“Frankie! It is so good to hear your voice.”
Frankie leaned her elbows on the cool metal shelf below the pay phone. A small stack of quarters stood at the ready. She hoped it would be enough. She could only imagine how expensive this call would be. “I’m in Kauai on my R and R.”
“Wait! I’ll join you!”
“Ordinarily I’d jump on that, but…” She glanced around, made sure no one could hear her. “Rye Walsh is here.”
“Mr. Cool?”
“He broke off his engagement. Maybe for me. The point is: I need advice. What if he wants to have sex?”
“I guarantee you he wants to have sex. Call me telepathic. If you weren’t such a damn Catholic-school girl, you would, too.”
“I do. I mean, I might. But I need some … practical advice.”
The operator came on to ask for more money. Frankie put in the rest of her quarters.
“Use birth control,” Barb said. “It’ll have to be condoms. Unless you have a fake wedding ring.”
“What?”
“They won’t give single women the pill. Don’t even get me started on that shit, but if you pretend you’re married, you can get it. Not that it will work by tonight. So, yeah. Condoms. Get lots.”
“Seriously, Babs. I need, you know, step-by-step kind of stuff.”
“They did have sex ed in your all-girls’ school, didn’t they? Did you sleep through it? And in nursing school—”
“Shut up. Help me. What do I—”
“Believe me, Frankie. That man has the sex part down. Just try not to tense up and don’t expect too much the first time. It can hurt a bit.”
“That’s not very detailed.”
“Okay, shave your legs and armpits. Wear sexy lingerie,” Barb said, laughing. “Oh. And be bold. Not ladylike. And don’t believe him if he says he loves you.”
“What? Why—”
The connection ended.
Frankie left the lobby and hailed a cab, which took her into the small town of Lihue. There, she got her hair cut in a chin-length, side-parted bob, and bought a red-and-white hibiscus-print sheath dress with a matching headscarf and heeled white sandals.
Back at the hotel, she followed Barb’s advice and shaved carefully and moisturized her sunburned skin.
As she stood in her hotel room bathroom and stared into the opalescent shell-framed mirror that hung over a large clamshell sink, she hardly recognized herself. The beautician had brought back the shine in her black hair and the sleek haircut emphasized her blue eyes and the sharp line of her cheekbones. There was still an air of sadness about her—the sorrow she’d learned in Vietnam. She wondered if that would ever fade. But there was a youthful excitement in her look, too. Hope. Long since forgotten and never again to be taken for granted.
At 1830 hours, she left her room and went downstairs. The ceiling of the hotel lobby arched high overhead, soared up like the nave of a church.
She entered the open-air dining room. Beyond the half walls, she saw the shadowy lagoons where tiki torches blazed. Coconut palm fronds swayed and whispered, stark black trees against a violet sky. Somewhere, someone was playing a ukulele.
Most of the tables were full of vacationers, talking, laughing, smoking. It was a sharp reminder that while she’d been in Vietnam, the world had gone on. Kids had gone to school, parents had gone to work; not everyone lived and breathed the war. In ’Nam, it was easy to hear about the protests going on in America and think that everyone was burning the flag and protesting for peace; here, it was obvious that most people had quietly gone on with their lives, avoiding the dangerous shores on either side of the divide.
She saw Rye seated at a quiet table in the back corner.
A lovely Hawaiian woman, dressed in a floor-length bark-cloth print muumuu, wearing a fragrant lei, led her across the busy restaurant.
As she neared the table, Rye stood, waited for her to be seated before he sat back down.
He offered her a gorgeous lei made of small yellow-white flowers. “It’s white ginger.”
The fragrance was intoxicating.
“May I bring you a cocktail?” the hostess asked when Frankie was seated. “Perhaps a mai tai? The hotel’s owner, Mrs. Guslander, believes it is the best cocktail in the world.”
Frankie nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
“I’ll have a Jameson on the rocks,” Rye said.
The hostess left them alone.
The candle in the center of the table sent golden light upward.
The hostess returned with the two drinks and a pair of menus.