“It’s no coincidence. I worked hard to get you to take R and R.”
“So you’re the little bird who ratted me out. Why?”
“To see you.”
“Rye, I told you—”
“I broke off my engagement.”
That stopped her. “You did?”
“I couldn’t pretend anymore, not after Tet. Life is short, and…” He paused. “There’s something between us, Frankie. Tell me you don’t feel it and I’ll walk away.”
Frankie stood up to face him.
“Say you don’t want me.” The way he said it revealed an unexpected vulnerability.
There was no way in the world she could flirt with him or lie. “I can’t say that,” she said evenly.
He finally released a breath. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
She knew it wasn’t just dinner he wanted; she wanted more, too. Still, he was Rye Walsh, the rule-breaker who’d pushed her brother into trouble more than once (not that Finley needed much help in that regard), and she knew she wouldn’t be safe with a man like him. But he was still an officer, and hopefully a gentleman. “You broke off your engagement? You swear it?”
“I swear I’m not engaged.”
Frankie stared at him, felt a spark of excitement, like coming alive after a long hibernation. “Dinner sounds great.”
* * *
Frankie stood in line at the pay phone for thirty minutes. In the past year, she’d called stateside only twice: on Christmas and her mother’s birthday.
Barb answered on the second ring, sounded harried and distracted. “Hello?”
“Barb! It’s me.”
“Frankie! It is so good to hear your voice.”
Frankie leaned her elbows on the cool metal shelf below the pay phone. A small stack of quarters stood at the ready. She hoped it would be enough. She could only imagine how expensive this call would be. “I’m in Kauai on my R and R.”
“Wait! I’ll join you!”
“Ordinarily I’d jump on that, but…” She glanced around, made sure no one could hear her. “Rye Walsh is here.”
“Mr. Cool?”
“He broke off his engagement. Maybe for me. The point is: I need advice. What if he wants to have sex?”
“I guarantee you he wants to have sex. Call me telepathic. If you weren’t such a damn Catholic-school girl, you would, too.”
“I do. I mean, I might. But I need some … practical advice.”
The operator came on to ask for more money. Frankie put in the rest of her quarters.
“Use birth control,” Barb said. “It’ll have to be condoms. Unless you have a fake wedding ring.”
“What?”
“They won’t give single women the pill. Don’t even get me started on that shit, but if you pretend you’re married, you can get it. Not that it will work by tonight. So, yeah. Condoms. Get lots.”
“Seriously, Babs. I need, you know, step-by-step kind of stuff.”
“They did have sex ed in your all-girls’ school, didn’t they? Did you sleep through it? And in nursing school—”
“Shut up. Help me. What do I—”
“Believe me, Frankie. That man has the sex part down. Just try not to tense up and don’t expect too much the first time. It can hurt a bit.”
“That’s not very detailed.”
“Okay, shave your legs and armpits. Wear sexy lingerie,” Barb said, laughing. “Oh. And be bold. Not ladylike. And don’t believe him if he says he loves you.”
“What? Why—”
The connection ended.
Frankie left the lobby and hailed a cab, which took her into the small town of Lihue. There, she got her hair cut in a chin-length, side-parted bob, and bought a red-and-white hibiscus-print sheath dress with a matching headscarf and heeled white sandals.
Back at the hotel, she followed Barb’s advice and shaved carefully and moisturized her sunburned skin.
As she stood in her hotel room bathroom and stared into the opalescent shell-framed mirror that hung over a large clamshell sink, she hardly recognized herself. The beautician had brought back the shine in her black hair and the sleek haircut emphasized her blue eyes and the sharp line of her cheekbones. There was still an air of sadness about her—the sorrow she’d learned in Vietnam. She wondered if that would ever fade. But there was a youthful excitement in her look, too. Hope. Long since forgotten and never again to be taken for granted.
At 1830 hours, she left her room and went downstairs. The ceiling of the hotel lobby arched high overhead, soared up like the nave of a church.
She entered the open-air dining room. Beyond the half walls, she saw the shadowy lagoons where tiki torches blazed. Coconut palm fronds swayed and whispered, stark black trees against a violet sky. Somewhere, someone was playing a ukulele.
Most of the tables were full of vacationers, talking, laughing, smoking. It was a sharp reminder that while she’d been in Vietnam, the world had gone on. Kids had gone to school, parents had gone to work; not everyone lived and breathed the war. In ’Nam, it was easy to hear about the protests going on in America and think that everyone was burning the flag and protesting for peace; here, it was obvious that most people had quietly gone on with their lives, avoiding the dangerous shores on either side of the divide.
She saw Rye seated at a quiet table in the back corner.
A lovely Hawaiian woman, dressed in a floor-length bark-cloth print muumuu, wearing a fragrant lei, led her across the busy restaurant.
As she neared the table, Rye stood, waited for her to be seated before he sat back down.
He offered her a gorgeous lei made of small yellow-white flowers. “It’s white ginger.”
The fragrance was intoxicating.
“May I bring you a cocktail?” the hostess asked when Frankie was seated. “Perhaps a mai tai? The hotel’s owner, Mrs. Guslander, believes it is the best cocktail in the world.”
Frankie nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
“I’ll have a Jameson on the rocks,” Rye said.
The hostess left them alone.
The candle in the center of the table sent golden light upward.
The hostess returned with the two drinks and a pair of menus.
The mai tai was sweet and sour and strong. Frankie toyed with the pink umbrella, lifted it, ate the sweet, sweet maraschino cherry and chunk of pineapple. She knew this dinner with him meant something, maybe everything, but she felt awkward. She could reach into a man’s chest and hold his heart in her hands, but she had forgotten how to make small talk.
Rye stared down into his glass, rattled his ice cubes around.
“Ice,” Frankie said, just to be talking. “I’ll never take that for granted again.”
“Or a hot bath.”
“Or dry sheets.”
The waitress appeared, took their orders, and disappeared again.
Frankie could tell that he was uncertain, too. They knew each other only in the flimsiest of ways, and now he’d broken off an engagement for a chance that might come to nothing.
The waitress delivered two shrimp cocktails.
Frankie dipped a plump, pink shrimp in the spicy cocktail sauce and took a bite, chewing slowly. “You remember the night of Finley’s going-away party?”
“A going-away party for Vietnam,” he said. “Talk about another world.”
“We didn’t know.”
He took a drink. “No,” he said quietly. “We didn’t.”
“Did you ever talk to Fin about Vietnam, I mean really talk?”
Rye looked away just for a moment; in his hesitation, she saw regret. “We were at Annapolis,” he said. “It was all rah-rah Navy. And he believed in it. He wanted to make your dad proud of him. I know that.”
“Yeah,” Frankie said. “My dad. The heroes’ wall. We met there at the party.”
Rye smiled at this shared memory. “Both of us hiding out.”
“What were you hiding from?”
“I’m a poor kid from Compton. I didn’t know how to act at your house, how to dress. Anything. And…”
“What?”
“Well. If we’re telling all our secrets here, I followed you into the office.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wanted to ask you to the Ring Dance in ’65. Did Fin ever tell you that?”
“No.”