Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

  "What's a uniform allowance?"

  "Enlisted men are given their uniforms. Officers have to buy their own. When we first come on active duty we're given an amount of money to be used for buying the uniforms. I can’t only have that one Class A uniform and fatigues from ROTC. I have to get more fatigues, another Class A uniform, suntans, and a dress blue uniform for formal affairs.”

  Robert pulls on casual pants and a shirt.

  "Only thing is, my pay voucher wasn't there. Len Tottenham was the clerk handing out the checks and he couldn't figure out why mine was missing. He said he'd look into it right away."

  "You think he did it on purpose? He’s probably angry that you’re an officer and he’s an enlisted man."

  "Len isn’t like that. It's an accounting error, I'm sure. But I do need the money for more uniforms."

  Robert follows her to the front of the apartment and sits down at the table. "I almost forgot to tell you. Some of us decided to get together tomorrow night at the Officers Club after dinner. There's a band from Louisville playing. Should be fun. I said we'd go."

  **

  Sharon pulls the Fiat into a parking space alongside the brick building and smiles at Kim. "Here we are," Sharon says. "The Officers Club."

  "I'm glad you suggested we come today," Kim says. "It's a good idea to see it before tonight."

  In the foyer there's an announcement board listing the activities of the day along with the menu at the snack bar.

  "Let's eat at the snack bar," Sharon says. Robert had informed her last night that he and Jim wouldn’t be home for lunch the next day.

  At the back of the building they find a good-sized room with several tables and a snack bar counter. At the tables there are a few other women, all around their age, as well as several men in an assortment of uniforms from olive green fatigues to khaki suntans to olive green Class A uniforms.

  They order hamburgers and fries at the counter, then sit at a table to await their order.

  Kim whispers, "It's kind of funny to be here, don't you think?"

  "What do you mean?" Sharon asks.

  "Alone by ourselves, without our husbands."

  Doesn't Kim go anywhere without her husband? Are women still chaperoned in the South?

  Sharon purposely switches the subject. “Memorial Day weekend the pools will open. We can go to the one at the Officers’ Country Club; it’s only for adults – no children allowed.”

  “I have to be careful not to tan. I’ll have to bring suntan lotion,” Kim says.

  "Why don’t you want a tan?" Sharon asks.

  Kim wrinkles her mouth. "That's unladylike. Dark skins are for the ... I mean ..." She pauses for so long Sharon thinks Kim has forgotten the question. Finally Kim says, "I don't look good with a tan."

  The employee behind the snack bar counter motions for them to come get their food. As they sit down again, Kim says, "We can't even go to our swimming hole anymore in my hometown."

  "Why not?"

  Kim’s eyes fix on her plate. "Because the blacks go there now."

  "Why can't you go?" Sharon asks.

  "Because we can't."

  A deep voice says, "Hello, Sharon. It's been a long time."

  Sharon looks up into the face of an extremely good-looking young man wearing suntans. Mark Williamson!

  "May I have this dance?" he says.

  This time her stomach flip flops for a totally different reason. She and Mark Williamson have a history, one with a prologue in seventh grade. He attended the six weeks of dancing class she took then in preparation for the myriad Bar Mitzvah parties to which she would be invited. Never mind that with her teeth swathed in braces and pimples rearing their ugly blackheads – not to mention her perfectly straight hair that wouldn't rat no matter how many perms her mother gave her – Sharon didn't have much hope of being asked to dance by the Jewish boys who clustered in protective flocks at one end of the hotel ballrooms.

  Mark wasn't Jewish – the class had been sponsored by a community recreation center – and she hadn’t taken much notice of him. He first blipped on her radar when he fought with his older brother Roger over her hand for the last dance of the final class. Mark shoved Roger out of the way, even though Roger asked first, and she and Mark danced a slow waltz with Mark's right arm pressed tightly against her back. Then the class had been over and she hadn't seen him again until they attended the same high school. And that’s when their history truly began.

  She stands up. He towers above her. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

  "I could ask you the same." He smiles.

  Sharon glances at Kim; she's frowning. "My husband" – there, she has established this immediately – "is attending the Armor Officers Basic course here."

  Mark laughs. "A green lieutenant! He hasn't been to Nam yet!"

  How can he speak so openly about Vietnam?

  She says, "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm between assignments. Back from a tour of Nam – helicopter pilot – and I'm deciding whether to accept a commission. We're being offered the privilege of becoming officers and gentlemen, then they'll send us back to Nam."

  He laughs again, and she can't tell whether he wants to go back or dreads it.

  Another good-looking man stands behind Mark. "Williamson, are you going to introduce me to your friend?"

  Sharon turns to the other man. "I'm not a friend. Just someone from the same hometown."

  Both men laugh. "See you around," Mark says.

  "Who's that?" Kim asks the moment the men leave the snack bar.

  "Someone I was in dancing class with when we were in seventh grade. Later we went to the same high school."

  "He's certainly good-looking."

  Yes, he is.

  **

  That evening Sharon and Robert park the Fiat at the Officers Club. She told Robert about going to the club for lunch, although she didn't mention running into Mark Williamson – the way Mark tossed off the words "helicopter pilot" and "Nam" – the goal to which Robert originally aspired until his hayfever got him involuntarily dropped from the ROTC flight program.

  She didn't know what to wear tonight, even after consulting “Mrs. Lieutenant.” In the end she put on a cotton dress with a jewel neckline and short sleeves, nothing too fancy, and took a sweater in case the club's air conditioning actually worked. She worried over jewelry; didn't want to wear too much and give people a chance to say Jews are flashy. Finally she chose tiny pearl studs for her pierced ears and a pearl necklace.

  She's looking forward to meeting Wendy's and Donna's husbands. And she wants to see what the men in the class are like together. Have they formed friendships or is it just "business" relationships?

  Robert holds open the front door at the Officers Club for her and they step inside the foyer. A band playing the Lovin' Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?" can be heard from the room to their immediate right. They enter a swirling mass of people and noise.

  "Gold, Gold, over here, man. We're all over here."

  Robert leads her over to the others. Kim and Jim sit at one end of two tables shoved together. Next to them sit Donna and presumably her husband, a slim guy with a regulation haircut and an all-American look that contrasts with Donna's dark hair and skin. Sharon waves at both women.

  Someone drags over two more chairs and makes room for Sharon and Robert at the other end of the two tables.

  Bar glassware litters the tables. Beer mugs, slender glasses holding liquor concoctions, and small whiskey shot glasses jostle for space. "It's self serve," someone yells. Robert flashes a question at Sharon.

  "My usual," she says into his ear.

  When he gets up to place their orders, she feels bereft. Or invisible. No one looks in her direction, no one speaks to her. She watches the band play – five boys all with long stringy hair and dirty clothes. The hillbilly look.

  Robert returns from the bar and hands her a Whiskey Sour.

  The band’s lead singer leans to
wards the mike and sings in a loud nasal tone:

  In Louisville, Kentucky, all the hippies say

  Come on back to beer

  Sharon laughs.

  "Pretty silly, heh?" asks the man sitting to her right. "Who hires these bands, do you think?"

  She smiles at the man, not having noticed him before. Robert, to her left, talks to the man on his left.

  "Your husband with this AOB class?" the man asks. She nods. "Not me. I'm back from Nam. Intelligence."

  Robert turns towards the man as if a special antenna has picked up this broadcast in spite of the loud noise interfering with any transmission. "What did you do?" he asks the man.

  "Phoenix program." The man looks at Robert. "Know what that is?"

  "Yep." It is unlike Robert to be so abrupt.

  The man watches her face as he says, "Your husband may not tell you – the Phoenix program arranges assassinations of Vietcong officials."

  Sharon's hands tighten in her lap. Robert has once again, on the drive here, given her his speech about not revealing any opinions.

  Robert says nothing, just lifts his glass to his lips for a swallow of beer. Then he says to Sharon, "Come on, honey, let's dance."

  He leads her onto the dance floor and they try to make sense of the lopsided beat of the song. After a few minutes Robert pulls Sharon close. "Don't worry about what that guy said. He's probably drunk."

  "You knew what he was talking about."

  "Can't believe everything you’ve heard about the army in Vietnam."

  On the dance floor, surrounded by other couples, Sharon’s mind retreats to spring quarter of 1968 at Michigan State University:

  Hell, no, we won't go!

  The chant roars over the clanking manual typewriters and the shrilling telephones at the office of the “State News” – the daily college newspaper. Sharon Bloom, whose desk stands next to the open windows, leans out from the second floor as her fellow journalists rush to join her at the windows. The trees below sprout only a few new buds so there’s a clear view of the action.

  "Holy shit!" someone behind her shouts.

  Striding across the campus are maybe 30 men and women, long hair swinging, posters held high.

  Sharon studies the protesters. Who are these people and where are they headed? Can't be Michigan State students. Too much hair, too hippy clothing, and too vocal.

  One protester near the rear of the pack drops his poster. As he bends to pick it up, his torso twists towards the windows. Long hair halts right above "University of Michigan" on his misshapen maize-and-blue sweatshirt. The poster, now facing Sharon, says "KICK ROTC OFF CAMPUS!"

  ROTC? Reserve Officers Training Corps! She scans the other journalists hanging out the windows. The news editor stands three people away.

  "Lance," Sharon calls, slinging her purse's shoulder strap over her chest. "I'm going to check this story out."

  Lance turns towards her. "Sharon, you're now the feature editor. One of my news reporters will go."

  "Please, Lance. I want to do it."

  Lance eyes her. He knows her politics. Knows how she feels. "Just be back in time so we don't hold up the press run."

  Sharon grabs a large piece of cardboard from a bin near her desk. On it she scribbles "NO MORE WAR AT MSU."

  No time now to worry whether it's a breach of journalistic standards to participate in the story you're assigned to impartially cover. There is no impartiality when it comes to the Vietnam War.

  She runs down the stairs and out the door. The protesters have a block lead on her, aiming directly at the university's ROTC field. She runs, closing the distance. The excitement of something political finally happening on this apathetic campus spurs her feet.

  On the field young men hup-two-three-four in razor-straight rows. The gold brass buttons on their olive green uniforms reflect the afternoon sun.

  Closer to Sharon, young men and women walk to classes, the lettering on their green-and-white Michigan State sweatshirts partially obscured by armloads of textbooks and notebooks.

  "Way to go!" one MSU student yells at the protesters.

  "Get off our campus!" another screams.

  The U of M students reach the field. "Hell no, we won't go!" hurtles towards the student soldiers.

  "Charge!" yells the leader of the protesters. In unison they all raise their posters and rush across the field, their jeans, shirts and hair a kaleidoscope of mayhem.

  The commander of the soldiers shouts: "Do not engage! Hold your positions!"

  Sharon races towards the tangle of students all yelling "Kick ROTC off campus!"

  The protesters reach the soldiers, and without mercy the protesters swing the wood poles of the posters smack against the soldiers' heads. Screams of pain and triumph can be heard.

  The soldiers break rank. The soldier in the lead yanks a poster from a protester and bashes the wild hair. The other soldiers follow, returning blow for blow, as disorganized in their counterattack as the protesters’ original attack.

  Now the protesters hold their arms over their heads, protecting themselves as they retreat. Their screams pierce the air louder than the wail of the approaching campus police sirens. Soldiers gallop down the field in pursuit of the fleeing protesters.

  Sharon whirls away from the melee. Her foot catches and she stumbles. Above her head a student soldier raises a captured poster.

  The attacker's blow misses her head. He's been pushed aside by another soldier.

  "Come on," the second soldier says, yanking her to her feet. She hesitates. Her rescuer tugs her forward, away from the raging battle.

  The police jump out of their cars. Shouts and swear words fly by as her rescuer steers her, aiming towards a clump of buildings. Other MSU students – attracted by the sirens and screams –- rush past them, heading towards the action, their own voices ratcheting up the shouting.

  "Up here," the soldier says. "We can take cover in a booth."

  He tugs her up the stairs of the student union. Inside they collapse on the seats of an empty booth. Her chest heaves, her sides hurt, she's afraid she'll puke.

  "Thanks for saving me," she gasps, looking at him for the first time. He's lost his uniform hat – blood stains his exposed forehead.

  "You're hurt," she says.

  "The world's just swaying."

  "Do you have a handkerchief or tissue?"

  He shakes his head, the movement sluicing the blood sideways.

  She searches her purse for a tissue to stop the bleeding. There is none. She hesitates, then yanks off her brand-new Villager heather mist cardigan sweater, the one she begged her parents for on their last trip to Philadelphia. She wads the sweater and presses it against the slash.

  “I’ll get blood all over the sweater,” he says, trying to hand back the sweater. She presses harder against the wound. If the blood doesn’t come out her mother will kill her.

  “You’re rather dressed up for a protest," he says as she holds the sweater against the wound.

  "I came straight from the ‘State News.’ We have a dress code.”

  "Were you protesting or just covering the story?"

  "I was protesting and covering the story."

  She removes the sweater to check if the bleeding has stopped. It has, so she folds the sweater and places it next to her on the bench. Her senses have returned to normal, and she gags at the nauseating smell of burning meat on the student union grill.

  She looks at the boy across from her. He’d be cute if he weren’t in an army uniform. And he seems somewhat lost, unsure of what to do next.

  “I’ll go with you to the school clinic," she says.

  "I don't need to go to the clinic. I should get back to the field – to my comrades."

  "You should at least rest for a few minutes."

  He smiles, a smile that would definitely be rated “beautiful” by her sorority sisters.

  "I could use a cup of coffee," he says.

  His blue eyes reflect the overhead light,
his black wavy hair not that much shorter than standard MSU male length – slightly below the top of the ear.

  "Let me get you a cup too."

  About to say no, Sharon hesitates. There should be just enough time for a quick cup of coffee and then write the story before deadline. She’ll call the campus police for a statement and to find out what she missed after this boy saved her.

  She smiles at him. "My name's Sharon Bloom."

  "I'm Robert Gold."

  While he gets their coffee Sharon checks out the few students who sit at the Formica tabletops wedged between wooden benches whose backs form booths. The smell of other frying foods – onion rings, French fries – joins that of the cooking meat.

  "You didn't even lose your pocketbook," he says as he slides back into the booth. "Some protester you are."

  "It was slung across my chest." She hesitates. "Are you from New York?"

  "Philadelphia. What made you think New York?"

  "I have a friend who says pocketbook and she’s from New York. I say purse."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Highland Park, a northern suburb of Chicago – near Lake Michigan."

  She won't admit this to her parents – ever since that moment in sixth grade when her life changed forever she's kept her own counsel – but her decision to go to a college which wasn't a continuation of her high school crowd has been a mistake. Michigan State – as opposed to the liberal hotbed University of Michigan – is so apolitical. There are no marches or sit-ins or teach-ins. MSU's local chapter of SDS – Students for a Democratic Society – has almost no campus visibility. She hasn't even bothered to join.

  A few weeks earlier, the head of the local SDS chapter had perched on her desk at the “State News” office wearing his starched – rumor said done by his mother; he is from Lansing – monogrammed dress shirt, a single chest hair poking up from the partially unbuttoned front. "Can you believe how MSU hasn't changed in the last few years?" he asked.

  "It hasn't?" she said, then felt compelled to add, "Look at the changes in restrictions on women students – no more curfews. The dispensary now gives out birth control pills. We had that entire semester of guest lectures on sex topics sponsored by the university."