In midafternoon, she parked her car at the Chula Vista Outdoor Shopping Center and headed for the escalators. The shopping center was decorated in red, white, and blue bunting for the upcoming holiday weekend and most of the storefronts were advertising a SALE! of some kind.
In the courtyard, beneath a palm tree, a table had been set up. Behind it sat a pert, pretty young woman who wore her teased blond hair in two low ponytails; she was writing a letter. To her left was a crude bamboo cage, not nearly big enough for a man to stand upright in. A banner around the cage read DON’T LET THEM BE FORGOTTEN.
Frankie smiled and slid into the empty seat. “I’m Frankie,” she said, extending her hand.
The woman shook it. “Joan.”
“How is it going today?”
“Slow. People are getting ready for the holiday.”
Frankie straightened the stack of flyers in front of her. In the center of the table was a box of POW bracelets that sold for five dollars apiece.
Joan went back to her letter. “Do you think Live up to your damn promise, President Nixon is too aggressive for the first sentence?” she asked Frankie, poising her pen tip just above the paper.
“I don’t think you can be too aggressive,” Frankie said, taking out a piece of paper and a pen.
A young man with long hair and a bushy beard walked past their table, muttered, “Warmongers,” under his breath, and kept walking.
“Freedom isn’t free, asshole,” Frankie yelled. “How come you aren’t in Canada?”
“We aren’t supposed to yell at the peaceniks,” Joan said, grinning. “But what a stupid rule.”
“It’s more of a guideline,” Frankie said.
Joan laughed. “How long has your husband been a POW?”
“I’m not married. My brother and … several friends died over there. Your husband?”
“Shot down in ’69. He’s in Hoa Lo.”
“I’m sorry, Joan. Kids?”
“Just one. A girl. Charlotte. She doesn’t remember her dad.”
Frankie touched the woman’s hand. They were about the same age, living very different lives, but the war connected them. “He’ll come home, Joan.”
A dark-haired woman in a black-and-white plaid pantsuit neared the table. “They put our soldiers in cages like that? Really? Where they don’t have enough room to stand up?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What did they do?”
“Do?” Joan asked.
“To end up in cages. Are they like that Lieutenant Calley from My Lai?”
Stay calm. Educate, don’t annihilate. “They served their country,” Frankie said. “Just like their fathers and grandfathers, they did as the country asked in wartime, and they were taken prisoner by the enemy.”
The woman frowned, picked a nickel-plated bracelet out of the box, read the name on it.
“That’s someone’s son, ma’am. Someone’s husband,” Frankie said. “And they’re waiting for him to come home.” She paused. “This woman’s husband is in their prison.”
The woman pulled a five-dollar bill out of her worn billfold and handed it to Frankie, and then put the bracelet back in the box.
“The idea is that you wear the bracelet until he comes home,” Joan said. “To keep his memory alive.”
The woman retrieved the bracelet, fit it on her wrist, stared down at it.
“Thank you,” Frankie said.
The woman nodded and walked away.
For the next half an hour, Frankie and Joan handed out flyers, sold bracelets, and wrote letters. Frankie was halfway through her latest letter to Ben Bradlee when she felt Joan poke her elbow into her side.
“Incoming,” Joan whispered.
Frankie looked up, saw two men walking toward their table.
No. Not two men, or not really. A man and a boy. Father and son, maybe; the man was tall and thin, with graying shoulder-length hair and a mustache. He wore a black Grateful Dead T-shirt and ragged jeans and sandals. The boy beside him—sixteen, maybe seventeen—was pumped up with muscles and wore an ANNAPOLIS sweatshirt. He was clean-shaven and his hair was 1950s-short. They stopped in front of the table, beneath the DON’T LET THEM BE FORGOTTEN banner.
The older man stepped closer. “Still fighting for the cause, I see. Frankie McGrath, right? Coronado girl?”
It took a moment for Frankie to recognize the man she’d met at the protest in Washington, D.C. “The surfer psychiatrist.”
“Henry Acevedo,” he said, smiling. “This is my nephew, Arturo.” He turned to the young man. “You see those cages, Art? Take a good, long look.”
Arturo rolled his eyes, gave his uncle a good-natured nudge in the side. “My uncle is pissed I’m going to the Naval Academy in September. But my dad is thrilled.”
“My brother went to the academy,” Frankie said. “He loved it.”
“My husband, too,” Joan added. “It’s a great school.”
“I’m not in favor of a college that pumps out warriors and then sends them into harm’s way,” Henry said.
“Just be proud of him, Henry,” Frankie said quietly. “He’s making an honorable choice even if you don’t agree with it.” She pushed the box of bracelets toward the young man. “Five dollars if you’d like to help bring a hero home.”
Arturo stepped forward, looked through the bracelets. “Groovy. Do you know any POWs?” he asked Joan.
“My husband,” she said, showing Arturo her bracelet. He leaned in to read it.
“Nineteen sixty-nine,” Arturo said. “Whoa. He’s been there a long time…”
Frankie felt Henry’s gaze on her, but he didn’t speak. After a moment, he put an arm around his nephew. “Come on, future flyboy. Let’s let these beautiful women save their husbands.”
“I’m not married,” Frankie said, surprised to hear herself say the words.
“Will wonders never cease?” Henry said as he tossed two twenty-dollar bills on the table. “Keep up the good work, ladies. See you soon, Frankie.”
He led Arturo away, who pulled out from beneath his uncle’s arm, obviously thinking he was too old for it.
“Was that … you know, the guy who always plays a cowboy on TV?”
Frankie shook her head. “He’s a doctor.”
“I don’t know why you’re still here,” Joan said, pulling out a nail file, filing a broken nail.
“What do you mean?”
“If a man that foxy looked at me the way he just looked at you, I wouldn’t let him walk away.”
“What? You think … no. It’s not … I mean, he’s old.”
“Time doesn’t mean what it used to,” she said.
Frankie couldn’t disagree with that.
* * *
July 27, 1971
Dear Frank,
Greetings from blazingly hot Captiva Island. That’s in Florida. Land of leathery people who drive yacht-sized cars and start cocktail hour at breakfast.
I know you are going to scream, as is Babs, who is getting the same letter. Noah and I eloped! I know you girls wanted to be at my wedding, but I just couldn’t wait. We couldn’t wait. When push came to shove, I didn’t want a day that smelled like flowers and tasted like cake. When your mom isn’t around … I don’t know. I just didn’t want that. But we will celebrate, and soon!
Love you, girlfriend,
Mrs. Noah Ellsworth
Twenty-Six
1972. And the war raged on.
More deaths, more grievous injuries on the battlefield, more helicopters shot down, more men sent to Hoa Lo Prison or missing in action.
Frankie, like most Americans, watched the nightly news in horror. Last year, the Winter Soldier Investigation, a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, had exposed the dark underside of the war—American atrocities in the jungles and villages and on the battlefield—and Lieutenant William Calley had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the My Lai massacre. America had invaded Cambodia. All of it increased the anger and disgust shown to returning veterans.
Sometimes, when she watched the news, Frankie couldn’t stop crying.
It could be over nothing. Hell, sometimes she cried in her car when a song made her think of Finley, of Jamie, of Rye. Every tear reminded her that her stability was fragile at best.