"We were helping Muldoon wrangle this public relations person from the White House," he told her, "and the maneuvers went kind of late. I figured you'd be at your meeting, and, you know, Savannah's out of town so..."
She hadn't known that Savannah, Chief Karmody's wife, was out of town. The only time the other SEALs' wives called her was if there was some kind of disaster. Like when that helicopter had gone down in Pakistan. Mary Lou had been glued to CNN, desperate for any news at all as to who might've been on board. Meg Nilsson had finally called to say she'd just heard from her husband that Team Sixteen wasn't even in Pakistan at the time of the crash.
That time, it was someone else's husband who had died.
"I just wanted to let you know where I was, and that I grabbed some dinner with Ken, so don't worry about me," Sam continued. "And don't wait up, okay?"
"Okay," Mary Lou managed to say. Her husband was spending the evening at the Ladybug Lounge—the meat market, low-rent, pick-up joint of a bar where she'd first met him. She could tell from the broadening of his Texas drawl that he'd already had a beer or two.
Oh, Lord, what she wouldn't do for a beer...
"Sam," she said, "I was thinking. You said you had relatives in Sarasota, you know, where Janine lives now, with Clyde?"
"Yeah," he said. "I have a bunch of cousins there."
"I thought maybe we could take a vacation. Go east and visit them all. Janine and your cousins, too."
Sam was silent.
"You still there?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "I just, uh ... I don't think that's a very good idea. I don't think you would, urn, like my cousins very much. But if you want to go see Janine, then definitely you should go."
Yeah, he'd like that, wouldn't he? To have Mary Lou and Haley go to the East Coast for a while while Alyssa Locke was in town. "I don't know," she said.
"Think about it," Sam told her. "I'll see you later." He cut the connection.
He would come home late, smelling like those really strong mints that came in a little tin box—as if they could somehow mask the scent of beer on his breath. As if that would somehow fool her into thinking that he hadn't spent the evening in a place where she couldn't so much as set a foot inside the door without risking her sobriety.
Don't wait up.
That was easier said than done, when she knew that even if she went to bed, she wouldn't fall asleep. No, she'd lie there, even after Sam came home and fell instantly and annoyingly unconscious, wondering who he'd danced with and who he'd wished he'd shared a bed with tonight.
As if that was such a mystery.
Mary Lou hung up the phone and plucked Haley from the seat of her swing. Her car keys were on the counter, and she grabbed them and was halfway out the door before she made herself stop.
What was she doing? Was she really going to drive over to the Ladybug Lounge to see ... what? If Alyssa Locke was there, too? How would she know? The Bug didn't have windows. And she sure as hell didn't know what kind of car Alyssa was driving.
So what good would it do? It would probably only make her feel worse. Hearing the distant music and laughter. Watching people pull into the parking lot, ready to go inside and have a good off time, drinking themselves into oblivion.
She held Haley close, breathing in her sweet baby scent.
If she called ahead, she could probably arrange to drop Haley off at the sitter's for a few hours. As long as Mrs. U. was home, she wouldn't mind earning a few extra bucks.
And then Mary Lou could go over to the Ladybug, park her car, and go inside.
It was a bad idea.
No, it was a terrible idea.
She set Haley down in the playpen in the living room, amid a pile of toys and stuffed animals, went to the phone, and dialed Rene's number.
Answering machine. Shit.
Mary Lou was doing what she was supposed to do— calling her AA sponsor in an attempt to keep herself from doing something really stupid. She was doing everything right, so why, why, why did this have to be so hard?
She called Janine and the line was busy. She dialed again. What, didn't vegetarians believe in call waiting? Shit.
She called Donny, but he was still in siege mode and not answering his phone. His grandfather had called her earlier to report that he'd stopped in to see Don, who was apparently disoriented from not taking his meds, but safe.
Mary Lou took a deep breath and called her mother—she was that desperate to talk to someone, anyone—and got another machine. Of course, it was much later out on the East Coast. In fact, it was getting pretty close to last call. Even if her mother had been home, she probably would've been too drunk to make much sense.
Mary Lou dug through her kitchen junk drawer, searching for her AA blue book—the schedule of all the regular meetings in town. Maybe there was something that started late somewhere in San Diego. Maybe...
A business card poked out from between a half-eaten box of Good & Plenty and the city's recycling schedule, and she pulled it free.
Ihbraham Rahman.
He'd been extremely nice to her over the past few days.
But why? What exactly did he want from her?
He wanted to fuck her. That was the obvious answer. Why else were men kind to women?
Except she hadn't even once seen that familiar, male, appraising, sexual edge in his eyes when he looked at her.
And why not? What was so wrong with her? Aside from the twenty extra pounds ... Although, didn't foreign men like women with meat on their bones?
Not that it really mattered to her. Because unlike her husband who was obviously ruled by his dick rather than a sense of what was right or wrong, she 'd never hook up with someone who wasn't white.
She still was in shock over the fact that Sam had actually considered marrying Alyssa Locke. Mary Lou had called him on it once, and she'd seen from his eyes that he honestly didn't see what was so wrong with that—a white man married to a black woman.
No, Sam couldn't see past the sex.
And aside from that, everything would be hard. Everything. All of their choices, all of their decisions. Where they lived, who they chose as their friends, where they went to church.
People would stare. Wherever they went, whatever they did, they'd stand out as different.
And their children...
It was hard enough being a kid in this shitty world and trying to fit in, without being forced to deal with two completely different heritages.
How would Sam, with his Texas white-boy upbringing, be able to relate to a black son and all the issues he would have to face as a young black man growing up in America, land of the free white male?
No, sir. Thank you very much. Jesus himself could come down from heaven, and Mary Lou wouldn't have to think twice about marrying him if he didn't have the same color skin that she had.
Life was hard enough without asking for trouble.
She dialed Ihbraham's number.
From where she stood, she could clearly see Haley happily chewing on Eeyore's ear.
"Hello?"
Oh, Lord. He was actually there. Unless he had a roommate ... She cleared her throat. "May I speak to Ihbraham Rahman, please?"
"This is he. Who is calling, please?"
He sounded so different on the phone. So distant and formal. "Uh, this is Mary Lou Starrett. From next door to the Robinsons... ?"
"Ah," he said. "Of course."
Of course? What did that mean? That he'd expected her to call him? That she'd seemed so terribly desperate that her calling him was a given?
But then he asked, "Are you all right, Mary Lou?"
"Yeah," she said. "I just..." She closed her eyes. "Actually, no. No, I'm not all right. I'm terrible, actually."
"Are you sober?" he asked.
"Yes."
"That's good," he said. "I'm so glad you called before you did something that could not be undone. You're a very strong woman. Very strong."
It was entirely possible that by calling
him she had done something that couldn't be undone. His musical accent wound itself around her, soothing her in a way that was dangerous.
"I'm not going to sleep with you," Mary Lou blurted. "I just want to say that up front."
There was the briefest of pauses. "Okay," he said. "It's good to make such things clear, I think. Although I wish to assure you I gave you my card only with hope of providing support to your sobriety. My intentions were not salacious."
Well, there was a word she'd never heard used in conversation. In a book, sure, but...
She didn't know what she felt more strongly—relief or disappointment at his lack of salacitude, or whatever the hell the word would become if it were a noun. Lord, she was fucked up. She absolutely would never in a million years become involved with this man, yet a solid part of her was actually upset that his intentions weren't freaking salacious.
What the hell did that say about her?
"Talk to me," Ihbraham said in his gentle voice. "Tell me why, no matter how terrible you feel, you aren't going to have a drink right now. Not for forever. Just for right now. Tomorrow's not to worry about. Tomorrow you'll handle when it comes, okay? But tell me why you're not going to drink tonight."
Mary Lou sat down in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. The only reason she wasn't down at the Ladybug right now was deep in conversation with her Pooh Bear.
"You really want to hear this?" she asked Ihbraham.
"Yes," he said. "I do. I absolutely do."
Funny, he said it with so much conviction, she could almost believe him.
As Charlie headed upstairs, thunder rolled in the distance. Vince had turned on CNN to get the latest on the war but she never watched past the headlines. All she needed to know was that the terrorists hadn't killed anyone else today.
As far as the details of the conflict went, well, back in the 1940s, she'd had enough details of war to last her a lifetime.
People died in war. That was the most important detail, and one that the news seemed to gloss over today. War wasn't this clean, tidy affair that CNN was seemingly reporting. It was filled with death and destruction. It was bombs falling and shards of metal screaming through the air and smoke and blood and fear and grown men screaming with pain.
It was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a Marine who was barely old enough to go into a nightclub shouting about getting to cover. It was about finding him panicked and completely disoriented underneath the bed.
All because they were having a thunderstorm in a city thousands of miles from the front lines.
Charlie now turned around and went back down the stairs. The book she was reading was out on the kitchen table, and she picked it up as she went past. Thunder rolled again, louder this time as she went into the den.
Vince looked up and saw her there. He knew why she'd come back downstairs and his smile was still a little embarrassed. After all these years. "I'm okay," he said.
"I know." Charlie sat down next to him on the couch and squeezed his knee. He took her hand in his and, bringing it up to his lips, he kissed her as he watched the sports news.
He was okay.
She was the one who would remember forever that on July 17, 1964, Vince had finally been able to sit through a thunderstorm without getting tense. Sure, he'd always tried to hide it, and he did a good job, too. But for all those years after the war, he'd never been able to fool her.
And forget about the storms that crashed overhead in the middle of the night. For years, Vince had woken up disoriented and confused. She'd gotten into the habit of turning on the light at the first little rumble of distant thunder.
Sixty years later, and he still woke up and stayed up until the storm was through.
She gently disengaged her ringers from his and reached over and turned on the lamp that sat on the end table. It made the room just a little bit brighter. "Mind if read?"
" 'Course not."
Sixty years.
Charlie settled on the couch so that her shoulder touched Vince's as she opened her book and pretended to focus on the story.
Nearly sixty years of holding on to him, of holding his hand, without making it obvious that that was what she was doing.
Charlie prayed every day that the fighting in this new war didn't escalate, that sixty years from today wouldn't find countless old women still worried about all those formerly young men who had served this country at such a personal cost. Of course, nowadays the young women were going, too. Who would hold their hands sixty years from now?
What a price to pay for freedom. All those years of life, irrevocably shaped by the sights and sounds of war.
And although the years flew by, some memories simply never faded.
That was as true for her as it was for Vince.
Charlie remembered that first time as if it were yesterday.
She'd sat up in the dark of the tiny extra bedroom in the house she shared with Edna Fletcher, awakened from a restless sleep by the sound of shouting.
"Not here! Not here! God damn it, go back! Go— For the love of God, don't you understand? You won't clear the goddamn reef!"
It was Vince.
Lightning flickered behind the curtains and thunder crashed again, deafeningly loud. The hot spell they'd been having for the past few days had brought them an electrical storm, despite the fact that it was only January.
"Noooooooooooo!" Vince shouted so loud and so long, Charlotte was out of the bed and down the hall almost before she knew it, running for his room. "They're drowning! Don't you see?"
She grabbed the light switch and cranked, but the power had gone out.
"Vince?" Lightning illuminated the empty bed. She tried to look around the room, but the flash faded too quickly. "Vince, where are you?"
Thunder cracked again, shaking the house.
"Get down! Dear God, keep your head down! They're throwing everything at us that they can!"
Charlotte crouched next to the bed and peered into the darkness underneath. Lightning flared and there was Vince, his eyes wild in his gaunt face, his dark hair a mess.
He grabbed her, and she shrieked as he pulled her onto the floor and yanked her underneath the bed with him. As the thunder roared, he rolled on top of her.
As thin as he'd seemed as she'd cared for him this past week, he was bigger than she was. In fact, from this perspective, he didn't feel frail at all. On the contrary, he was quite solid and heavy. And unquestionably male.
"Stop," she said, even though part of her had been starving for years for this very type of physical intimacy, for a body to cling to, to hold close, for someone else's strong arm tightly wrapped around her. "Get off me!"
But he didn't move. He tucked his head down close to hers. "Stay down!"
He was covering her from an imaginary barrage of shells, she realized. He was trying to protect her. This wasn't even remotely about sex.
"Vincent, it's just a thunderstorm." His ear was right by her mouth so she spoke as quietly and calmly as she possibly could, considering that her heart was racing.
She'd jumped from bed so quickly, she'd neglected to put on her robe. And she was lying there now, on the floor beneath him, in only her thin flannel nightie, which had ridden way up as he'd pulled her under the bed. She could feel his bare legs, warm against hers.
"Jesus God, Ray, keep your fucking head down!" His voice broke. His language should have shocked her, but it wasn't half as shocking as the raw pain and horror in his voice. "Oh, God, why didn't you keep your head down? Medic! I need a medic! Where the fuck is the medic?"
Charlotte did the only thing she could do. She put her arms around him and held him as tightly as he was holding her.
"Vince," she said. "Vincent. Listen to me. It's Charlotte Fletcher. Not Ray, Charlotte. We're safe. We're in Washington, and this is just a thunderstorm."
"Charlotte?" Edna called.
"Under the bed, Mother," Charlotte called. "Get candles! Bring as many candles up as yo
u possibly can! Please hurry!"
"Where's Ray?" Vince asked. He was breathing hard, as if he'd run for miles. Or as if he were trying desperately not to cry.
"I don't know," she told him. "But I do know he's not here. Not now. You're here, Vince, and I'm here, and Mother Fletcher just went downstairs to fetch some light. You're in our house in Washington, D.C., and we're all safe. No one's shooting at us."
Light came into the room. Charlotte couldn't see the door from her vantage point under the bed, but she suspected Edna had simply grabbed the candlesticks from the dining room sideboard and set them here on the oak dresser.
"I'll get more," Edna said.
The light was faint and it flickered, but it cut through the darkness.
"Open your eyes," Charlotte commanded Vince.
He did, but she still wasn't sure if he could really see her yet. Lightning flashed again, but it was less jarring with the candles already lighting the walls.
Still, he tensed and ducked his head, pulling her closer to him, too, when the thunder came. It was less earthshaking this time—the storm was starting to move off, thank God.
"It's thunder," she said again, her face pressed against his neck. He was hot and he smelled like her soap. "Just thunder."
The sound of Mother Fletcher's footsteps hurrying up the stairs heralded the arrival of more candles, more light.
"Put at least one on the floor, please," Charlotte called. And then, alleluia, there was more light.
"Oh, dear," Edna said. Charlotte caught a glimpse of her mother-in-law's pale face as she peered under the bed.
"He thinks the thunder is shelling. He thinks we're under attack," she explained, her own face heating at the idea of what this must look like from Edna's perspective.
"How can I help?" Edna asked. She actually lay down on her stomach, on the chilly floor, in order to get closer, bless her.
"I don't know," Charlotte admitted. "I was hoping the light would help."
Edna pushed the candle even closer. "Young man, look at me. Look and see where you are," she ordered in that no-nonsense voice that had surely kept James hopping when he was a child.
It may have been Edna's stentorian tones, or the light from the candle burning right beside them, but this tune when Vince lifted his head, Charlotte knew he was on his way back.
Troubleshooters 05 Into The Night Page 15