Francine sat in the front row along with the other members of the Steele family, holding onto Ian’s arm for dear life. Saddened beyond belief, she closed her eyes and recalled when her sister shined. Countless times when she was there in the shadows when Suzy received her beauty awards, envying her when she got them, admiring her when she was a popular cheerleader, homecoming queen and Miss Bridgeport and Daffodil Queen; and now, watching her go down into the ground with all those memories.
At that moment, Francine tried to reach for her mother, but was startled to see her embrace her father like nothing happened between them. Angelo sat beside her, quiet and grimacing from the inner torment at the sight of his wife now reaching for her ex.
“Oh Stephen, our baby,” Nancy cried, holding onto to Stephen’s forearm.
“I know Nancy,” he agreed, placing his hand over hers on his jacket sleeve. “I miss her so much…Suzy and I were getting closer. She was my princess…”
WHAT?!
Francine grinned once and then began to laugh. A laugh so intense, everyone started to look her way. “That’s funny daddy!” She said aloud, standing up on her feet. “That’s so goddamn funny! Your princess?” Crazed and on the verge of a breakdown, Francine started to scream back at her family. “I can’t believe you’ve waited until Suzy was dead to say something like that! I never thought I’d hear you say she was your princess! What a joke!”
Stephen was horrified. The pompous Steele clan all looked his way aghast. “Francine, enough.”
“No dad! You make me sick!” Francine said, then pointing to all her aunts and uncles. “All of you! You make me all sick! All this time, all this horrible time you’ve humiliated her, called her names, not inviting her to family holiday events,” she wailed, then looked directly at her father, “Even cutting her out of wills.” Francine then twirled around and bumped into something solid. A human wall named Derek Magnet. “What the hell are you doing here?” She questioned, pushing him aside. “Get the hell outta my way!”
Derrie turned to look at Ian. The two men don’t utter a single word to each other as Francine took off and Derrie jetted right after her.
Francine made a mad dash through the crowd of mourner’s, running aimlessly through a sea of gravestones when she finally came to a halt against one set stone. Distraught, Francine buried her face into the granite and began to cry.
In the distance, Derrie summoned her to answer him. She looked up in confusion and spotted him rushing towards her. Did she want to be found? “Oh, what the hell do you want? What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have a life to live—a marriage to commit to?”
He reached for her hand, “Fran, let me help you.”
Francine hid her hands behind her back. “Go away! Nobody really wants you here. I don’t want you here.”
Derrie laid his hands back down by his side. “I came here because I knew that you would need me.”
Francine began to walk away from him again. “Well, you were wrong, I don’t need you!”
Derrie traipsed after her and tried to reach out for her hand again only this time caught her and yanked Francine’s body into another nearby headstone. Fighting him this time, Francine punched his arms and his chest to let her body go, but Derrie didn’t flinch.
“It’s OK Fran; just let it go…I’m here now,” he softly said to her.
“Damn you!” She yelled back at him, slapping his face—hard.
Derrie does let go of her and pushed her body away. “What the hell was that for?”
“For being here!” She yelled back at him.
Derrie swallowed his anger. “…For caring about you? For being here when you needed me? I love you Fran, don’t you know that by now?”
Francine turned her head away and wrapped her arms around her midriff. She looked down at the ground and then read one of the names on the headstones for no good reason. “I do…I do know that.”
“You must have always known,” Derrie confessed tenderly.
“I’m pregnant,” Francine just blurted out.
Derrie’s eyes bug out. He’s flabbergasted—a loss for words. Swallowing his surprise, he barely got out, “Really?”
Francine buried her face within her hands. “I found out yesterday.”
He stared at her for a long moment. She didn’t appear to be a wife that looked ecstatic about having a baby. “I’m…I’m happy for you, if you’re happy…aren’t you happy?”
Francine then burst into tears. “No…no, I’m not happy.” But then she looked quickly up at him with her tears still streaming down her cheeks. She stared into his eyes and his into hers. It was a concentrated stare, a validation and a moment of truth. “Every time I see you,” she admitted, “Every time I think of you, I’m reminded how much I can never have you. You’re married now, I’m married now, you’ve got a kid and I’m having one, it’s just this big mess!”
Derrie stepped away from her and threw his arms up in the air. “Damn you Fran! Why didn’t you think of this before we both got married? We had our chance to be together, but you went ahead and married that doofus.”
“So this is all my fault?” Francine asked, disbelieving they were actually declaring their affection. She backed away from him, not crying anymore. “I asked you once if you had feelings for me but you shook me off. The next thing I know you’re sending me some greeting card telling me you got some girl PG and gotta marry her. What was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to do? I was two steps away from marrying Ian!”
“Do you think this has been easy on me? I look at my wife and all I see is you! The last time we saw each other, I couldn’t get you outta my damn head; I’m drunk, I’m preoccupied, I’m an ditz for days. I can’t throw a football, I lose my concentration, my coach says relax, but I can’t…I can’t!”
Francine shut her mouth and said nothing else. All this time, all this gosh darn time he had been experiencing the very same feelings? So every time he saw her, it tied him in knots as well trying to figure out how they could be together? “Oh Derrie, what a mess.”
Derrie absolutely agreed with her. “Aren’t we ever?”
They walked away from each other only to turn around at the same time taking a few steps in. Inches away from each other now, Francine tried to hold back her mania while Derrie tried to fight his own; definite affliction between them both.
Francine’s face was on fire, she had never experienced so much eagerness before. Derrie too, was undergoing identical agony. And that’s when he could see the fervor written all over her face and grabbed her to him without thinking.
He kissed her everywhere and anywhere, down her neck, up to her ear, to their mouths welding and locking together in one long, deep French kiss.
Coming up for air, Francine broke away from his lips to actually feel his heart beat and her heavy breathing. She knew what she wanted and could tell from the buildup in his trousers that he ached for it too. They were alone, with no one near and no one around them when she looked out in the distance and spotted the family limousine.
Derrie and Francine were alone now within the plush interior of the sleek black limo. Sitting across from one another, Derrie lustfully reached for Francine’s body when she whispered, “Derrie, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he relayed, licking her lips once again.
“But I am sorry.”
Derrie cupped her face and asked her to reopen her eyes. “Fran, look at me,” Derrie asked lovingly, “Look at us…We’re better together than we are apart. You know you’ve always had me…an inch away…anytime you call.”
Francine regarded his invitation and entwined her fingers within his, “I know; that is what has always scared me.”
Butting his head up against hers, he closed his own eyes. “All I want to do right now, right this very instant is to hold you…to touch you; that’s all I ever wanna do.”
They start to kiss, kiss each other fully with their clothes still on. Derrie embraced her, Francine received the e
mbrace and he kissed her neck again, her bare shoulder, her cheeks and her wet mouth. No words were expressed, just physical feelings.
She wanted every part of him, every part to make it complete. It was more than what she anticipated, his kiss, his desire for her, it was better than extra…extra special to be exact.
And this was how it was supposed to be. She was no longer that inexperienced girl who was afraid to touch him. She was no longer innocent to where his nakedness would cause her to close her eyes and shy away. But when he began to disrobe she examined him and found that her childhood friend transformed into a man and this man had a great physique. Tone and lean, his daily regime of practicing with the football team caused his stomach to be flat and rippled with muscles. He was awesome to look at and even more desirable to test out. And she guessed by the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off her upper body that he was just as engrossed with her body as she was with his. Not even caring in the least that he might ruin her dress; the buttons were practically ripped off if she didn’t intervene. His expression was blood-tingling as she watched his mouth gather and swathe her bare breasts over and over after tugging down her bra. Helping him pull down his pants, she lifted up her skirt then yanked down her underwear to ultimately accept what she had itch for incessantly. His mouth was serenity, his body was nirvana and he was just downright heaven as his firm male body savagely rested on top of her.
And oh how she loved him! Fingernails digging into his back as his flesh, at last, dove into her; welcoming him inside, she adjusted her body to feel the length of him, kissing his face and tasting his sweet lips that were both ecstasy and rabid as his tempo rose and fell, easing then thick until Francine began to manipulate her own outcome and savored the bliss until it’s incredible closing stages.
Philippines, 1972
A heated rain fell from the sky and the little cottage where Francine resided overflowed with water from the holes in her ceiling. Every inch of the floor was covered in pots and pans collecting drips of the falling rain.
In the bedroom, Ian was in bed reading a book by a dim light. Out in the hallway however, Francine was pacing the floor. She was biting her fingernails and kept running her hands through her hair. Playing the fake wife in a fake marriage was Hell. She felt like Ian knew that she was unfaithful every time she listened to one of his sermons about sinners and with her lack of affection towards him lately, she was even afraid to look him straight in the eye. Every moment of every waking minute she would reminisce of those wonderful moments inside the limousine. After their encounter, they didn’t utter another word and knew what had to be done. But with a child on the way? Francine now had a painful decision to make.
“Francine? Will you come in here for a moment?”
Francine halted her tread and walked around the corner. She stood beside the bed on the opposite side of the room. “What is it?”
“Will you sit down?”
Francine hesitated, but then dragged the chair out from under the writing desk. “What is it, Ian?”
Ian swallowed hard before saying, “I don’t know how else to tell you so I’m just gonna blurt it out…so here goes, I’ve extended my tour two more years.”
Francine’s eyes bug out. “What!”
“I know you’re mad.”
“Go back to that hellish war? Keep me in naval housing? What about the church?”
“That’s just it Francine, the Lord wants me to go and save the dying soldiers…they need me…the Marines need a foot chaplain.”
Then silence…silence and the sound of dripping rain.
“I want a divorce,” she blurted out, finally.
“I know.”
“I want a divorce Ian, I can’t stand it here.”
“You still love that guy, don’t you?”
Francine hesitated again and bowed her head in remorse. “Yes,” she confessed at last. “I’m sorry, Ian, I guess I’ve always loved him.”
Ian pushed the book away that was on his lap and eyed his uniform hanging on the inside of the closet door. “Do what you have to do Fran. I know you desperately want to go back to America, so go. I was always worried about you here alone with the other wives anyways, and I don’t want to worry about you anymore. I get to save people and you get your guy. So in a way, we both get what we want.”
Francine attempted a weak smile. Did she really get what she’s wanted since she got here? Did she really just win? “Oh Ian, I never meant to hurt you—you deserve so much better than what I’ve been able to give.”
Ian started to smile. “Maybe the next time you see me, I’ll be married to a beautiful Vietnamese girl to make you jealous.”
Francine conceded and closed her eyes in relief. “And you would,” she said smiling too. She looked deep into his eyes and continued her smile, but then an unexpected chill went down her spine. She swore his blue eyes turned black…
A week later, Francine boarded a flight out of Subic Bay. Ian waved goodbye to Francine as she walked up the narrow staircase to enter the plane.
She never did tell Ian about the baby. She knew that Ian would have never granted her a divorce if he knew she was pregnant. He would have never have set her free, and she just wanted to be released. It was selfish, she knew that, but she had a one track mind because all she ever wanted—all she ever thought about was Derek Magnet.
Six months later, Francine was handed a baby in a pink blanket. She opened up the cover to see more of the baby’s head.
“Aren’t you beautiful, Sara? I can’t wait to show you to Derrie. It’s just you and me now, you, me and Derrie…”
It would be another year that would go by, another year until she received any letters from both men.
*****
She lived in San Francisco for awhile attending peace marches trying to live her life. America had been turned upside down. Huge demonstrations occurred all across the states, urging an immediate moratorium. One march even filled Pennsylvania Avenue, near the Capitol Building in Washington. Signs called for troops in Vietnam to get “out now” and for the release of jailed antiwar activists. The main demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but afterward some protestors battled with police. Among the strongest opponents of the Vietnam War were soldiers who had served over there and considered the war wrong. Their main organization was “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”. Many antiwar veterans threw away their medals in protest. In 1970, at Kent State University, demonstrators got so heated up that police had to throw tear gas at them and fired bullets that killed four students and wounded others; some casualties were not even protestors, but just students walking to class. The shootings sparked a nationwide student strike, closing down hundreds of campuses. Two students at Jackson State College in Mississippi were also shot and killed by police a month later.
The Democratic Party chose Senator George McGovern of South Dakota to run against President Nixon in 1972. McGovern was himself a decorated WWII bomber pilot and was highly regarded in Congress. Yet he could not unify Democrat voters behind his promises to end the war and cut defense spending and Nixon won by a landslide.
As the U.S. air raids hammered North Vietnam in December 1972, Communist delegates agreed to a cease-fire. The Paris Peace Accords were signed by the U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The agreement provided for a cease-fire with the U.S. withdrawing from Vietnam completely.
In 1973, the U.S. promised to strike back at the Communists if they resumed attacking South Vietnam. This promise was not kept. That same year, Congress cut off funds for U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, later; Congress cut military aid to the Saigon government. When the NVA invaded the RVN in 1974, President Ford could do nothing in response. The Communist offensive had begun and the South Vietnamese knew they had been abandoned by the U.S. and their confidence was crushed. The final campaign lasted until 1975.
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