The bases weren’t even loaded when I started trying to figure out how long I’d be stuck there. “How many innings are in a softball game?”
“Isn’t it the same as baseball?” said Debbie.
“Nine,” said Annie.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. There was no way I was going to make it to Teo’s.
“It could be worse,” said Laura, who was very clearly still angry with me.
“I don’t see how.”
She looked at me over the top of her sunglasses. “You could be seven months pregnant.”
I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, I guess that would be worse.”
“Who wants wine?” said a new girl named Miranda as she pulled a thermos out of her bag and began to pour Vermentino into plastic cups.
“You are my hero,” said Debbie.
We were down a few friends by that point. Not just Bev and Rita, whom I sorely missed, but Barb and Maureen and Siobhan and a bunch of the women I’d met in my first few months on the island. We’d gotten somenew blood, too. J.R. had been replaced by a guy named Allen Fitzer, and his wife, Teresa, was a sweetheart. There was a woman named Jocelyn Smith, whose husband was an engineer with the Seabees, and another gal named M.J. Pedraza, whose husband likely worked in Naval Intelligence, because she was a little vague about what it was he did.
The wine was so refreshing, I drank it down in three or four gulps. Then I began to feel a little better about my botched plans.
“Did you hear they’re filming part of the next James Bond movie in Palau?” said Debbie, and everyone perked up. The director had apparently reached out to the CO to see if NSA La Maddalena could help recruit extras, and in the name of boosting morale and because he was a huge fan of the franchise, the CO had said yes.
“I’ve always wanted to be an extra in a movie,” said Jocelyn, and a bunch of the girls nodded in agreement.
“We should all audition,” said Miranda.
“If we get picked, do you think we’ll get to meet Roger Moore?” asked Laura.
“I want to do more than meet him,” said Debbie with a suggestive wink. Miranda pretended to fan her with a copy of the program.
M.J. agreed. “He is a very handsome man.”
“But maybe not worth blowing up your marriage over?” said Laura, and everyone stared at her. While the Roger Moore stuff had been a joke, it wasn’t clear that she was taking it as such.
“Allen would totally give me a pass if I got propositioned by Roger Moore,” said Teresa, and everyone laughed except me, for whom the comment had hit a little close to home.
“It’s Ryan O’Neal for me,” said M.J. “I have a get-out-of-jail-free card on that one.”
“What about Paul Newman?” said Miranda.
“Oh, forget about a get-out-of-jail-free card. I’m torpedoing my marriage for that guy,” said Teresa.
“I bet his penis is the size of a torpedo,” said M.J., and we all laughed.
“Why does it always have to be about sex?” said Laura.
Debbie raised an eyebrow at her. “Spoken like a woman who’s seven months pregnant.”
“I’m serious,” said Laura. “It’s all you guys ever talk about. I mean, I get it, sex is nice. But it’s not everything, you know?”
This was obviously a dig at me, but thankfully, no one else took it that way. Instead, Debbie pretended to look for Bobby in the dugout. “Will someone find Laura’s husband and tell him she needs to get laid?”
143.
ONE AFTERNOON A FEW WEEKSlater, I lay on my stomach in Teo’s bed, reading about the Viking 1 lander’s touchdown on Mars.La Spedizionehad run a series of photographs taken during the expedition, and I was struck by the fact that they looked like they could have been taken anywhere. “It’s just rocks and dirt,” I said with some surprise. “Might as well have been taken on Caprera.”
