by Tanya Biank
Andrea Lynne looked over at her husband as he welcomed their guests. She and Rennie had made love that morning after breakfast, as they always did on the day of a party or social engagement. It was sort of a quick “Hello, I love you above all else,” and a “See you at the finish line at the end of the day” ritual. For Andrea Lynne it was also a great secret to a happy marriage. She knew Rennie could get a little jealous sometimes. The sex was her way of boosting his confidence and reassuring her husband how much she loved him.
She still loved looking at him. He had a broad forehead, framed by archless eyebrows that extended a good inch beyond his eyes, which were blue with specks of green that Andrea Lynne thought gave them a touch of sadness. His eyes were the exact same color as hers. But Rennie’s eyebrows were his trademark feature and could make him look intimidating, depending on his mood.
Andrea Lynne adored seeing her husband naked. He was all man, not skinny—Rennie’s weight fluctuated from 185 when he was happy to 180 when he was away from home—just right. He wasn’t broad shouldered, but he made up for it in muscle, a tribute to his daily workouts. As for her husband’s chest, her girlfriends joked that he had more cleavage than she did.
The sex before a party was just one of their rituals. Each morning Rennie made coffee for his wife and brought it to her bedside before kissing her good-bye. On weekends they would make love after breakfast, their kisses tasting of coffee and pancakes. And each night he’d rub Andrea Lynne’s feet and shoulders. He was always touching her.
This morning, instead of cuddling and talking, it had been: On your mark, get set, go! They were off to orchestrate a successful party. Nothing had been left to chance, including Andrea Lynne’s outfit. She wanted to look casually beautiful and sexy, and she wore a long black velvet skirt with a form-fitting baby blue velvet scoop-neck tee. Her silky black bra strap kept peeking out. She had let her shoulder-length blond hair air-dry that morning so it would stay in ringlets.
The Corys’ oldest daughter, Natalie, home from college, had dressed up, too, to serve hors d’oeuvres from a silver tray. The Corys’ other children were little Rennie, who had turned fifteen two days earlier and their youngest, Madelyn, age ten. Natalie, an intelligent, feminine girl with fair skin and long dark hair, liked to stay near her father. Andrea Lynne could tell Rennie enjoyed having such a beautiful daughter. He introduced her several times as his “dean’s list girl.” Now, in the kitchen Natalie watched like a little girl as her mother pulled trays of bubbling Gouda from the oven.
“I wish I was as pretty as Mommy,” Natalie said giggling, loud enough for her mother to hear.
Rennie looped his arm around his daughter’s waist and pulled her close. “You’re not doing too bad.” He squeezed her. “You look like your dad!”
At forty Andrea Lynne still possessed the razzle-dazzle that had turned men’s eyes when she was young. She was a petite woman with sparkling eyes, a panoramic smile, and the confidence that beautiful women possessed—which could be both a blessing and a curse in the Army. Tonight, though, it was working its magic as she greeted officers and their wives.
“You look gorgeous, dahling,” said Alice Maffey, as she hugged Andrea Lynne. Both had been snookered—each had been told the other had already agreed to do it—into serving on the PTA board, with Andrea Lynne as president and Alice as treasurer. The wife of Colonel Tom Maffey was a striking woman, tall and incredibly thin, with long blond hair. She sipped a glass of hot glühwein and moved on. The two friends never chatted much at parties. Being an officer’s wife meant being onstage, working the crowd. They would talk later, when they were alone.
Andrea Lynne had her part down perfectly. She circulated constantly, giving everyone the same smile and an “I’m so glad you came!” She welcomed Command Sergeant Major Gary Kalinofski and his wife, Delores, one of the few noncommissioned officer couples at the party, then checked the CD player.
The music for the evening had been carefully planned. Andrea Lynne had chosen a Mannheim Steamroller CD as background during the formal greetings. That was followed by an assortment of Irish Christmas music and, for after the stuffed shirts were gone, some classic rock—Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Aerosmith, John Mellencamp, Led Zeppelin, and REM. Rennie loved classic rock and often whispered lyrics in Andrea Lynne’s ear. Toward the end of the party, when there were just a few couples left, Andrea Lynne would play something to heighten the romance, Sade, perhaps, or Fiona Apple and Dido.
But right now there were fifty-eight people in the house. Andrea Lynne was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. A party that big was bound to be successful. There was no room to sit—death to a party—everyone had to stand and move around. And since the bathroom was upstairs—these quarters had no lavatory on the first floor, the biggest complaint of those who lived in them—her guests got to admire more of her decorating.
The floor of the bathroom, for example, was covered in small spring-green square tiles (another frequent complaint), but Andrea Lynne had just worked with the color scheme. She covered the walls with framed photos of Rennie with the children and thought of it as a Father’s Day bathroom. Everyone at the party got to see another side of her husband and commented on the pictures.
She loved displaying images of friends and family. One window ledge held photographs of Andrea Lynne’s friends from past Army assignments. She liked to say that her friends were with her wherever she moved. The wall along the curving stairway had all old black-and-white photos in silver and gold and wood frames. She irreverently called it her dead people wall, even though several of the photos were of the couple and their parents as children. At the bottom of the stairs was a beautiful charcoal drawing of Rennie’s mother, Patty, who had died of breast cancer when he was eight. It was the only thing he had inherited from his mother’s side of the family, and Rennie adored it.
Every house Andrea Lynne lived in, she decorated from floor to ceiling, painting and wallpapering the house like a three-dimensional canvas. Some wives found her decorating excessive, but then, they didn’t view themselves as artists, as Andrea Lynne did. We live here three years of our lives, Andrea Lynne told herself. We can never get those years back. Why not make them beautiful? Each corner had to be fabulous. She put an old-fashioned screen door on her youngest daughter’s bedroom entrance, for example, and added a doormat, a battery-operated wrought-iron lamp, and a sign announcing: MADELYN’S COTTAGE. She herself made all the curtains (heavy red velvet with rich flower valances that she carried from quarters to quarters) and most of their bedspreads with her Sears sewing machine, a Christmas present from early in her marriage. Of course when moving time came around every few years, the house had to be put back the way it originally was.
As the space filled with people, Linda Jefferson, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Dick Jefferson, a battalion commander, found Andrea Lynne and suggested a rendezvous outside with a pack of cigarettes. Whenever she saw Andrea Lynne at any function, she’d grab her to sneak a cigarette. Linda, who had short brown hair and wore glasses, was a closet smoker—and a hoot. At wives’ gatherings, when it was time to say good-bye, she’d tell Andrea Lynne that she had to get home to “her Dick,” and then she’d wink.
Andrea Lynne located Rennie’s older sister, Stephanie, another smoker, and the three women slipped out the front door. The air was cool, cool enough for a shiver but bearable without a coat. Andrea Lynne only smoked occasionally, sometimes with her girlfriends, more frequently out of loneliness when Rennie was away. She had never smoked when she was in her twenties, when she was having babies or nursing them. And Rennie never touched a cigarette, but he encouraged her. He’d pour her a glass of wine before dinner, and on warm nights he’d ask her to come sit with him out back. “Why don’t you have a drink with me? You could smoke a cigarette.” It was his way of getting her to relax and spend time with him, and it would get Andrea Lynne every time.
Smoking a cigarette now, with the sounds of the party muffled by walls and windows, Andrea Lynne
reflected on just how close—and effective—a team she and Rennie had become. Army life had taught Andrea Lynne well. She felt as if she helped turn a wheel in a great military machine. As far as she was concerned, it was really the wives who ran Fort Bragg. She had a definite role to play and could play it expertly—but then she’d had years of experience. That was the only way you could learn the lessons of an Army wife; it wasn’t as though the military gave you a manual to prepare you for the dos and don’ts of socializing, politicking, fund-raising, group dynamics, juggling—or curtain making, for that matter. Army Family Team Building (AFTB) classes aside, you had to count on your husband and perhaps a close friend or two to get by.
Smart women eventually shed their naïveté for military savvy, learning from their mistakes. What an officer’s wife did affected her husband’s career, and just as Rennie had mastered his command and risen through the ranks, Andrea Lynne, too, had had to take on increasing responsibilities and figure out how to fight her own battles and marshal her forces—the other wives. It wasn’t always easy.
When Rennie was a young lieutenant in the early eighties, another lieutenant’s wife had spread a rumor that Andrea Lynne had said a superior officer and his wife were prejudiced. The rumor was completely untrue, but it was picked up by a captain’s wife, and Rennie got called into his superior’s office and asked why his wife would make such a statement. Of course she never had, and as far as Rennie’s career was concerned, that was that. But the story reached the superior’s wife. One morning the woman arrived unannounced at the Corys’ door. Without asking if the rumor was true, she began berating Andrea Lynne, who was still in her robe and without any makeup.
Hurt and embarrassed, Andrea Lynne stayed in seclusion for a while. They were leaving the post within the month, and since Rennie had no more problems over the incident, that was all Andrea Lynne cared about. Yet at their farewell, Andrea Lynne found herself next to the captain’s wife who had helped set the rumor mill in motion. Andrea Lynne was scared about confronting a superior’s spouse, but she took a deep breath and weighed in. “You don’t even know me,” she said calmly. “Yet you repeated hearsay If you felt it needed to be addressed, why didn’t you confirm it with me first?
“You could have made my husband’s situation terrible,” she went on, “all based on a lie. Please think of something you can do to make it better.” And with that Andrea Lynne walked away. The experience had left its mark. In time Andrea Lynne had learned when to battle back and when to let things take their course.
At its best the Army community has tremendous camaraderie; in a crisis no group pulls together better to take care of its own. I’ve witnessed it many times. Officers’ wives still have to be careful. Andrea Lynne had seen it all. The women—who can be as gossipy as rival sorority girls—are always sizing one another up. They will say a wife is a snob if she is quiet, a slut if she talks to the guys, and vain if she wears fashionable clothing. If she works and doesn’t participate in unit functions—well, then the word is, She’s got her own life and that marriage is not going to last.
Much of the scrutiny is reserved for the commander’s wife, and it starts even before a commander and his wife are transferred to Bragg. As soon as the news hits, the questions start flying: How does she act? Where is she from? How many kids? Does she work? What does she look like? Is she overweight? What does she do? Thrift shop, PTA, or AFTB? Is she a Board Warmer? And the very first time she appears across Pike Field at the change-of-command ceremony, the rest of the wives are already guessing the bottle number her hair color comes from, wondering where she bought her dress, and assessing how she carries herself. If she wasn’t smiling, why not? If she was, what does she have to smile about? Being a commander’s wife is fishbowl living, and there is no escape.
These days, when any of her friends’ husbands took command, Andrea Lynne gave the couples sympathy cards at their ceremonies. They would need the sense of humor. If the wife was pretty, her role was even trickier. Andrea Lynne knew that firsthand. There were no hard-and-fast rules. Your husband might get hired because you were pretty. Or not: One of Rennie’s peers had turned down a major who was lobbying for a job because the major’s wife seemed a bit too friendly and showed a little too much cleavage. “What does this major’s wife have to do with his ability to do his job?” Rennie said angrily to Andrea Lynne later. “So she’s friendly and pretty. When is that a bad thing?”
“Can you imagine” Andrea Lynne asked a close friend, “your husband not getting a job because you wear a low-cut blouse and show a few too many teeth to the boss?” No, if you were attractive and wore a size 4, it was best to underplay those assets and focus on the group. Find some volunteer job no one else wanted and do it well.
And learn to manage your group of wives as well as any commander. A significant number of the 750 soldiers in the battalion are married with children. The commander’s wife has the responsibility, with her husband, of leading the unit’s Family Readiness Group (FRG), which means keeping soldiers and spouses informed of events and issues affecting the battalion. In addition commanders’ wives have to keep up with pregnancies, births, and miscarriages; the number of families in need of frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving; women who can’t get their sick child a doctor’s appointment; and the frantic 6:00 A.M. calls from young wives whose electricity has been turned off because their husbands didn’t pay the electric bill before going into the field.
Each battalion also has its own officers’ wives’ coffee groups, which meet at a different house each month. The coffees are mostly social, and sometimes have a theme and some business on the agenda. The commander’s wife—the leader of the coffees—introduces new wives and bids farewell to those departing, discusses upcoming events and battalion news, and passes along the men’s field and jump schedules. She also has to address any concerns the ladies have.
Andrea Lynne tried to get to know each woman, find out her talents, and pull her into the group. She never let the business feel like business. Instead she’d joke with all the girls, highlighting each person at least once throughout the meeting, and introduce two or three ladies that she thought might become friends. She’d focus on the wives who were soldiers themselves, asking them about their jobs, and zero in on the new mothers when she talked about who must really be tired.
Rennie was a master at this kind of thing. She’d watched him clap some young new lieutenant on the back and tell the battalion what the guy’s major in college had been, that he was the one they should ask for advice on such and such. Like him, Andrea Lynne tried never to leave anyone out, so all the women felt special, as though each one had a place.
Andrea Lynne’s coffees were famous. She always brought out the china and crystal and had fun with the themes. For Valentine’s Day she served aphrodisiacs: lobster chunks with Green Goddess dressing, “White Devil” eggs and caviar, shrimp cocktail, Cupid cherry-cheesecakes, chocolate-covered cherries, marinated mushrooms, sugar-frosted grapes, and pink champagne. She got the women to make Valentines for their guys, then had Rennie hand-deliver them at his next morning’s meeting. The women loved it. Once, after the operations officer’s wife left, they doctored the outside of her card, so that the next morning the major, in front of the staff, received a Valentine addressed to “My Stud Muffin.”
The wives enjoyed the coffees at Andrea Lynne’s so much that eventually they just brought food to her house and piled in till midnight. If the men were in the field, it was ladies’ night out—also at Andrea Lynne’s house—with music, margarita mix, dip, chips, cookies, and cake.
But it took hard work to create such a close-knit coffee group. Andrea Lynne remembered her first coffee as the commander’s wife. She attended an evening pajama party and greeted the other wives wearing Caroline’s footsie pajamas with her lovey (the family name for a small cotton throw) draped over her shoulder. The women drank mimosas and got down to the business of the evening: discussing a new phone number for the Robinson Health Clinic. It shou
ld have been easy. This coffee group was already well established—and the former commander’s wife, Melissa Huggins, who would become Andrea Lynne’s good friend, was well loved. This gathering was really about checking out Andrea Lynne—footsie PJs and all.
Most of the wives were just waiting for her lead, but one outspoken lieutenant’s wife, the ringleader of a troublesome threesome, challenged everything Andrea Lynne said. Only a few weeks earlier the younger woman had caused a huge flap, because Andrea Lynne, placating some other wives, had excluded officers’ girlfriends from the coffees. It seemed like a small issue, but the repercussions had spilled into Rennie’s office with such force that he actually thought he’d lose his new command over it. He didn’t hang any pictures in his office for a month, thinking he’d be gone.
Now here the young woman was again, challenging Andrea Lynne’s authority. Such a thing would never have happened in “the old Army,” in which junior officers’ wives rose to their feet when the commander’s lady entered the room, but that tradition, happily, had gone away with girdles and white gloves.
As Andrea Lynne began talking about using the new phone numbers to get health care at Robinson, the lieutenant’s wife, a nurse, interrupted: “Andrea, everyone just calls me if they need to get in.”
“Well, that’s great,” Andrea Lynne continued, “but we need to make sure we have these numbers because, you understand, these are the numbers that the soldiers are going to be using. Aaand”—here goes, Andrea Lynne thought—“it’s a good idea, too. I make the time to use these numbers myself, so I can understand how long you are put on hold, how rude the appointment clerk might be, et cetera. And I can complain at command and staff, if I have to. We need to make sure our system works, you know?”
