“You’re just the newbie. Don’t worry,” the blonde said. “I came in last year, and let me tell you, when a crew chief marries a pilot and crosses that whole enlisted/officer line? Well, I fed the gossip mill for a good long while. I’m Carol, by the way.”
“Ember, and it’s really nice to meet you.”
“Are you new to the military?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m an army brat.”
“Ah, so you get the whole ‘you knew what you were getting into’ line, huh?” She sighed. “I get that all the time. But let me tell you, it’s a lot different going than being left behind to wait.”
“Yeah, I bet it is,” I answered, looking up to where Lucille was currently lecturing us on keeping our social media safe for Operational Security.
“How long do you have left with him?”
“A little over two weeks.” Ouch. Not that I didn’t always have a countdown playing in my mind, but saying it aloud made it real—made it hurt.
In a couple of weeks, I’d be alone, sitting, waiting…just like Mom had.
She nudged me with her shoulder. “You look strong, capable. You’ll do just fine, I can tell. You’ll be one of the girls who makes it.”
My eyes found Josh like a magnet as he came back through the hangar doors. He laughed at something Will said and gave me a horizontal thumb, asking for my verdict. He’d bail me out if I asked him to. I forced a smile and gave him a thumbs-up. Sitting where I wasn’t exactly accepted would be the easiest part of this deployment.
Nine and a half months from now, he’d march through those hangar doors and this would be over. Our life could start, and this sputtering pause in time would be behind us. “What about the girlfriends who aren’t strong enough?” I asked Carol.
She followed my eyes to Josh and then looked back at me. “Well, let’s just say they’re not waving the signs at redeployment.”
Because their relationships didn’t last through the deployment.
But they weren’t us. Josh and I didn’t know how to fail, and we weren’t about to start now.
“She looked at my hand, Mom,” I complained a few days later as I put away another sack full of groceries. “Looked at my hand and basically declared that they didn’t want me because I’m not married to him. Like I don’t count because I’m a girlfriend.”
“Some women see a girlfriend and they think ‘temporary,’ which we both know you aren’t. You know how hard it is to make friends, and if they don’t think you’re in it for the long haul, well…some judge too quickly. Anyone who spends an hour around you and Josh knows you two are the real deal. I’m sure her attitude isn’t shared by all of them.”
“No,” I agreed, smiling as I popped Josh’s strawberry ice cream into the freezer. “I met a lot of nice girls. But she’s basically the Regina George of the FRG.”
“Regina George?” she asked.
“Mean Girls, Mom. The plastics? We wear pink on Wednesday?” Silence came through loud and clear. “Okay, well, we’re going to have to do a little movie-watching when I visit in the summer.”
“Have you thought about spending the summer here?”
Crap, I knew that hopeful tone in her voice. “I have,” I placated her. “But I like it here. This is our home. I want to be where I can still feel him.”
“That, I understand, my love. And that dig?”
I paused, and she rushed forward.
“I think it would be great for you, Ember. You can’t get experience like that just anywhere. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
“It’s just hard to wrap my head around something like that when he’s leaving so soon. I can’t seem to get my bearings, or really get a grip on any of it.”
“Ah, yes. That stage is awful, baby. I’m so sorry. They’re working longer days to get ready, your mind is on overdrive, and you can’t stop the clock.”
I leaned back against the counter and stared at the island, where a stack of paper had rested ominously for the last two days. “He brought me papers, Mom.”
She took a deep breath. “What are they?”
I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. “The usual. Copies of his next-of-kin. Funeral wishes. Life insurance.” Forcing my feet to move, I went to the stack, thumbing through the forms. My mind played a cruel trick, and for just a second, it wasn’t Josh’s name on the paper, it was Dad’s. I dropped it like it was on fire and stepped back, sucking oxygen into my lungs.