“There is gin in there, so make sure he doesn’t pick it up. Now, what about the blue sticker? The temporary blue sticker, I think you said.”
“Did they have newspapers where you were?”
“No, they communicate with tom-toms and smoke signals out there. Blue sticker?”
“Then you read about what happened at Stanleyville?”
“Sure. God, that was terrible. They were actually . . . cannibals.”
“Specifically, did you see the picture of the Belgian paratrooper carrying the little girl in his arms?”
Liza searched her memory.
“Yeah, I did. It looked like he’d been shot in the nose.”
“He wasn’t shot in the nose. He fell off a truck. That was Jack.”
“I have the strangest feeling that you’re not pulling my leg,” Liza said after a long moment.
“Girl Scout’s honor,” Marjorie said. “Cross my heart and hope to die, et cetera.”
“What the hell was he doing in Africa?” Liza asked.
“He wasn’t supposed to jump with the Belgians, but he did anyway. The Belgians are going to give him a medal.”
Liza shook her head.
“And we’re going to get married,” Marjorie said.
“That’s even worse news,” Liza said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Marjorie agreed. “And he came back, and I drove to Bragg to see him, and he proposed in words I will remember to my dying day. ‘Screw your job,’ my knight in shining armor said, ‘let’s get married.’ ”
Liza smiled at her.
“And you apparently were overwhelmed by the eloquence and said ‘yes.’ ”
“Yeah,” Marjorie said.
“Well, you’re obviously happy about it, so I’m happy for you. And he’s an officer now, with his own blue sticker?”
“Yeah,” Marjorie said, and chuckled. “First lieutenant. Bobby had to pin his insignia on for him. He didn’t know how.”
“First lieutenant? That ought to make things easier for you at home.”
“And I want you to be my maid of honor.”
“I don’t think so, honey.”
“Why not?”
“He whose name I have sworn never again to say out loud, your daddy’s dog-robber, will be there, right?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Let me pass, Marjorie, please,” Liza said.
“That’s an admission you don’t have your act together,” Marjorie accused. “You still love him.”
“I didn’t say I don’t love the sonofabitch,” Liza said. “I said I wasn’t going to go through the pain of losing a husband again, or, worse, put Allan through something like that. I gave him the choice, the Army, or Allan and me, and it wasn’t Allan and me.”
Marjorie didn’t reply.
“I don’t want to be a camp follower, Marjorie. And there’s no reason we have to be. You heard about the money he got from his father’s estate?”
“Not in much detail,” Marjorie said. “I overheard Craig Lowell tell my father that his sister and brother-in-law had tried to cheat him.”
“They did. And didn’t get away with it. Jack came out of that with two million three hundred twenty thousand dollars. And change.”
“I had no idea it was that much,” Marjorie said.
“It would have been more, if he had been willing to stick her the way she tried to stick him. But he’s an officer and a gentleman, and he wanted ‘to be fair.’ ”
“That’s hardly a character flaw,” Marjorie said.
“With that kind of money, and with what I’ve got, we could have really built a life for ourselves. I’d have done anything he wanted, the whole ‘whither thou goest’ routine, as long as it wasn’t someplace the Army could find him and send him off somewhere to get killed.”
“My father spent his entire life in the Army, and he’s alive,” Marjorie said.
“And all her life, your mother worried herself sick that he would be,” Liza said. “I’ve been down that road. You’re about to start down it yourself. I don’t have that kind of strength. Not an opinion. A fact. I waited for Allan to come back, I prayed—my God, how I prayed—that he would come back. And he did. In a casket. And I damned near died. I’m not going to go through that again, because I know I couldn’t handle it again.”
They looked at each other a moment.
“We’re on opposite sides on this one, Marjorie,” Liza said. “I hope the same thing doesn’t happen to you. I’ll pray that it doesn’t happen to you, but thank you just the same, I’ll pass on being your matron of honor.”
“You don’t have to talk to him,” Marjorie said. “All you have to do is be there for me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”