Frankie got slowly to her feet. It felt nearly impossible to do so. “You won’t help me?”
“I’m here for veterans.”
“I am a veteran.”
“In combat?”
“Well. No. But—”
“See? So, you’ll be fine. Trust me. Go home. Go out with friends. Fall in love again. You’re young. Just forget about Vietnam.”
Just forget. It was what everyone recommended.
Why couldn’t she do it? The doctor was right. She hadn’t seen combat, hadn’t been wounded or tortured.
Why couldn’t she forget?
She turned and walked out of the office, past the men sitting in chairs along the wall, under the watchful eyes of President Nixon. In the lobby, she saw a pay phone and thought, Barb, and stopped.
She needed her best friend to talk her down from this ledge of despair.
She went to the phone, made a collect call.
Barb answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“This is the operator. Will you accept a collect call from Frankie McGrath?”
“Yes,” Barb said quickly.
The operator clicked off the line.
“Frankie? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s expensive to call collect—”
“Frances. What’s wrong?”
“I … don’t know. But I’m in bad shape, Barb. I’m kind of falling apart here.” She tried to make herself laugh, to lighten it, and couldn’t. “My parents threw me out. I crashed my car. I was fired. And that was just the last twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, Frankie.”
The compassion in Barb’s voice was Frankie’s undoing. She started crying—pathetic—and couldn’t stop. “I need help.”
“Where are you?”
“At the useless VA.”
“Is there somewhere you could go?”
She couldn’t think. She was still crying.
“Frankie.”
She wiped her eyes. “The Crystal Pier Cottages aren’t far away. Finley and I used to ride bikes on the pier…”
“Go. Get a room. Eat something. And don’t leave, okay? I’m on my way. You hear me?”
“It’s too expensive to fly, Barb—”
“Don’t leave, Frankie. Get a room at the Crystal Pier and stay there. I mean it.”
* * *
Someone was pounding on the door.
Frankie sat up, immediately felt sick to her stomach. An empty gin bottle lay on the carpet by the bed.
“Open the damn door, Frankie.”
Barb.
Frankie looked blearily around the cottage she’d rented, saw the empty gin bottle, an overflowing ashtray, empty potato chip bags.
No wonder she felt like hell.
She climbed out of bed and went to the door, unlocking it, letting it swing open.
Barb and Ethel stood there, side by side, both with worried looks on their faces.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Frankie said. Her voice was hoarse. She’d been screaming in her sleep again.
Barb was the first to take Frankie in her arms. Ethel moved in beside them, wrapped her strong arms around both of them.
“I’d rather be in Pleiku,” Frankie said. “At least there I know when to put on my flak jacket. Here…”
“Yeah,” Barb said.
“I don’t know what to do, who I am now. Without the Army or Rye … my dad threw me out of the house. I just want … I don’t know … for someone to care that I’m home. That I went.”
“We care,” Ethel said. “That’s why we’re here. And we came up with a plan on the way here.”
Frankie pushed the damp, greasy bangs out of her face. “A plan for what?”
“Your future.”
“Do I get a say in it?” she asked sarcastically, but really she didn’t care. She just wanted her friends to save her.
“No,” Ethel said. “That was our first decision.”
“When your girl calls and says, I need help, you help. So don’t think you can change your mind now.”
Frankie nodded. Behind her friends, she saw a yellow cab idling at the curb.
“Get your stuff,” Barb said.
Frankie felt too crappy to argue or question and more relieved than she could say. She went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and put on pants, then tossed her bloody nurse shoes in the trash and walked out barefoot.
“So, what am I doing to fix my life?” Frankie asked as the three of them walked to the waiting cab. Her girlfriends bookended her, stayed close, as if they were afraid she’d bolt.