
Something about the casual response put Barb on alert. “So, now I know there’s a story. Spill the beans, girl.”
Frankie sighed. “Fin used to bring his Naval Academy friends home in the summer. They seemed like gods to me.” She smiled, a little one, and thought maybe it was too sad to be real. “Rye Walsh was his best friend. The CO in the sunglasses last night? I had a huge crush on him.”
“The guy who looks like Paul Newman? Wow. So, grab his hand and show him—”
“He’s engaged.”
“Shit. Not again.” Barb took a drink. “And you’re a damn good girl.”
“When I danced with Jamie, I felt safe. Loved, I guess. It was like being home, but with Rye … when I was in his arms, I felt … I mean, the way he looked at me was … hungry. Almost scary.”
“It’s called lust, Frankie, and it can rock your good-girl world.”
* * *
Back at the Seventy-First, the only thing that ever changed was the weather. By December, the days were uniformly hot and dry. Now, with the temperature rising to 110 degrees in the OR, Frankie was hot and headachy. She hadn’t slept well since Saigon.
The OR doors opened and a pair of medics rolled a soldier in from Pre-Op; he was face down on the gurney, his naked, bloody butt stuck up in the air. One of the medics was laughing at something—a good sign. “Butt shot,” he yelled to Frankie, who showed the medics to an empty table and snapped on a new set of gloves.
The kid on the stretcher craned his neck around to look at Frankie. “I got me a fine black ass, don’t I?” he said with a glassy-eyed smile that revealed he’d been given some morphine for the pain. He was barely over eighteen, Frankie would guess. “I’m Albert Brown. Private first class.”
“Hey, Private Brown. Yes, you do have one fine ass, I’d say. Too bad I’m going to have to pick shrapnel out of it.” She waved over the male nurse-anesthetist—nicknamed Gasman—who injected a local anesthetic. When the patient’s buttocks were numb, Frankie bent over his backside and went to work, tweezing out jagged bits of shrapnel. It would hurt like hell if he could feel it. And he would when the drugs wore off.
“Where are you from, Albert?”
“Kentucky, ma’am. Land of bourbon and good-lookin’ men.”
“With fine asses,” Frankie said.
He laughed. “I’m glad to represent, ma’am.”
When she had finished, cleaned him up, and bandaged his backside, she called for a medic to take him to Post-Op.
“Wait, ma’am,” he said. “Can you take a picture with me for my mama, Shirley? She’d love that.”
Frankie smiled tiredly. It was a common request. “Sure, Albert. But your ass looks like it’s been chewed by wolves and so does my hair.”
Albert grinned. “No way, ma’am. You’re the prettiest girl who has ever touched my butt.”
Frankie couldn’t help but laugh. She leaned down and let the kid’s friend snap a Polaroid picture of them. With a wave, she sent him off to recovery and peeled off her gloves, tossing them away and reaching for a new pair. She was thinking about going for a soda when she heard choppers.
Several of them.
She glanced across the OR, made eye contact with Barb, who looked as exhausted as Frankie felt.
The two nurses ran for the helipad, their feet lost in a cloud of red dirt. They helped offload the wounded and guided them back to triage. There, they moved through the wounded fast, barking out orders, prioritizing treatment.
They were almost done when Frankie heard, “Where do you want him, ma’am?”
Two medics appeared, with a wounded man on a litter between them. She took one look at this casualty’s wound and said, “OR, STAT,” and ran along beside the medics.
In the OR, she pointed to an empty table and called for Sharlene, the newest nurse at the Seventy-First; the poor thing was fresh off the plane from Kansas. This would be her first shift. “Sharlene,” Frankie said, thrusting a pair of scissors at her. “Cut off his clothes.”
The young blond woman stared down at the blood falling from the soldier’s chest and onto her shiny black combat boots.