“No, you aren’t,” her father replied quietly, his voice like steel.
Sassy continued to stare, mute with shock.
Joey dropped his gaze to his lap. “Sorry, Dad. Already done, paperwork complete, aced my physical exam. I’m on a bus to Buffalo next week. Already got my ticket.”
Her father was red-faced. “That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said. You’d better get yourself out of this before it’s too late.”
“Can’t.”
Fear and fury blended together in her father’s expression. A wide-eyed, livid glower. Sassy felt the same emotions deep inside herself, but her face was frozen.
“You think you are going to do anything to stop the communists by going over there? You, Joe?” he spat. “Get over yourself.”
Joey met his father’s eyes. “Better dead than red, Dad. Somebody’s gotta protect the world. Might as well be me.”
Sassy finally found her voice, though it sounded high-pitched to her own ears. “Don’t be stupid. What the world needs is peace. You don’t belong over there.”
Her little brother faced her, his brown eyes pleading for understanding. “We gottamakethat peace, Sass. The war will keep on blowing people apartuntil we go over there and put a stop to it. I’m doing the right thing. You gotta believe me.”
But she hadn’t. She never would. “Don’t you dare,” she whispered.
“I’m going, Sass. That’s how it is.”
And that’s how it was.
About a month after Joey left for Vietnam, the house echoed with emptiness. Her father was rarely home, and when he was, he barely spoke. One night, she told him she wanted to move out.
He glanced up from his desk and studied her. Dark half circles underlined his eyes, and she wondered if he was sleeping. She hated how her father had aged in only four weeks, and she would never forgive Joey for what he’d done to the two of them. She didn’t care that he refused to sell real estate. She’d never thought he would. Like her, he regarded that line of work as a prime example of capitalism, with the wealthy getting wealthier and the poor losing every time. Joey might never make it in the baseball world, but she could see him building bridges much more happily than he would have been selling houses. But Vietnam?
It would be interesting to see what he ended up doing when he got back from the war and started taking life seriously.
Because hewascoming back someday.
“You want to move out. And do what?” her father asked her.
“I’m going to make something of myself.”
He huffed through his nose, then he set his pen on his green felt blotter. “You’re not talking about the music thing again, are you? I love you, Susan, but as I’ve told you many times, there is no future in that kind of career. No money, either. There are millions of girls just like you who want to be a star. You’ll never get to the top of that mountain.”
She’d heard it all before, but his words only encouraged her to try harder.
“I’m twenty. I want to live my own life in my own place.”
“You can’t afford it.”
“That’s why I’m speaking with you. I need a loan, Dad. I’ll pay it all back with interest.”
“You’ll never be able to afford that, either,” he muttered, scowling downat his desk. He paused, thinking it through, then he slowly raised his head. “I’ll make you a deal. If you get a full-time job and keep it, I will pay for an apartment for you. It has to be a full-time job that has nothing to do with your guitar or your voice. Something practical, in an office. You can type. I’ll find you a job at one of my clients’ businesses.”
Her stomach rolled at the idea of a nine-to-five job, but her dad was watching intently. She started visualizing what colour she’d paint her apartment walls.
“Are you being for real, Dad?”
“For three years, I will pay your rent for an apartment of my choosing, as long as you are working full-time at a real job.”
“Why?”
“Because you might have talent, Susan, but you also have a brain. You forget that you need to turn it on once in a while and use it for constructive work. So you will get a job, and when you are paid, you will keep that income. I will pay your rent, and every week you will write me a summary of how it went. If you quit or lose your job, all the money dries up. I will not pay for you to waste your life. Is that agreeable to you?”
