Letter to My Daughter: A Novel - By George Bishop Page 0,34

a fresh miniature box of Kleenex and two new rolls of peppermint Life Savers. He worried over the radio and air-conditioner controls. “That’s not too cold on you, is it?”

The Cadillac Sedan DeVille was different from the Coupe DeVille in that it had four doors instead of two, he explained when I asked. His mom hated two doors, so that’s why they always got four doors. I nodded and expressed interest in whatever he said and kept asking questions, as I’d been coached by my girlfriends. “And this car was made when, exactly?” I asked, and, “What other lines of cars are you fond of?” We went on like this for ten or fifteen minutes until Chip, exasperated, said, “Oh for Christ’s sake, can we forget about the car? Who gives a damn about the car anyway?” I laughed and felt the weight fly off my chest, and knew that we’d do just fine that evening.

The maitre d’ at the restaurant was Chip’s cousin, so we not only got a table by the window, we got wine with our dinner, too. I tried to act nonchalant about the wine, the candles, the beautiful china and silverware, and the shockingly high prices on the menu, but it was the nicest restaurant I’d ever been to in my life. My parents had never brought me to a place like this before. I ordered the sirloin strip because Chip ordered the sirloin strip, and the Caesar salad because he ordered the Caesar salad. “No, no, I like that, too,” I insisted.

Over dinner, Chip told me about his acceptance at Tulane University in New Orleans for the fall. He wasn’t sure yet if he would major in business or premed, he said, but he figured he had a semester or two to decide. He’d live on campus his freshman year since that was easiest, and then probably move into a frat house his sophomore year. Some of his buddies were talking about pledging Phi Kappa Alpha, but Chip’s father had been a Kappa Sig, so there was a good chance he’d end up there, too. He might’ve been talking about studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, it sounded so elite to me.

“God, that’s just so …” I said.

“What?”

“I mean, in Zachary hardly anyone goes to college. If a boy’s very ambitious, he might go to ag school at LSU. But then he’d drop out after the first semester because what’s the use in learning all that chemistry when everything you need to know about farming you can learn from your daddy?”

Chip chuckled.

“And if you’re a girl, well, forget it. Your choice is basically to get married or not.”

“And if you’re a girl named Laura Jenkins?”

“If you’re a girl named Laura Jenkins …”

“Yeah. What’re her plans?”

From the window of the revolving restaurant I watched the state capitol drift by over Chip’s right shoulder, followed by the gas jets of the oil refineries lighting up the night sky like Roman candles. Down below, the shiny black river caught the reflected glare of the fires as it streamed past Baton Rouge, on down toward New Orleans and points farther south, where the waters spilled into the Gulf of Mexico to merge at last with the great wide ocean beyond. As we floated high above it all at our white-draped table, the world seemed to open itself up like a gilt-edged invitation to a life full of promise and glamour.

Chip watched me from across the table. “Some deep thoughts going on there.”

“Not so deep.”

“What is it, then?”

I twisted the stem of the wineglass in my fingers. Why shouldn’t we talk about this? We were adults, after all, having an adult conversation over a steak dinner in this very sophisticated restaurant. And Chip looked so handsome in his rented tuxedo, and his expression was so earnest and open.

“Well,” I said. “If you must know. There’s this boy.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, a friend, he’s a good friend. He’s in Vietnam now. I met him two, almost three years ago, in Zachary. Before I came here. We kind of, you know, we dated. But then I got sent to Sacred Heart and he enlisted.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize…. How old is he?”

“Um, twenty.”

“And you’re … He’s your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know. Yes. I mean … he was my first. You have to understand. I was fifteen years old, he was a senior. I had never met a boy like Tim before.” I explained how we got to know each other, how my parents hated him,