“I did notice. But I’m not keen on other men leering at you.”
“Don’t worry. In spite of women’s lib, burning our bras and all, this is a first for me.”
“I’ll take that as a vote of confidence. But let’s get that soggy dress off.”
“Good idea, but wait a sec.” The rain—or the memory of Miss Chic in Nice—had reawakened my playful side. “Let’s try something new.” I draped a bath towel around my neck and over my breasts. Without taking my eyes off him, I undid the top button on my dress, paused, and then undid the next and the next. Under the towel, I peeled the wet garment off each shoulder. Without the sash, the flowing dress slithered over my hips and plopped around my ankles. I flipped it to him with my foot.
He wrapped my dress around his neck like a muffler on a cold day and took a long whiff. “Very nice. In fact, nicer than Nice. You learn quickly.”
“Gross! I’ve worn that thing three times in the past week.”
“So much the better.”
“Yuck!” I pulled my head inside the towel like a turtle.
He sniffed noisily. I peeked out. He had my dress pressed to his nose, peering over it like a mischievous five-year-old. I hadn’t seen him happy since I’d run his Sting Ray into the ditch. He tossed the dress aside. “Okay, enough foolishness. Down, madam!”
I turned my back to him, slid the towel to my front, grasped the two ends, and clumsily stretched out facedown on the bed, arms upward, elbows out, with the towel beneath me. Clearly, I needed more lessons from Miss Chic, but Jack wasn’t critical. Perched beside me on the edge of the bed, he anointed left arm and right, working out from my spine, his hands gliding once again along the edges of my breasts. Who was the tease now?
More balm, and he slid down my sides to my hips. He rested one hand on my lower back so delicately that each finger imprinted its own message. Creeping under my panty elastic, he massaged in tiny circles, each one a hair’s width lower. He worked the ointment through the burn, deep into a pleasure zone beneath. Despite myself, I tensed.
He backed away, propped a knee on the edge of the bed, and massaged thighs to heels, no errant side trips.
“Ahh, you are so understanding.” I sighed.
“Understanding is an overstatement. Obedient is more accurate.” His voice cracked. Finally, he slapped his hands together. “Okay, let’s take care of the front. Over, please.”
Cautiously, I gathered the towel under my arms and rolled onto my back. He looked at the towel and cocked an eyebrow. “Do we need that? I mean, after we—”
“I’m shy. I really am.”
“You’re also beautiful.”
“And you’re a hunk, but I’m still shy.”
“And too glib for a poor old foot soldier. I hear you, ma’am.” He saluted—a goofy civilian wave, not a snappy West Point salute—and trailed ointment across my upper chest.
“Foot soldier? When did tank commander Sigg become a foot soldier?”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am. It was a figure of speech—for the literary among us.”
The icy stuff turned up the heat deep inside. He worked the balm in above my breasts. His boyish grin was irresistible. With a quick nod and what I hoped was a seductive smile, I signaled “permission granted.” He eased the towel off my breasts and traced my bikini triangles. His fingers tiptoed between them, adroitly maneuvering through the valley without scaling the slopes. He raised his eyebrows, asking approval to take the next step.
Ever so slightly, I arched. Without blinking, he planted his hands on the bed on either side of me. “I love you, you know.” He kissed each nipple lightly. His face was as bright as a full moon over the Rockies, and I pushed toward him. He suckled momentarily and backed away. His hands flowed to my breasts, his breath coming in short puffs.
“I love you too,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I’ve dreamed about moments like this.”
He stroked me, fondled me, and loved me. His touch made me ache for more. At that moment, my burn was worth the pain. My misery had drawn us closer than anything we’d done—my reliance on him and his care and patience—to say nothing of the bliss of our physical intimacies. In these two days, Jack had caressed nearly every millimeter of my body and tested my resolve.
I thought I was ready. I pressed closer. But then I scraped my burned belly against his leg and lurched back. “Sorry, guy. But I can’t, not yet. It hurts too much. Besides, it’s late. Maybe we should get some sleep.”
His face fell and his eyes pleaded. After a long pause, he said, “You’re right.” No argument. His restraint made me love him even more.
Deep inside, I knew my hesitancy was about more than the sunburn. Though at times I felt as if Jack and I had known each other for years, in reality we’d been together only ten days—not long enough to be certain.
And there was something else. We were in a fairy tale of our own making. Romance permeated the air and rode in the Sting Ray with us. It hovered over our every adventure and even cast a rose-colored hue over our misadventures: the ditch, the sunburn, and my hesitancies. Married life was supposed to be forever. After the glow wore off, would it still be this idyllic? I needed to know—and Jack too—if we were a match made for the ho-hum times and, yes, the hard times, as well as for the honeymoon. Only then would I be ready to consummate our love.
That night, I was content to enjoy the moment and to luxuriate in the warmth of his body next to me.
10
Flirting with the Past
Ann
Wednesday, July 8, 1964, en route to Verona, Italy. As Jack was speeding us northeast, I was speeding back in time. I was a teenager again. Fourteen to be exact. Verona was the setting for my first great international adventure.
In the summer of 1956, Mom and Dad dropped me off at the station in Livorno, along with my best friend, Judy, and we girls took the train to Verona. Our goal: Rendezvous with three school friends whose fathers had been transferred there and spend a couple of weeks in Verona and Venice, two storybook cities. By day in Verona, we frolicked at the beach. By night at slumber parties, we gossiped and told stories hours past our bedtimes, tried on each other’s clothes, and paraded like models, slim and pretty and oh so feminine.
The US Army’s American Beach on Lake Garda was an enclave safe from all things foreign, the perfect hangout for teenage dependents. Like other beaches around the lake, it was private, but ours was reserved for the US military. We had to show our military IDs, and not even American tourists or Italian vendors were allowed to enter.
A recreation center established for the soldiers and their families on foreign assignments, American Beach offered the essentials for American kids: a shaded pavilion anchored by a snack shack that served up hot dogs, burgers, and fries, plus Italian pizza and American-made ice cream—pasteurized, unlike the Italian version, which our mothers warned us would make us sick. We bought all the goodies at low prices with “script”—miniature bills for military families that America printed to stem the flow of US dollars into the black market. Even the nickels, dimes, and quarters were paper bills. In Italian stores off the post, script was worthless.
Fortified with comfort food, we teens sunbathed, played volleyball, and, under the watchful eyes of our American lifeguards, swam, water-skied, and rowed boats along the tree-lined shores. And met boys. We swooned over “Only You” and pined for our own true loves. We jitterbugged to “Rock Around the Clock” and flirted shamelessly.
The boys tried to con us into chicken fights in the lake—boy-girl teams, girls riding atop. Older and uninhibited, our friend Marcia hooted, “What? Snuggle my ass over your pimply shoulders and pretend it’s an accident each time those grubby fingers try to score? Not on your life!” The boys shriveled and slunk away.
The ultimate diversion? Waterskiing. My first try, I fell flat on my face, forgot to let go of the rope, and gulped in half the lake. After trying over and over again, I finally rode to the top of the wake. But when I pulled the handl
e too close, the towline went slack, and I smacked down on my rump. One day I managed a single, exhilarating circuit to the lake’s center and back, capped off by thirty seconds of sheer bliss when I leaped the wake and glissaded effortlessly on the glassy surface. For a few shining moments, I’d been a swan.
Most unforgettable was our girls-only skinny-dipping escapade. For the first time in my life, I cast away my inhibitions. That day, I realized I could do things I’d never dared to do before. In retrospect, it was a major step toward womanhood.
On an excursion to Venice, we skipped across Piazza San Marco to the Loggetta at the foot of the Campanile and flirted with some American sailors on shore leave. Marcia cajoled a navy guy into letting her wear his white sailor hat. After that, he and his buddies tailed us like jackals until it dawned on them we weren’t about to give them what they came ashore for. The petty officer panting for Marcia was the last to give up. She ignored him and finally kept his cap. I envied her easy way with guys—when they got pushy, she simply laughed them off.
Eight years later, I was eager to create new memories, this time with a man I could easily marry.
The downside: being cloistered during our must-do stay with Colonel and Mrs. Kirtley in Verona, cordoned off in separate bedrooms, no question. I was sure that in a previous life, Edna Mae had been mother superior in a home for wayward girls. But we couldn’t possibly bypass the Kirtleys for a secluded pensione on Lake Garda.
Still, I looked forward to seeing Colonel Kirtley. He had always treated me like a grown-up, asking for my opinion and responding to what I said. He was also a man who would help you in a pinch. En route, I told Jack about the time he had shepherded us into an apartment near the Pentagon despite an impossible housing crunch. The Kirtleys had moved into the area earlier, and the building owner asked Ed if he could recommend someone from the waiting list for the last available apartment. When Ed spotted Dad’s name—buried far down the list—he sang our praises and got us bumped to the top. “You can’t go wrong if you have God’s right-hand man on your side, Sis. Remember that,” Dad told me before I left for Europe.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “A chaplain, huh? I suppose he’ll grill me about my ‘faith.’”
“Nah, don’t worry. They’re not like that.”
Jack went silent. Finally, he swept his hand toward the thick forest on both sides of the road. “We live in a beautiful, complicated universe. But simply because it would take a god to create it doesn’t prove God exists.”
“So?”
“So your mother told Bonner you would never marry someone who wasn’t a Christian. That means me. What did you tell her about me and religion?”
“Nothing! But hold on. You want to talk about religion or my mother?”
“Religion. Start with religion. All religions rely on faith. Why?” He wasn’t expecting an answer. I waited. “Because you can’t prove the existence of God. So where do you get faith? From your parents, who got it from their parents.”
“Agreed. If your parents brought you up believing a yellow handkerchief was pink, you’d believe it was pink, no matter what your friends said.”
“Great example,” he said. “And you actually agree?”
“Sure.”
My mind jumped to one of the hubbubs Terry had ignited. One Easter vacation he went home from CU and showed up at his hometown Sunday school and challenged the kids with that yellow-handkerchief metaphor. His “blasphemy” stirred the wrath of the minister, mortified his parents, and made him persona non grata at Center’s Methodist church. Terry had laughed it off. “Wow, ten times worse than farting during the silent prayer.” Jack would have laughed too, but I couldn’t tell him.
More than once, Jack had written at length about religion, but what had I told him about my beliefs? Hardly a peep. Fact was, I’d never told him I had grown up with the piety of a nun. I had trundled off to Sunday school and church by myself on many a Sunday. Led the devotionals at our weekly Christian Youth Fellowship meetings. Eagerly attended summer church camp—not for the boys, but because I felt closer to God under the stars. Read the Bible every night.
At CU, though, I fell away from the church in the hurly-burly of college life. In late-night bull sessions with dorm mates—and long talks with Terry—I pondered my deepest beliefs about war and peace, civil rights, religion, and poverty, and decried the hypocrisy of political and religious leaders who paid only lip service to solving problems. College became the petri dish for a brave new perspective on the world’s pervasive problems. With Sunday as the day to catch up on my studies, I simply didn’t go to church. By contrast, Mom and Dad became more zealous churchgoers.
Jack’s voice yanked me back. “I know I’ve ranted about religion. But you? I think not.”
“Yeah, you sure did. I mostly agree with your premise, but I don’t wear it on my sleeve.”
He shot me a look, then grinned. “That’s wonderful. You’re wonderful, I mean. I couldn’t marry a girl who uses religion as a crutch.”
“Yes, we’re in accord here, guy. But the question is, Why would Mom be commenting on your religious beliefs? Did you tell my folks you don’t believe in God? That you’re a heathen?” Slyly, I studied his profile to see if that would get a rise out of him.
“No. I assumed you told them. You mean you didn’t?”
“’Course not. So where’d they get the idea you aren’t a Christian? And that we might be discussing marriage, by the way?”
“Bonner knows I question the existence of God, but—”
“And I suppose you told him about us as well?”
“He knows I’ve fallen for you. But who cares? I’m not ashamed of my views. Or of loving you.”
He meant it. Not sweet talk, just straight-out truth. At that moment, we both were floating down the highway. But he’d hit a touchy point—about confidentiality. He needed to understand that. “I care,” I said. “I don’t talk about my love life with anyone. It’s private.”
A sliver of memory started pestering me. Six months before, while I was home for Christmas, Bonner had written, mentioning he had some major car repairs coming up and might need a short-term loan. Would that have been a cover for scraping together the money he needed to finance Gretchen’s trip to the States—and the birth? And when it got urgent, might he have called Dad, maybe around the time I had asked for help with my Europe trip? If so, I bet Mom would have gotten on the phone and asked him about Jack and me. Boy, for someone who liked privacy, I was in a pretty leaky boat—if my speculation turned out to be true.
“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “Your secrets are safe with me. I brought up religion only because I’m worried your folks have primed the chaplain to cook my goose.”
Shifting uncomfortably in the passenger seat, I tried to be more reassuring than I felt. “No, they wouldn’t be that devious. But I can see Mom getting worked up about your belief in God—disbelief, I mean. Just in case, let’s make sure the Kirtleys fall in love with us. Let’s be ‘above reproach in all things’—as Mom likes to say.”
Jack put out his hand. “Good plan, clever Ann.” We shook on it.
That night at the Kirtleys, Edna Mae outdid herself with a home-cooked Italian meal: chicken cacciatore, garden vegetables sautéed in olive oil, a tossed salad, and red wine. What a refreshing break from the make-do meals Jack and I had concocted day after day.
The two of them treated us as if we, not my parents, were lifelong friends. They pressed me about my college days and waxed on about the joy of teaching and my plans for Glendale High. In a burst of questions, they asked Jack about West Point and each post since graduation. Shifting his focus to the Cold War, Ed lamented the plight of “those poor souls locked away behind the Iron Curtain.” As we finished dinner, he turned to Jack. “Tell us about border duty. How are you and your men holding up under the stress?”
“Stress? Well, sir, it’s deathly quiet at the border. No traffic. No people. Not even a stray dog. It’s peaceful—in that eerie eye-of
-a-hurricane way. But everyone’s nerves are ajangle. We’re primed and loaded, our instincts at hair triggers. A wizened grandma wandering too close can throw a two-hundred-mile stretch of the border into battle alert. The US and our allies as well as Czechs and East German citizens. All of us. Everyone’s always jittery. You can’t sleep.”
“Like Korea after the truce,” Ed said. “It tests your spirits, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Here’s a sobering example. It’s Friday afternoon, November 22, last year.” Jack paused, leaned forward, and slowly looked around the table at each of us. “Bonner and I have just finished a five-day exercise at Vilseck. Beautiful day. Air’s fresh, peaks capped with snow. Aside from our war games, all’s quiet at the eastern perimeter of the free world.”
I knew Jack’s storytelling voice from his tapes, but I had never seen him in action. His voice became deliberate. “My men have packed the train—tanks, APCs, trucks, jeeps, everything. We’re headed back to Camp Whalen. Not Bonner. For some crazy reason, the CO tells him to land march his men.” Slicing his hand sideways, he said, “We never do that. War machines tear up the best of highways, let alone those backcountry lanes.”
Ah, yes. In Landshut, I heard—and felt—a tank thundering down a city street long before I actually saw it. The ground shook. Windows rattled. Dogs howled. One tank. A whole convoy rumbling through German villages, ripping the roads to shreds, made no sense.
“So Bonner and his men head out by road,” Jack said. “My troop goes by train. It takes us two hours. For Bonner, ninety miles at sixteen miles an hour will cost him at least half the day.
“At Whalen, my buddy Tom is duty officer. He’s shorthanded, so I help drive the surveillance points, collect observations, and make sure everyone has what they need. At 19:15 hours, Tom and I break out MREs for dinner. We’re shooting the breeze in the command post, listening to Ray Charles sing ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ on AFN. I love that song.” Eyes flashing, Jack shot me a glance. “The announcer breaks in: ‘We have just received this word from Dallas, Texas . . .’” Jack’s voice dropped. He was steely-eyed, grasping a make-believe mike. “‘President Kennedy has been shot. He has been taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital.’”
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