“A war correspondent,” he said. “Jeanette Priestly. Of the Chicago Tribune.”
“Oh, I saw that in the paper,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“I didn’t believe it when the notification team came,” she said. “I guess I didn’t believe it until yesterday, when they called up to ask ‘what my wishes were with regard to funeral arrangements.’ Then it really sank in.”
“What were they talking about?” Pick asked.
“Well, they’ve recovered what they call Dick’s ‘remains. ’ Why can’t they say ‘body’?”
“I don’t know,” Pick confessed.
“And they wanted to know ‘my wishes.’ ”
“What about? Where to . . . bury him?”
“Uh-huh. And when did I want to accept his Distinguished Flying Cross? At the funeral, or separately?”
“What did you decide?”
“Well, he’s not going back to Arkansas. He hated Arkansas.”
“That’s where his family is?”
She nodded. “Mine, too.”
“Are you going there? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. The only thing I know is that I’m not going to go back to Arkansas. I’m going to bury Dick here. We were happy here.”
“You mean in San Diego?”
“At the National Cemetery, on Point Loma?”
“I know it.”
“It overlooks the ocean. Dick loved the ocean. I do, too. Maybe because there’s no ocean in Arkansas.”
“I grew up on the ocean,” Pick said. “And I love it, too.”
“Where?”
“San Francisco,” Pick said. “My parents have a place on the ocean a little south of San Francisco.”
“You’re not a regular, are you?” she asked.
He shook his head no.
“Just a weekend warrior,” he said.
“What did you do as a civilian?”
“I flew for an airline,” he said. “Trans-Global.”
“That’s what I’d like to do,” she said.
“Fly for an airline? I don’t think they have lady pilots.”
She giggled, and smiled at him.
Jesus Christ, I could fall into those eyes.
“No, silly. I meant see if I could get a job as a stewardess. Maybe I could get a recommendation from you at Trans-Global? Absolutely no experience, but willing to learn. Free to travel. No family ties.”
“I thought you said your family was in Arkansas.”
“They were annoyed—Dick’s family and mine, both— when I wouldn’t go ‘home’ when Dick shipped out. There were words then. And when I wouldn’t go home . . . after Dick died, there were more words.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Pick said.
“And I’m sorry I told you,” she said, and stood up. “I really am. I came here to see what I could do for you, and here I am, telling you all about my woes.”
“Haven’t you ever heard ‘misery loves company’?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it means what you’re suggesting. ”
“What do you think it means?”
“It means that people that complain, whine a lot, like to be around people who complain and whine a lot.”
“I think people like you and me, Mrs. Mitchell, who have lost the most important person in our lives, have every right to feel a little sorry for ourselves. This miserable person, Mrs. Mitchell, hopes that your standing up doesn’t mean you’re going to leave.”
She met his eyes again.
Jesus, she looks right through me!
“I was about to say ‘I have to run,’ ” she said. “That would have implied I have somewhere to go. I don’t, really. So if you’d like me to stay awhile, Major Pickering, I’d like to.”
“Pick,” he said. “My name is Malcolm, but nobody calls me that.”
She put out her hand.
“Babs,” she said. “How do you do?”
“You mean aside from being in the loony bin?”
She giggled and looked at him again and smiled, and Pick realized he was holding on to her hand longer than he should be. He quickly let go. He saw a faint blush on her face, and decided that proved she had picked up on the hand-holding.
You may relax, Mrs. Babs Mitchell. The one thing this miserable sonofabitch is not going to do is one fucking thing that will give you any reason to suspect that I’m even thinking of anything that could resemble a pass.
[SEVEN]
ROOM 39A, NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC WARD U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 1305 31 OCTOBER 1950
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Major Malcolm S. Pickering said to Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, when McGrory came into the room.
“I’m flattered,” McGrory said. “I didn’t think you cared. Especially after I saw you and your visitor in the O Club.”
“It was lunchtime, I offered to take her to lunch,” Pick said. “That’s all there was to that. No, that’s not true. Tell me how much I have to tell you about my terrible ordeal to get a six-hour