“Have you been waiting long?”
“All of my life,” he said.
“Me too.”
“I only have eight hours left,” Mac said.
“I have seven.”
He was dressed in clean jungle fatigues. She couldn’t wear the blue dress after all, it was too fancy. Her heart thumped. “I can be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said breathlessly.
“I can carry your bag to the room,” Mac said in a strange voice he barely recognized as his own. “I’ll come back down here to wait for you,” he added hastily. “You look just the way I remember.”
“You do too. I told everyone about your long eyelashes. I didn’t think we’d ever . . . what I mean is, I hoped, but . . . the pilots, they’re just super. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Thank God for the Bamboo Pipeline,” Mac said at the door to her room. He handed her the Mickey Mouse bag he’d been carrying. He shuffled his feet. “The shower is great. Don’t take too long, Casey.”
“I won’t. Wait for me.” She smiled.
“You bet. Fifteen minutes.”
He walked on air. He felt the same way. She was the same. Everything was the same as it had been in San Francisco, but now they were half a world away from California. He shivered with a delicious feeling of triumph. They were the same. Casey thought so too. He could see it in her face.
God, she was beautiful, just the way he remembered. Her hair, bleached almost white from the sun, was like a nimbus around her head. He liked it piled up with all the wispy curls about her face. In the lobby again, he literally danced his way to the elevator so he could touch her the moment she stepped out.
What would they do, where would they go? He’d have to ask her what she wanted to do. If it was left up to him, he’d take her to the fanciest restaurant in town and stare at her for seven straight hours. He’d hold her hand, smile, and they’d talk the way they had the last time. “You lucky bastard,” he said to himself.
The moment Casey stepped into the lobby, Mac swept her up in the air. “I had to do that.” He grinned. Casey laughed, a delightful trilling sound. “What shall we do?” he asked.
“I have this list . . .”
“I do too,” Mac said, waving a crumpled piece of paper under her nose. “Let’s get the shopping out of the way. Then I want to be alone with you, just the two of us, so I’d suggest the zoo and botanical gardens. It’s a weekday and there won’t be many people there. And, it’s safe. Of course, first we have to eat. The time will go by so fast we—”
“I know, so let’s not waste time. I also have to drop a letter off at my roommate’s parents’ house. It’s only two streets away from the hotel, so we can walk. Hurry, Mac, let’s get all the chores out of the way.” She couldn’t believe she was being so bold. She linked her arm with his.
“You look lovely,” Mac said. “That’s a pretty dress.”
She told him about the dress Nicole had sent and how she’d planned to wear it, until she saw his fatigues.
“You should have worn it. Blue’s my favorite color. Sorry I screwed up.”
“Next time, when we have more time.”
On the walk to Lily’s house, Mac said, “The chopper pilots told me about you nurses and how hard it is on you. They say all you nurses should get medals. How do you do it? I see death, but not the way you do. I don’t understand how you can—”
“We make a difference. In the beginning it was . . . a nightmare. After a while you sort of get numb. You do what you’re trained to do. You do the best you can. For a while we were working with outdated penicillin. There are days when I think it’s all a bad dream and I’ll wake up in my own bed. But it’s real, so real I constantly find myself questioning my own ability, my training. How do you handle what you’re doing?”
“For a while I didn’t think I would be able to cut it. Sitting behind a desk in the Pentagon did nothing to prepare me. Like you, I’ve been doing my best. I’ve lost some men. I’ve learned to hate. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. The hate has kept me alive.”
“It’s a pretty house,” Casey said, pulling on the bell outside the walled garden. “We have houses like this in the south of France. We call them villas. I think it looks a little like the mission houses in California.”
Mac peered into the darkness. “Yes, it does,” he agreed. “Are you sure this is the place?”
Casey nodded.
“Do they speak English?”
“A little. Lily said I should hand them the letter and smile. This must be her mother. Oh, Mac, isn’t she pretty? That’s an ao dai she’s wearing. She’s so tiny. It all looks so normal.”
Tears momentarily blurred Casey’s eyes when she said, “From Lily.” The porcelain doll that was Lily’s mother repeated her daughter’s name in Vietnamese and smiled. Casey smiled too, and handed over the letter. The Vietnamese woman bowed low. Casey bowed, so did Mac. Casey leaned closer to the grilled fence. She touched her fingertips to her lips, said “From Lily” again, then placed them gently on the little woman’s cheek. She touched her lips a second time. “For papasan.”
“Please wait one moment,” the little Vietnamese said softly. Moments later she was back at the ornate fence offering a small package to Casey.
Tears shimmered in Casey’s eyes when she unwrapped a delicate, gold filigreed bracelet. “Thank you. I’ll tell Lily you are well.”
After more bows of farewell, Mac said, “Okay, we have five hours and fifteen minutes left. What shall we do?”
“Why don’t we go back to the hotel dining room, where it’s cool.”
“That’s about the best idea I’ve heard today,” Mac said. “We can kill two birds with one stone. We can eat, and I can look at you. I’ve thought about you every day. Even when my head was full of . . . other things, you managed to sneak in. I can’t believe we only have a few hours.”
“They’ll go by so quickly,” Casey said sadly. “Our visit will be over just as it’s getting started.”
HE WAS HOLDING her hand across a linen-draped table. “I’ve made it my business to find every Bird Dog pilot and every chopper pilot in Vietnam. I’ve sent word out on the Bamboo Pipeline that you and I are engaged. They’ll carry our messages back and forth. It’s done all the time. I think we’ll be seeing more of each other. Forget this Saigon bit for now. Besides, it’s too difficult to arrange transportation. We’ll meet in other places so we don’t waste time. That is, if you’re willing to give up dry beds and air-conditioning.”
Casey laughed. “I’m not going to sleep in that dry bed. And anyway, I’m getting used to the heat and the humidity, something I never thought would happen.”
He realized he was holding his breath, waiting for her reply. What she’d said wasn’t what he was hoping to hear. Then, a moment later, she said, “Engaged!” and he let his breath out in a soft swoosh. Her face turned pink. She lowered her blue eyes, but he could see a small smile start to form at the corners of her mouth.
“Does it upset you? It was the only thing I could think of. Everyone seems willing to promote a romance over here. I can rescind the order,” he said, biting down on his lower lip.
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s rather amusing. I agree.” She chuckled warmly.
“Good. Here,” he said, withdrawing a small package from his jacket pocket. “I picked this up from a vendor. It’s a sort of engagement ring and cost seven ninety-five American.” He was laughing, and so was she when he slipped the gaudy, tacky ring on her finger.
“Will it make my finger turn green?”
“Your finger will probably fall off.” Mac threw back his head and laughed deeply.
Casey thought the sound was the most wonderful she’d ever heard. She was aware of the other diners watching with amused smiles. Everyone, she thought, loved lovers.
“Tell me everything about yourself—from the day you were born,” Mac said huskily.
She told him. Everything. “Your turn.” She smiled.
Mac felt something squeeze his heart. Of course she would want to know everything about him. He knew in his gut she wouldn’t understand about Alice. Casey would want to believe him, but in the end she’d get up, smile down at him, and say good-bye. In later years, when he thought about her, he’d remember that she walked out on him in a hotel in Saigon. As soon as possible he was going to write to a lawyer he knew in New York City and tell him . . . tell him to file for a divorce. He wasn’t going to cheat the girl sitting across from him. He wasn’t going to tell any deliberate lies either. He just wouldn’t mention Alice until the paperwork was in order. Bullshit, letters took too long. Later, before it was time to return to the airbase, he would excuse himself and see if he could get a call through to the States. The decision made, he felt better. He started to talk. For the first time in his life he was telling everything about his life to someone, everything that was in his heart.
Casey said softly, “Marriage for me is forever and ever. I want to have a wonderful life, because I didn’t have a wonderful childhood. When and if I get married, I want my children to be loved by me and their father. I want us both to sit by their beds when they’re sick. I want both of us to take them on picnics. I want a close, loving family. I don’t care if we’re poor, as long as we have love. A pet too. A big, shaggy dog who will love and protect the little ones and be protective of us as well. A little house, a charming house I can decorate with a fence around the yard and all kinds of flowers. The impossible dream. Someday,” she said wistfully.
It would never work with this man, she thought. He came from a wealthy family with oodles and oodles of money. His servants would live in the kind of house she described. Servants felt the way she did, not rich, powerful people. She was suddenly embarrassed. She raised her eyes defiantly, daring him to make fun of her. The look she saw in his eyes stunned her.
“Jesus, that’s all I ever wanted myself,” he said. “Two dogs though. I want a swing on the front porch, and a back porch where you can eat on a real picnic table, food you can eat with your fingers. I never gave a crap about that shiny glassware and six rows of forks. Paper napkins are just as good as linen. I want to eat breakfast in the kitchen, with those dogs begging for bits of bacon. I want to live on a budget, to plan a vacation for months. I want the whole ball of wax.”
“Then why don’t you have all that?” Casey asked, her eyes intent.
“Because I hate going up against my father. I hate to see the disappointment in his eyes when he looks at me. You see, I don’t like my father. Maybe I hate him, and that makes me feel guilty. I came over here to get myself together, so when I go back I can do what I please, when I please.” His voice turned urgent when he asked, “Do you like to walk in the rain? I mean really walk, without an umbrella, or don’t you like to get your hair mussed?”
“I love walking in a spring rain. My hair is curly, so it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t even own an umbrella. Do you like to walk in the leaves in autumn and smell those same leaves burning?”
“Autumn is my favorite time of year. When I was a kid, I always wanted to steal a pumpkin and carve it out myself. I think I wanted to be Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn rolled into one. The cook always bought the pumpkin and the gardener carved it. I wasn’t allowed to light the candle either, and it stayed in the kitchen window, so no one got to see it. I never even got to go trick-or-treating. Hell, I missed half my life, now that I think about it. Listen, we’re getting morbid here, let’s talk about something else. Us.”
Casey smiled. She didn’t mean to give voice to the thought in her mind when she said, “I thought most men were married at your age.” The absolute, totally blank look on Mac’s face confused her. He was being so open, so confiding. She blinked. Perhaps he had been involved with someone at one time and it hadn’t worked out. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No problem,” he said tightly. She looked like a daffodil in her yellow dress. He thought of fresh-churned butter; not that he’d ever seen fresh-churned butter, but he had read the term and fixed a picture in his mind of a mound of pure yellow, like fresh gold. She was slim, willowy, with tanned legs and arms. She also had goose bumps on her arms from the air-conditioning. She must be freezing, he thought, as he realized he too was cold. Maybe, like himself, she hadn’t wanted to disturb their confiding moments.
“Listen, honey, it’s freezing in here. Let’s go outside, where we have to fight the heat to get our breath.” He peeled off some bills and handed them to the head waiter, who bowed, smiled, and bowed again.
“I’m going to buy a blanket,” Mac said when they were on the street, “and we’re going to the zoo, where we can sit and look at each other. If I can find some peanuts, I’ll buy them too. Are you game, Casey?”
“This heat feels delicious. Yes, I am game. Another hour in that restaurant and I would have gotten frostbite.”
“We have three hours,” Mac said, when they got to the zoo. He spread the blanket under a leafy tree. “I haven’t even kissed you. In my dreams I’ve kissed you a thousand times. In my daydreams I’ve kissed you two thousand times. I think you’re supposed to say something before I make a fool of myself.”
Casey looked around. “I don’t see anything here that can stop you. I’m certainly willing. If you hadn’t brought the matter up, I meant to.”
“Ahh, a forward wench. Come here,” he said huskily.
She was standing in his arms, staring deeply into his eyes. What she saw there allowed her to close her own eyes and give in to the moment she’d hungered for all these months.
Their lips met and whispered sweetly against each other. Her lips parted to feel his tongue in the warm recesses of her mouth. She felt dizzy, faint, never wanting what she was feeling to stop. She clung to him, pressing herself against the length of him, her arms locking fiercely around his broad shoulders. They swayed, seared together, in the hot, humid air, neither willing to be the first to move. She heard him murmur her name, felt him run his fingers through her hair. She tried to move closer, to melt into him until she thought she couldn’t bear it a moment longer. She moved then, stepping away from him, her eyes dreamy and glistening.
When she stumbled, Mac held her in his strong grip, gently lowering her to the shell-pink blanket on the ground. His eyes, Casey saw, were warm and soft and full of . . . love, or was it lust?
She almost fainted a moment later when Mac reached for both her hands. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he whispered hoarsely.
Casey licked at her dry lips. She felt the same way, but her inexperience with love only allowed her to nod. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She wanted to, tried to. Tears gathered in her eyes. She fell against him, crying into his shoulder. She nuzzled, feeling more contented and safe than she’d ever felt in her life. He was cradling her, murmuring soft words she couldn’t understand, and it didn’t matter. Finally, hiccuping, she said, “I have never felt this way before. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here with you.” She was blubbering, acting like a sixteen-year-old. She said so, to her own dismay.
Mac held her away from him for the barest second before he brought her close to him. “Would it surprise you to know I feel exactly the same way? We have the rest of our lives. This is just a moment, a slice of time we have to get through until we can leave this place and move into that little house with a front and back porch. What do you think we should call the dogs?”
Casey bolted from his arms. “But that . . . that means . . .”
“What that means is you’ll have to marry me, because I have no intention of living in sin behind a picket fence. My God, what would those dogs think?”
“Who cares what they think? You hardly know me,” she croaked.
“I know everything I need to know. I found you. That’s all that’s important to me. Besides,” he said lightly, “we’re engaged.”
Casey wiggled her finger. “I thought it was a joke,” she whispered.
“Back there it was. I had to make a joke out of it so you wouldn’t see how devastated I was if you’d handed it back to me. I guess you can say I’m a coward.”
“We haven’t slept together,” Casey blurted.
Mac grinned. “A small matter that can be rectified in a moment. Next time.”
“Are we sure there will be a next time?” She snuggled against him, content with all she was hearing. God, wait till she told Lily.
“Damn right there will be a next time, and a time after that. As often as I can I’ll see you.”
She sighed happily. “Promise me one thing, Mac.”
“I’ll promise anything, just tell me what it is you want.”
“Just promise me honesty. If you can do that, then we can have a wonderful life together.”
At that moment Mac would have promised to gift wrap the moon and sprinkle the package with stars. He promised. He believed implicitly that he wasn’t lying. He held her closer, burying his chin in her sweet-smelling hair.
He wanted to take her back to the hotel and make love to her, but the hands on his watch signaled danger. He told her so.
“Next time,” she whispered. “I guess I should tell you now that I’m a virgin.”
Mac pretended mock alarm. “No!”
Crushed by his response, she said, “Does it make a difference?”
“Not to me, it doesn’t. But if you weren’t, it wouldn’t make a difference either. Before, when I told you I thought I was falling in love with you . . . that wasn’t quite true. I fell in love with you in San Francisco. When it comes to women, I’m afraid I don’t know too much about the way they react to certain things. I guess you could say I was feeling my way, hoping you felt the same. Do you?” he asked boyishly.
“Oh, yes,” Casey sighed happily.
“Will you wear the blue dress next time?”
She nodded, burrowing into the crook of his arm.
“Then it’s settled,” Mac said exuberantly. “We’re in love. It’s official!”
Casey laughed. “I’ve never been in love before. It’s wonderful!”
For All Their Lives Page 19