“I… I was trying to help you, Davey. You know that.”
“Yeah, well, I can handle myself, Sass. I’m a big boy.” Then his frown melted into a puddle of apology. “Also, I can’t come see you anymore.”
Her breath caught. “Why? I didn’t mean to mess things up! I said I’m sorry!”
“Nah. It’s not that. It’s Christine.”
Her thoughts flew to that mousy little thing with crooked teeth, bad skin, and no brain. Sassy tried not to be biased, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t see one redeeming feature, except maybe her large breasts.
“Sure, yeah. What about her?”
“I guess we’re getting serious.”
“You guess?”
“She said she wants to. After the fuzz took you away, well, the whole protest kind of fell apart, then she and I talked for a long time. She said, like, she wants to be monogamous.”
She’d caught Christine glaring at her a few times, but this was unexpected. She should have read Davey better, too.
“Is she worth it?” she asked weakly.
He lifted one shoulder, looking like a little kid. “I mean, I like her a lot. But I like you, too.”
“I guess you can’t have everything.”
He dropped his chin. “I’m sorry, Sass.”
“I am, too.”
He got up and held out his arms, and she gave him a tight hug. “Come see me when she drives you crazy.”
“I’ll miss you,” he whispered. “This is a real bummer.”
“Just be happy,” she replied, tears burning behind her lids. She refused to cry, though. Not until he was gone. She did want him to be happy. She just wanted him to be happy with her.
She’d never felt so lonely as she did after he left. Normally, if she was sad, Davey was the one she’d talk to. Sometimes she’d go home to her father for a pick-me-up talk, but now was not the time. With Joey in Vietnam, she had no one. She wished she had a friend she could call.
Outside, she heard the leaves swishing in the trees, and she realized that’s exactly what she needed. Air. A change of pace. She headed for the door then grabbed her guitar case at the last minute. She’d find a quiet place under a tree, in the wind, by herself, then she’d play, and she’d cleanse herself of this awful day. She headed down to the lobby, then remembered on her way out that she should check her mail. There was rarely anything in her mailbox, but it was worth looking.
And there was something. Of course it had arrived today of all days. A letter from Joey, stained, wrinkled, and bearing a loose, hurried printingshe’d never seen before. She hesitated, unsure whether to take it back upstairs and read it there, then she tucked it into her pocket and went outside, into the wind.
At the park around the corner, she walked past a bench and over to a cool patch of grass beneath the canopy of a maple. She set her case down, sat beside it, then leaned against the tree trunk while she opened Joey’s envelope.
Sassy didn’t get many letters from Joey, but she forgave him for that. She knew from the television that he was probably deep in a jungle somewhere, lost in the dark with his military brethren. She tried not to let her imagination go any further than that, but Joey was a good, descriptive writer. Over the past year his words had become a journal of sorts, bringing her into the war whether she wanted it or not. His stories about the First Battalion, Third Marines patrolling at Da Nang were so vivid she could almost feel the stickiness of the air and the tension in every heavy branch. The way he talked about his buddies, she felt as if she almost knew them. Then there were the letters he wrote when he got homesick. That’s when his tough veneer gave way to the boy she had always known. Last year around Christmas, she had opened a letter from him while she sat by the window, watching fat snowflakes dance around her yard. Then she read that the thing he missed most at that moment was snow. His simple wish had torn her apart.
She unfolded the letter and stared at printing that hardly looked like Joey’s. His hand had obviously been shaking when he wrote it, and she tried not to picture his fingers gripping his pencil.
I got a bad story, Sass.
That’s how it started. Her stomach dropped, and she knew the wind would not be enough.
We got ambushed last night. Got into a hot zone and Tex got greased right off. I ran to him, even though that was stupid. We’re trained that you gotta look out for yourself first. I didn’t, and I was lucky, because one of theothers shot a gook who was aiming at me. My brother saved my life. But thenhewent down and
There was a space between the words. A smudge of what had to have been Joey’s tears swept across the dirty paper.
God, Sass. This is so hard to write. Everybody tells you not to make friends out here. They say we should just call each other “Jack,” to make it easier. I never could. But I get it now.
Another smear blended the letters, maybe from his thumb, but she saw clearly what he’d written.
