“I’ll call it the Shores, I think,” Dad said, exhaling smoke as he poured himself a Manhattan. “Or maybe the Cliffs.”
Frankie listened to her dad’s business talk and pretended to be interested.
She was trying her best to be the girl they’d raised, the girl they expected. She didn’t fidget, didn’t say much, never mentioned the war. Played nice. They didn’t seem bothered in the least by her silence.
It felt vaguely dangerous, this enforced calm. As if each word she swallowed contained a venom that might someday kill her.
She focused on her martini. Her second. Thinking she would have killed for this ice-cold drink in-country.
Dad went to the stereo system, changed albums, put on The Beach Boys. “California Girls” started playing.
“Turn that shit off,” Frankie snapped.
Both of her parents stopped what they were doing to stare at her. “Who do you think you are?” Dad said.
Frankie stood up abruptly.
She almost screamed, Look at me, to him. See me.
“I’m right here, Dad,” she said, her voice shaking. “Your daughter, home from war.”
He turned back to the stereo, busied himself with the stack of records.
Frankie felt fury building again, filling her up, stretching her out of shape.
She went to the bar, grabbed a bottle of gin, and walked back to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
* * *
St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage. I’m kneeling on the cold stone floor, holding Mai in my arms, stroking the child’s soft hair. I hear the whir of incoming helicopters from far away. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire.
A bomb rips into the stone walls, sends stone flying in a dozen directions. I hear children screaming.
Another bomb.
I look down; Mai is melting in my arms. Fire everywhere.
Frankie came awake with a scream, her heart pounding; she was drenched in sweat.
She stumbled out of her room, into the dark, quiet house.
0523 hours.
She went to the kitchen phone, picked it up, and dialed Barb’s number. No doubt there would be hell to pay when the bill came in—long-distance calls were so expensive—but she needed to talk to her best friend.
Barb answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Frankie said quietly. Holding the receiver to her ear, she slid down the kitchen wall and sat on the linoleum floor. “I … just thought I’d check in on you. See how you’re holding up? How’s your mom?”
“Frankie?” Barb said. “How are you?”
“We don’t have to talk about me. I know how much you miss your brother—”
“Frankie,” Barb said. “Are you okay?”
Frankie shook her head, whispered, “No. Not okay.”
“I got your letter. Your folks really told people you were studying abroad? That is brutal.”
“Yeah.” Frankie let out a breath.
“That’s rough, man,” Barb said.
“How was it when you came home? Bad?”
“Yeah, but my mama’s block is full of vets coming home. Ain’t no lying about it. All I know is you gotta push through, keep on going. Soldier on. It’ll all settle out.”
Frankie heard the hope in those words. “Rye’s home soon. So, there’s that. I swear, if he asks me to move in with him, I’m saying yes.”
Barb laughed. “You, Miss I-Need-a-Ring-First?”
“That’s not me anymore,” Frankie said.
“Yeah. Life is short, and don’t we know it? You having a party for him when he gets back? Maybe I could get Ethel to road-trip to la-la land.”
“I hadn’t thought about a party.”
“You and I know how hard it is to come back. A little cake helps everything.”
Frankie thought about it. A party. “His dad lives up in Compton. Maybe we could plan something together.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Thanks, Barb. I knew you’d haul me out of this funk I’m in.”
“What are girlfriends for?”
They talked for a few more minutes, and by the time she hung up, Frankie had a plan.
It might be a bad idea.
Or a great idea.
She wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that once Barb had suggested the idea of a party for Rye, Frankie was on a mission.
So she dressed in the new clothes her mother had purchased for her—baggy bell-bottom jeans and a tunic top with a hip belt—and called information to get an address for Stanley and Mo’s Auto Repair in Compton.