Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (12 page)

"We must not travel in the same circles. Are
you a Greek?"

"An AEPhi. I live in the house." No need to
explain to him that pledging a sorority provided the only way she
could live off campus after freshman year. MSU’s
in loco
parentis
policy is that women students who did not live in
sorority houses had to either be a senior or 21 to not live in the
dorms.

She checks her watch. Lance will be furious
if she's late getting the story written. She’s a fast typist but
not a Wonder Woman.

She stands. "I've got a deadline."

He stands too. “And I’ve got to get back to
the field. Maybe I'll see you around," he says.

Now Sharon follows Robert’s lead on the dance
floor of the Officers Club of Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Sometimes it’s
hard for her to reconstruct how that chance meeting at the ROTC
protest has led her here – to being an army officer’s wife.

Out of the corner of her eye Sharon spots
Wendy and a man enter the room. He is of medium-build, on the
stocky side, with a round face. They are the only two blacks in the
room. Sharon stops dancing and leads Robert forward to meet
them.

"Hi, Wendy," she says.

Wendy smiles. "Nelson, this is Sharon Gold.
She's the head of the entertainment committee I'm on." Sharon and
Nelson smile at each other.

"And Robert, this is Wendy Johnson," Sharon
says.

Robert sticks out his hand to Wendy. He's
making a point Sharon realizes. Then Nelson shakes Sharon's
hand.

Sharon motions in the direction of the
tables. "Come sit down. We'll get some more chairs."

The man in the Phoenix program has left the
table, leaving his chair free. Robert gets one more chair and
squeezes Wendy and Nelson next to Sharon.

Wendy turns to Nelson. "Would you get me a
Whiskey Sour, please?"

“That’s my drink too,” Sharon says, then
stands. "While Nelson's gone, let's go say hello to Kim and
Donna."

"I'll just wait here for Nelson."

"No, no," Sharon says, pulling Wendy up.
"Let's go say hello."

As Sharon and Wendy come up to the other two
women, Jim stands and turns to Kim. "It's time to go home," he
says.

"It is?" Kim asks. "We haven't been here that
long."

"I said it's time to go, Kim." Jim pulls her
chair back from the table and motions for her to get up.

"Good-bye," Kim says.

"See you tomorrow," Sharon says.

Donna motions for Sharon and Kim to take the
vacated seats.

At this moment a man standing at the far end
of the table from the women holds up his beer glass. "A toast," he
says. "May we all get our chance to kill those little yellow
bastards!"

**

Sharon watches herself in the mirror as she
brushes her teeth before going to bed. In the reflection she
visualizes swarms of yellow jackets about to attack her.

At first she wonders why she should think
this. Then she knows.

Yellow bastards – yellow jackets. The toast
referred to the Vietcong, those "yellow" enemies.

Robert squeezes into the tiny bathroom, sees
her expression in the mirror. "What's wrong?" he asks.

Sharon turns around to face him. "How could
you stand there and drink to that awful toast?"

Robert puts his arms around her waist.
"That's Geist. He's an idiot. Nobody pays any attention to
him."

"You did."

"Honey, listen to me. The guy is the class
moron. He's a high school graduate, Officers Candidate School, a
120-day wonder. The whole class thinks he's a jerk – even our
Marine.”

She tries to wriggle out of Robert’s grip,
but he keeps his arms around her.

"Most of the guys in class are all right,” he
says. “They're just like me. They want to do their two years nice
and quietly, no heroics. There are some regular army types along
with a bunch of warrant officers back from Vietnam – helicopter
pilots."

Like Mark Williamson?

“What rank are warrant officers?”

“They’re not really officers – they’re a
hybrid. Enlisted men who the army wants to promote but not make
officers. They can go to the Officers Mess and the Officers Club.
The army decided to commission these particular pilots as officers,
so they have to take a branch officers course – this time the
branch is armor. They're fuck-offs. All they do is strut around
telling each other how tough they are, then figure out how to get
out of every detail. Then there's Geist. Really, forget him."

"So why did you drink to the toast?"

"Didn't you see that look we all gave each
other? You have to play the game."

She
shakes her head. He slaps her rear. "Know what I mean, play the
game?"

“
When a woman attends a social function at night
without her husband she should arrive and leave with another
couple, seldom alone.”
Mrs. Lieutenant
booklet

Kim lies on her back in the traditional
missionary position. She shuts her eyes to block out her husband's
face, cherry red from his exertions.

Usually she likes Jim so close. She feels
protected, safe, loved. Tonight having sex just reminds her of what
Jim fears she wants from other men.

There's a potential trap in almost every one
of Jim's questions of her. "What did you do today?" can mean "Did
you see any men today?"

She never responds, never rises to the bait.
She knows why he is obsessed about this. He told her the night he
proposed, before he made her swear on the Bible that she would
never, never sleep with anyone else or she would rot in hell.

Jim rolls off her. It’s over before it’s
really begun. For Jim sex is like shooting a pistol during target
practice – you get off your round as quickly as possible, then tote
up your points.

"Was it good?" he asks.

She smiles and snuggles closer. She doesn’t
tell him he’s missed the target again. It’s better to say nothing
since she can’t explain how to improve his performance. "So good,"
she says.

Earlier, when Jim came home for the day, Kim
took the fatigue shirt and pants he handed her and hung them over a
chair. Later she would press the creases sharp in the pants so that
the pants could be worn one more time before being washed. She is
good at ironing – another one of her many chores at the foster
homes.

Jim had put on a pair of dark grey slacks and
a white short-sleeved shirt to wear to the Officers Club. "What's
for dinner?" he asked.

They sat at the small table in the nook of
the living room. Kim served the meatloaf with slices of white bread
and butter and glasses of milk.

"How was your day? Did you and Sharon do
something together?"

She hesitated for only a moment before
answering. "We had hamburgers at the Officers Club. It was nice
there."

Jim looked up with his mouth full. He
swallowed. "You didn't talk to any men there, did you?"

Kim lowered her eyes. "Of course not."

"Did any men talk to you?" He put his fork
down.

"Not to me."

"Sharon?"

"A man from her hometown recognized her and
came up to her. They were in the same dancing class in seventh
grade. He just said a few words, then left."

"Is that all that happened?"

"Yes."

She clutched her hands together on her lap,
hidden by the table. Please may he stop.

Jim persisted in his interrogation. "Was
Sharon glad to see him? Do you think it was a planned meeting?"

At this Kim flushed. "Of course not. And she
made it very clear immediately that she’s married."

"What difference does that make?"

Kim said nothing, and he picked up his fork
again to finish dinner.

Now in the dark bedroom she opens her eyes,
stares at the ceiling. She wishes they could have stayed longer.
Southern officers have a strong tradition in the army. So why does
Jim appear uncomfortable around his fellow officers?

On the ceiling she spots a water stain with
ragged edges that suddenly turns into the acid burn in the skirt of
her old brown corduroy jumper. The Kruger boy threw the acid on her
jumper in high school chemistry lab, then laughed as the material
sizzled and burned. She didn't cry in front of him. Only later that
night she cried when her foster mother found out and whacked her
for it: "Look what you've gone and done! You only have two outfits
and now you've ruined one!"

Kim forces her eyes away from the spot and
the memory. Jim snores once and then flops over onto his
stomach.

At least she didn't ruin her outfit tonight
by spilling beer on it or dropping the greasy onion rings someone
ordered for all of them. Sharon and Donna's outfits weren't any
fancier than what Kim wore. Maybe Wendy's was nicer, but then her
father's a doctor. A black doctor, but a doctor all the same.

Kim’s fingers trace circles on the sheet that
covers her and Jim. The bedroom air conditioner is actually working
tonight so she’s not too hot to sleep. Still she resists falling
asleep, instead thinking about the last few days here at Ft.
Knox.

It’s nice having friends, friends who can
share the strange world of what is expected of an officer’s wife.
Yet no matter how close she may feel to these women, she probably
won’t ever tell them anything about her family.

Her family. Kim's eyes seek the photo on the
nightstand. Although it’s too dark to see the faces, she can
picture every line, every blemish that those faces have. Her
parents were tenant farmers – probably white trash although no one
ever said that in front of her and she hadn't been old enough to
remember on her own.

She did remember the chicken coop perched
behind the back porch. It had been her job to pluck the eggs from
their nests under the hens, her younger sister Diane holding out
the basket to receive each still-warm egg. Kim had been afraid of
the hens at first, afraid they'd bite her on the hand or tug on her
long braids. Her father taught her how to be patient gathering the
eggs, how the chickens wouldn’t hurt her, and her fear disappeared
watching his calm movements.

She and Diane had been staying at neighbors
while their parents made a trip into town for supplies. The two
sisters waited on the neighbors' front porch until long after the
sun set. Kim tried to be patient the way her father had taught her,
telling Diane over and over that their parents would come soon,
imagining them finally arriving just as the hens eventually gave up
their eggs.

Their parents never returned.

That night, still unaware of the fatal car
accident hours earlier, Kim and her sister bedded down with the
neighbors' children. In the morning the nightmare began.

She squeezes her eyes shut. Don't think about
that.

Her reopened eyes catch the glint off the
gold metal of Jim's second lieutenant bars lying on top of the
dresser. She squeezes her eyes shut again.

**

The next morning Kim has the car and she
isn't picking up Sharon till after lunch, so Kim decides to visit
Susanna. Normally she wouldn't drop in without calling. Except
since Susanna visited her unannounced this must be considered okay
conduct for an officer’s wife.

Kim’s not sure why she’s moved to visit
Susanna. Maybe it’s because of Susanna’s daughter Patty. Something
about Patty strikes a chord within Kim.

Now Kim follows the route that Jim drove that
first night. Once inside the housing area, she consults the map to
find the right street. She parks the car in front of the house and
walks towards the door.

"Stop that!" she hears Susanna yelling
through the screen door. "Patty, stop that at once." Then she
hears: Whack! Whack!

Kim hesitates. Should she go away or should
she ring the doorbell? Which would be better for Patty? Kim rings
the doorbell.

Susanna answers the door after a couple of
minutes. Her hair neatly combed, she has on a clean cotton skirt
and blouse although her face sports a reddish flush.

"Hello," Kim says. "I'm sorry if this is an
inconvenient time to visit."

"Come in," Susanna says. "I'm just about to
make some lemonade for the children."

Kim follows Susanna into the house. Billy Jr.
waddles around a playpen in the living room gnawing on a red block.
"He's teething," Susanna calls over her shoulder as she disappears
into the kitchen.

Where's Patty?

“May I use your bathroom?" Kim calls through
the open kitchen doorway.

"Down the hall."

Kim doesn't need a bathroom. It's an excuse
to see about Patty.

As Kim passes a closed door there’s snuffling
on the other side. She pushes the door open and peeks inside. Patty
sits on the uncarpeted floor between a bed and a crib. Her face
lies buried in a raggedy teddy bear.

Kim walks into the room and touches the child
on her shoulder. Patty looks up.

Kim says nothing; she doesn't want Susanna to
hear. Instead Kim smiles and rubs Patty's shoulder. After a minute
Patty stands up and holds the teddy bear out to Kim. Kim takes it
in both hands, the way a treasure should be handled. "It's lovely,"
she says. Patty smiles at her.

Kim hands the bear back to Patty and motions
her to follow. Down the hall they go and into the kitchen.

Susanna stands at the counter stirring the
contents of a plastic pitcher.

"I opened the wrong door," Kim says, "and
look who I found. Now we can all have lemonade together."

Susanna scowls. "Patty is bein'
punished."

Susanna lifts the pitcher off the counter and
places it on the table. She comes over to Patty and smacks her on
the face, then points out the door. "Patty, go on back to your room
till I tell ya to come out."