She smiled, bracketing her pouty lips with deep dimples. “Yeah. We’re both dreaming, and don’t you dare wake me up.”
I nodded returning her smile.
The band with a buxom blonde lead singer whose voice was super smooth, broke into “One for My Baby”, and Sara stood. “Let’s dance, dream boy.”
Sara fit in my arms like God had designed her to. We moved like we were glued together.
“I don’t want us to ever end,” I whispered in her ear.
She looked up at me, squeezing me tighter. “Me neither, ah, provided you get a less repulsive job sometime in the next hundred years.” She wagged her head and smiled.
“As soon as I get a degree, which hopefully won’t take that long.” We spun around, floating to the music.
“Mick, I love our simple life.” Sara rubbed my back as we swayed to the last few bars of the song. “The next four or five years will fly by. Just wait and see.”
“What about Johnny and his family?” I asked on the way back to the table.
Sara stopped. “Mick, don’t ruin this lovely evening, this dream.”
“Is that all we are, Sara, a dream? I want more.”
“And I want that too, more than anything. Just be patient. I’m working hard to cut all ties to my prior life.”
I wrapped an arm around her. “Okay. Call me Mr. Impatient.” I walked her back to our table.
“Ah, I sorta like Mr. Stinky better.”
“You and everyone else I run into.”
“Everyone else? Has anyone been asking about you or us at the mill?” Sara asked.
“Not that I know of, why?” I bobbed my head back. “It was just an expression.”
She slid her hand into mine. Her eyes fixed on me. A slight grin relaxing her features. “Let’s go home. I know a perfect way to end this fantastic evening.”
Chapter Seventeen
A week later
It was almost six o’clock in the evening when I got to our pad. It was my day off. And although I’d missed lunch and should’ve been famished, none of that mattered. All I wanted was for Sara to be home and not be at the hospital with Johnny.
I had been busy. In addition to my scheduled purpose for most of the day, I’d used my lunch time spending my first check.
I unlocked the door and heard Johnny Mercer’s “I Remember You” softly playing on our phonograph. The music, our song, made me smile. What light there was, was flickering dimly from the dining room. I turned the corner, and Sara sat at the table bathed in candle light. A large covered dish sat in the middle of the small, two-place set table. And a bottle of what looked to be champagne was immersed in a silver bucket of ice at the opposite end.
I paused, both baffled and elated. It was if I had planned it. Somehow she must have known about my surprise. Had she read my mind? Did this mean she was as happy about my surprise as me?
Sara turned and gave me a slow smile that warmed my heart. She was dressed in something floor length that matched the color of her skin except for the random pattern of what looked to be black roses. Her smile eased into one of her seductive looks as she curled her finger at me, beckoning.
Two steps in I could see her gown wasn’t skin colored but transparent. I stopped, again.
“Wow. What’s going on? You look-”I had to take a breath-“absolutely beautiful.”
“Did you get in?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
I couldn’t have stopped my grin if I’d wanted to. “You’re looking at a freshman at Armstrong Junior College. I enrolled today. Classes start after Labor Day.”
She leaped to her feet and was in my arms before I could blink.
“I am so proud of you. Today is the beginning of your new future; our new future. And also our second month’s anniversary of living together. So I thought we’d celebrate with your favorite food, some champagne, and,” she wiggled against me, “and a reenactment of our Tybee Island weekends.”
My concerns of her knowing about my surprise were erased by her words, her soft warm body, and her sweet jasmine scent. My whole being relaxed into her hug.
“You saved the best part ‘til last,” I softly spoke into her hair as I slid my hands up and down her back. “I love whatever this thing is you’re wearing.”
She smiled up at me and kissed me, a soft, lips-on-lips kiss. She broke the short smooch. “Please sit down and open the bottle. I love to hear the cork pop. And then you have to guess what the covered dish holds.” She released me and gently pushed me to the opposite end of the table.
“I already know,” I said, sitting down without taking my eyes off her. What cloth there was in the gown just barely covered the right spots. “I know you. It’s surf and turf. You spoil me, you always do.”
“So you think in a measly two months you know me do you?” She took her seat at the opposite end of the table.
“I’ll tell you what I do know,” I said. “This place, because you’re here, is home to me. I’ve never been happier.”
She shook a finger at me. “You’re not fooling me, Mickey Mackenzie. You’re just trying to skip the meal part of this celebration.”
“Guilty as charged, your honor.” I grinned.
“I have something for you, other than me and the meal; just something small, but meaningful.” She leaned down and picked something off the floor. Then she stood and leaned across the table with a blue satin paper wrapped box, about half the size of a shoe box, tied with a pink ribbon.
The present excited me almost as much as her gown.
“It’s not my birthday, and it’s not Christmas,” I said, weighing the light box in my hand.
“Just open it.”
I tore open the wrapping revealing a box containing two-hundred surgical masks. I gave her a puzzled look.
“I’ve scented each of them with my jasmine perfume. Half are for you to wear at the mill so a little of me blocks those horrible chemicals, and the other half are for me so I’ll never complain again when you come home from work. I’m proud of you working your way through school. And when we’ve used up the surgical masks, I’ll buy thousands more.”
“Thousands more.” I nodded. “So this means you’ve decided to stay for quite a while . . . years.”
She answered with both her eyes and a nod.
My joy erupted into a skin stretching smile. “This is the best present I’ve ever received. I love you so much.”
A dimpled smile made her face glow. “I love you more. Now open the champagne.”
I grinned, grabbed the bottle of champagne, and popped the cork. She jumped as if shocked, clutching her chest. Then she grinned.
I filled her glass, and then mine. “A toast,” I said as I raised my glass toward Sara.
She lifted her flute of bubbly.
“To us . . . bonded by happiness, purpose, and hope.”
“Another way to say love,” Sara said as she clinked her glass to mine.
“Yes,” I said.
We both took a drink.
“We’ve been together two wonderful months,” I said through a smile. “I love you, and you love me. Let’s make this a very special celebration, my commitment to college and our commitment to each other.” I stood tall and walked to her side. I struggled to contain my excitement as I knelt down on a knee, and took her hand.
Her eyes open wider, and she slightly pulled back.
“I love you so much I ache, but it’s a wonderful ache. Sara Wiggs will you be my wife?” I asked as I held out the small, opened ring box in my other hand.
Her smile faded as she looked at the ring. Focused on the small diamond, she used both hands to set her glass on the table. Her squinted gazed shifted to me like I had just called her by another girl’s name.
“Sara, what’s wrong?”
Her face scrunched up and her eyes gushed tears. She slid her hand from mine so she could cover her face with both hands.
I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen this woman sob. I reached up and
pulled her into my arms, placing her sobbing head on my shoulder.
I had been a step from the peak of Mount Everest, and my foot had slipped on her trail of tears.
Speechless, I just held her.
After what seemed like way too long, Sara’s shuddering and sobbing subsided. She eased out of my arms and sat up. Her dull blue eyes and sagging features conveyed intense pain, rather than the overwhelming joy I had expected. Sniffing, she used her napkin to wipe her face.
Still on one knee, I looked down and watched my fingers toy with the tiny ring box. My head wagged, feeling more and more foolish by the second. I bit my lower lip to keep from talking.
Her small fingers cupped my chin, raising my head.
“Mick, I do love you. And we want the same things. And marrying you would be the happiest moment of my life. But it’s,” she looked away, smothering another sob.
“It’s what, Sara? For God’s sake, talk to me.”
Her eyes returned to mine with a glint of the adoration that had captured my heart months ago. “It’s complicated.”
Jaws set, I stared at her.
She took a deep breath and released a long sigh.
“I’m . . . Johnny and I are married, Mick.”
“What?” I bolted upright onto unsure legs. I glanced at the ring box in my hand. I was a fool; a used fool. I jammed the box into my pocket. I turned, and she grabbed my hand.
“Please, Mick, let me try to explain. Please.”
I sucked in air and blew it out. Head bowed I slowly pivoted to face her.
“I got married for all the wrong reasons and,” she released my hand and cupped her face in her hands, “but at the time, I didn’t have a choice.”
“At the time? How long ago?”
“A year,” her voice dropped.
“Why?” I shook my head. “Why did you lie to me?”
She dropped her hands. “My marriage was an arranged marriage. I never wanted it, and please don’t ask me why I did it.”
She clasped my arm with both her hands as if she feared I’d leave. “That first night in Goodman’s, I thought the end was near, and I’d soon be free. And as I said then, it was all pretend. So I didn’t see any harm in stretching the truth to a stranger lighting my cigarette. At that moment, I never would’ve guessed we’d . . . we’d be like this.”
“Fine. The solution is simple. Tell him you want a divorce and never go back.”
She fixed her narrowed eyes on me, topping an expression like I’d just asked her to do something impossible. “Right now I’m not sure I can do that.”
I tugged my arm free. “Why not?”
She shook her head.
“Sara, talk to me. What can I do?”
“Nothing. You can’t do anything. I, I need time.”
“How long?” I couldn’t control my frustration as my voice raised in volume.
“When Johnny gets out of the hospital.”
“Will you ask him for a divorce then and move out?”
Sara closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I, I don’t know. I-”our phone rang.
Sara had paid extra for an unlisted number that we’d only given to two parties, my mother, and Johnny’s doctor.
I never answered the phone.
Sara gave me a concerned look and rushed to answer the phone in the living room. “Hello.” She paused. “One second I’ll get him.” She eyed the phone like it was a source of pain to her. “Mick, it’s your mother.”
I took the phone. “Hello, Mom. Is something wrong? I thought our weekly call was tomorrow?”
“It is, Mick. I wanted your dad to call you tonight but . . . well he thought it best if I did. I, uh, I have some bad news. The town of Bluffton is mourning tonight. Carl Henry was killed in a Basic Training accident yesterday.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning, I was up early and dressed, sitting in the living room when Sara stuck her hair-mussed head out of the bedroom door.
I stood.
“Have a good—”she stepped out into the living room dwarfed in one of my T-shirts—“why aren’t you wearing your work clothes? What’s going on?”
“I, uh, I had trouble sleeping last night,” I said and looked away. I hadn’t planned for her to be up. I wasn’t prepared for where this was going. My mouth was so dry and my emotions were so raw. I wasn’t sure I could talk.
“I’m sure. I’ll always remember how I felt when I lost my grandmother. She was my best friend. I’m sorry you have to go through this. Are you taking the day off?”
Was focusing on the death of my best friend her means of avoiding our issues? Words coated with hurt and anger stirred in my tired mind; so I said nothing.
Fingers trying to stretch the T-shirt longer, she walked toward me and then stopped; her expression a question mark. “Did you decide to visit Carl Henry’s family instead of work? What’s going on?”
I swallowed hard and looked at her. My long night of anguish had left me in no mood for small talk. “Sara, I’m enlisting.”
“You’re what?” she cried out.
“I’m going down to see a Marine recruiter this morning. And if they’ll take me, I’m going to call the mill and the school and quit.”
“Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Not a word of discussion with the woman you’re been living with for these . . . these wonderful months,” her head dropped, “the most wonderful time of my life.” Her moistened blue eyes found mine. “Please, God, no, Mick. Is this about my indecision to get a divorce? I’m sorry, I—”she straightened—“just bam, I’m enlisting. What the hell are—”she took a deep breath and blew it out. “Look, I know you’re upset about Carl Henry. And I know his death makes you feel guilty about not going with him and your other buddies. But your enlisting isn’t going to bring him back, or save your other friends from harm. Can’t you see that?”
“Here’s what I see, Sara! I made a mistake by not joining with my friends. Instead I chose a relationship founded on lies. Another mistake. And now my best friend is dead.”
She stepped back, eyes wide, hands over her mouth.
I dropped my head into my hands. I had let my pain and her violation of my trust erupt. My intentions were to leave before she awoke; to just walk away. I didn’t want to exchange hurtful words with her.
I raised my head. Sara leaned against the wall, crying.
“I’m sorry,” I half whispered.
A long moment ticked by.
I couldn’t stand another second of silence. So I emptied my mind.
“They said Carl Henry’s death was a training accident. A friggin’ accident!”
I started pacing, going nowhere but back and forth. “He didn’t even make it to the war. Maybe if I’d been there, I could’ve prevented it; done something, anything. And Carl Henry would still be alive. There had to be something someone could’ve done.”
I stopped shoulders slumped, exhausted from no sleep, my mind stuck in the same loops of thought all night.
“And just maybe I will affect the future of my other buddies. Maybe I will kill a North Korean an hour, a day, a week, a month before he kills one of my other friends. Who knows? I don’t.”
Sara wrung her hands. “Mick, I’m sorry. I, I tried to tell you that first weekend on Tybee. My past is a train wreck. Something I can’t walk away from without . . . without taking a lot of effort and time. Stuff I can’t tell you. I just can’t.” She wiped her cheeks. “But I do love you, and you do make me happy, happier than I’ve ever been. And I want this. I want us. I just need some time to . . . to fix things.” She tried to sniff back more tears but failed. “Please think about what you’re doing. You’ve come so far. And now you’re just going to throw all of that away, your future, us, your education? Overnight. Like it was nothing.” She took several quick steps and wrapped her arms around me. “Please just sit down and talk to me. Don’t rush off and do this.” She stared up at me with overflowing eyes. “Please.”
She didn’
t understand. “How can I throw ‘us’ away? There is no ‘us’. You’re married.” I tried to pull her arms from around me and she squeezed tighter.
“No, Mick! No. God no. I love you.”
“College can wait; obviously along with your getting a divorce. If you really love me, and you’re happy with me, your needing more time makes no sense. Or is all of that more lies?” I took a deep breath and released a sigh. “And you want to talk. What good will talking do if you’re not willing to get a divorce? Nothing will change. Plus, I’m not sure I can believe anything you say.” I shook my head. “My mind is made up.” I unwrapped her arms from around my waist. “I’m going.” I turned and walked into the foyer.
As I opened the door to our apartment, the box of surgical masks smashed against the doorframe.
Chapter Nineteen
14 weeks later
October, 26, 1950
Off the coast of Wonsan, North Korea
The cold salt spray was a sobering relief from the smell of the puke swirling around my boots. Between the fear of what awaited us on land, guys heaving all around me, and the rocking and rolling of the landing craft, I had been on the verge of purging my stomach as well.
I had accomplished what I’d set out to do. I’d enlisted and survived boot camp. Regardless of the reasons, I was a Marine in the First Division, my dad’s brigade, ‘the Old Breed’. And the pain in my heart was eclipsed by the physical endurance I’d had to put up with since enlisting.
During the pre-launch briefing, the Gunny had told us we, along with twenty-eight-thousand fellow Marines, were invading Wonsan, a western port and naval base in the Kangwon Province of North Korea.
We were making an amphibious assault into North Korea, at a naval base where there had to be a shit pile of North Korean soldiers; not a good thing. People were going to die.
I was in better shape than I’d ever been in my life, but for what, to die?
Mickey's Wars Page 6
