“Radiological Controls.”
Hell if I knew what that meant, but I had so many questions that this one would have to wait. “How long will you be over there?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Two years.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. If he’d said two months, or even six, I might have begun to have delusions that we could keep this going. That he’d write and that I’d visit and that somehow the time would pass and we’d find ourselves back here, in Charleston, doing some version of what we were doing now. But two years was like a lifetime to wait for anyone, especially a man I’d only recently begun dating.
“When do you leave?” I asked.
All of a sudden, he got real interested in the headrest in front of him and started picking at a seam in the upholstery with his thumbnail. “Three weeks.”
I sat up a little straighter, certain I hadn’t heard him right. “You’re going to Italy in three weeks?”
He shook his head. “Technically, I’m going to Puget Sound first.”
I had no idea where Puget Sound was, but I wasn’t about to admit that.
“For training,” he offered. “Then I go to Italy.”
Slowly, it was dawning on me that none of this was news to him. “Have you known this whole time?” I whispered.
He wouldn’t admit to it, said only, “I’ve known for a while now.”
“Jesus, Paul,” I said, feeling like a total idiot for not putting the pieces together sooner. I began to search for my underwear with a renewed sense of purpose—anything to make me feel less exposed. “When were you going to tell me?”
Paul grabbed my hand, tried to get me to sit still. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
I had dated plenty of boys, and had my heart broken by a few of them, but never like this. “I think I want to go home.”
“Will you listen to me for a second?” said Paul, running a hand over his tightly cropped hair. “I thought we were having fun and that, by the time I left, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Itwasfun, but—”
“Just let me finish,” he said, so I shut my mouth.
“What I’m trying to say is that it’s starting to feel like it does matter.”
The way he said that last part, it was like he was asking me a question. What did he want me to say? That if and when he disappeared, I’d be devastated? My pride wouldn’t allow it.
“Come here,” he said, softly, and maybe because I’ve always been a sucker for a long goodbye, I climbed onto his lap, still half dressed. For a few seconds, we just sat there with my head resting on his shoulder. Then he whispered into my hair, “I don’t want to go to Italy without you.”
I lifted my head, touched my forehead to his. “I don’t want you to go to Italy without me.”
He breathed in, then out. “So come with me.”
“I can’t,” I said, which wasn’t technically true but might as well have been.
“You can,” he said.
I pulled back, trying to get a good look at him. “How?”
“Marry me.”
6.
SO, THAT’S WHAT I DID.Nine days later, down at city hall. There wasn’t time to plan a big wedding, and I don’t think I’d have wanted one anyway—not with Lenny gone. My parents were there, along with my aunt Arlene, who lived in Goose Creek. Paul’s parents drove down from Richmond, stopping in Durham to pick up his sister, who was a senior at Duke, and together we made a small but festive party. That is, until Paul promised to love and to keep me until death do us part, at which point I heard my mother choke back a sob.
For the sake of this story, I’d love to be able to recall what I was thinking, standing up there in front of that judge, who had to be a hundred years old if he was a day. But it’s like I went outside my body. I could see Paul standing there in his dress blues, and me in the deeply discounted jersey dress I’d picked up at Margaret Riley’s dress shop. I could see the bouquet my aunt had fashioned out of confederate jasmine and magnolia blossoms, and the rings, which we’d bought at Garfield’s a few days earlier. But as to what was going on inside my head, I honestly can’t say. I’m sure I was a combination of nervous and excited and maybe even a little embarrassed to have all those people staring at me, but what I remember most of all—and I know this is sad—is that my shoes were pinching my toes something terrible, and all I wanted to do was kick them off.
