“My daughter was never one for princes,” Laurel said. “Annie’s not that kind of girl.”
“Mom, can you chill out for a second?”
“Chill out? Annabelle, honestly.”
“Ma’am, I love Annie,” Eric said, his Alabama accent at maximum strength.
Though Annie’s insides puddled at the sound of it, she knew her mom was skeptical of anything resembling romance. Futures were best made in barns and investment accounts, not in “I love yous” from handsome young marines.
“I’ll make this world a better place for her,” he added.
“Oh, Eric,” Laurel said, and chuckled again. “There are so many things I could say right now.”
“How about ‘okay’?” Annie grumbled. “That’d be a good start.”
As much as she wanted her mother’s approval, and held out the feeblest hope she’d receive it, Annie understood what Laurel saw. The whole thing smacked of desperation, of what the hell am I going to do with my life now? Screw it. I’ll just marry the next guy I meet.
Standing in that barn was a mother, and before her was an unemployed recent college graduate. Beside the graduate was a man—if you could call him that—a twenty-one-year-old marine about to board a float destined for Afghanistan.
This marine was suggesting marriage, to the jobless daughter no less, who’d been dating a different boy only a few months before. By the time Eric returned from deployment, they will have been apart longer than they were together … times seven.
All that and Annie had met him at a dive bar. She was sucking down the last dregs of a bad house wine while listening to her best friend, Summer, lament that working in a senator’s office wasn’t so much public service as coffee service. Starbucks runs in exchange for a paycheck and health care sounded like a respectable gig to the incomeless Annie but Summer disagreed.
“I’d rather be unemployed,” Summer insisted.
“And have your mother buy your birth control pills?” Annie asked.
“Admittedly that would be awkward. But it’s just so damned boring. I want to be doing more.”
“Don’t we all,” Annie said, and took a final gulp of wine.
Without warning, a man rose to his feet.
He was a large boy really, screamingly clean-cut and soldierly, a marine as it turned out. A round of drinks on him, he announced, to celebrate his upcoming deployment and to thank them, the citizens, for supporting their efforts. Annie’s first thought was, Thank God, because I can’t afford another drink.
Her second was: Wow, that guy is hot. Too bad he likes guns.
Amid backslaps and handshakes, the brown-eyed, black-haired puppy dog of a man then gave an impassioned speech about fidelity and freedom and the U.S. of A. It was a week after 9/11 and so the response was deafening. By the end of it, every person in the bar stood, looped arms with a neighbor, and belted out the only song that mattered.
And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
’Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.
“Jesus Christ,” Summer said when the excitement dissipated. “Why do I suddenly feel like joining the navy?”
At once Annie was changed.
At once she was done with aloof Virginia boys and their swoopy hair, those lame belts embroidered with smiling whales. She wanted a hero, a man with a little spirit, a guy who could raise a room to sing.
Perhaps it was the result of too much Edwardian fiction in college and the hours spent soaking in whimsy. Or maybe he was that valiant. Either way, with 9/11 the entire world changed, in major ways and in minor ones, all the way down to, it seemed, Annie’s taste in men.
There was no decent way to explain this to Laurel, of course. Military or not, you simply didn’t marry someone you met last month. Annie wanted her mom to be excited but understood why Laurel couldn’t find it in herself to even pretend. A tiny part of her wondered if Laurel was right. She was about most things.
“Don’t pressure your mother,” Eric said, reaching once again for her hand. “Ma’am, any questions you have about my family or my character, I’m pleased to answer.”
“Eric,” Laurel said and sighed. “It’s nothing against you personally. In the three seconds I’ve known you, you seem like a very nice boy. But you’re young, you’ve only just met. On top of that you’re going off to war.”
“Geez, Mom, don’t be so dramatic. This isn’t 1940.”
“A war’s a war.”
“She’s right,” Eric said.
Annie blinked. A war’s a war. He was going off to fight, wasn’t he? Did she even appreciate what it meant to be a marine? Had the people in the bar comprehended what they were singing about?
“At least tell me you’re waiting,” Laurel said. “That you’ll get married when he’s done with his tour. All his tours. When the war is over and there are no more deployments.”