Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (14 page)

The building's door opens into a huge room
where ceiling fans churn the humid air. A mothball-and-lint aroma
floats up from the endless rows of uniforms hanging from rods
stretched vertically away from the door. Glass cases off to their
right showcase brass insignia and other accessories. The colors of
the rows make clear the location of the different uniforms.
Cardboard signs indicate the sizes.

"I'm going to get my dress blues first, then
see how much money I have left for everything else."

Nelson leads her over to the far right wall
of blue and finds the section marked 42 regular. He takes out a set
of navy blue pants with a yellow stripe down each leg and a lighter
blue jacket.

Within 30 minutes Nelson buys all the
uniforms he needs along with the accessories, including a bowtie
and shoulder epaulets for the dress blues.

"We need gas," Nelson says when they are back
in the car. “I don’t want to cut it too close.”

Wendy buckles her seat belt and rolls her
window down, hoping for a little limp breeze. “There’s a station on
the next corner," she says.

They pull up to a pump as an older man in a
plaid shirt and blue jeans appears at the driver's side of the car.
Wendy smells sweat and tobacco smoke as he peers in at them, then
checks out the stack of uniforms laid neatly across the back seat
with the dress blues on top.

"Hey, boy, what ya doin' with that officer
uniform?"

Nelson's hands grip the steering wheel. "I
just bought it for Armor Officers Basic training at Ft. Knox. I'm
an officer."

"Ya, boy? Niggers ain't officers. Niggers a'
cannon fodder. That's what we'a fighting that war far. Rid us of
some niggers."

Nelson guns the engine and races out of the
gas station. The man's laughter follows them.

"I should have known better than to get gas
up here," he says. "We have enough to make it back to the
post.”

She's nauseous and afraid of the answer, but
she has to ask. "Nelson, what did that man mean about blacks as
cannon fodder?"

Nelson shifts the car into third gear. "He's
just an ignoramus."

She's heard this word before. It's Nelson's
favorite for explaining away the insults directed at blacks.

"Nelson, you're trying to protect me – just
like my parents – but I'd really like to know what that man
meant."

Nelson honks at a pickup truck cutting in
front of them, then says "Statistics."

"What?"

"Statistics. How many blacks getting killed
in Vietnam compared to how many whites."

She swats at a fly buzzing around her face.
"What about the statistics?"

"Some people think they're skewed. More
blacks than whites proportionately in line units."

"Line units?"

"Combat units."

Wendy's stomach protests as she remembers the
Bible story about King David. He sent Uriah the Hittite into the
front lines to be killed so that David could marry Uriah's
beautiful wife Bathsheba. Was that horrid gas station man saying
that whites send blacks into battle in the front lines to get rid
of them?

"Nelson? Can I ask another question?"

"Honey, can it wait? I want to concentrate on
the traffic. Let's listen to some music."

Nelson snaps the radio on. Steam sings "Na Na
Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." Wendy chokes back the tears.

**

The next day Nelson asks "Why did you have to
say yes to Sharon?" as Wendy places the hotdogs wrapped in
cellophane into a straw basket.

"Why shouldn't I have said yes? It was nice
of Sharon to organize for the whole class a bring-your-own
barbecue."

Nelson stands up from the kitchen table. "It
wasn't so nice at the Officers Club. It was noisy and crowded and
hardly anyone spoke to us."

Wendy closes the top of the straw basket,
hooking the latch into the leather slot. "No one hardly spoke to
you because you didn't speak to anyone. And besides, the music was
too loud to hear anyone say much of anything."

She takes the basket in one hand and his hand
in the other, then leads him out of the trailer and into the
car.

Nelson says he wants to be with his fellow
officers – won't let her go to the family pool when it opens in a
week. But now he doesn't want to go to this picnic with his class
members.

It isn't just being with all the whites that
makes him uncomfortable, she knows; he's also self-conscious about
his lack of social skills. He didn't have the same opportunities
she did. Large family gatherings with aunts, uncles, and little
cousins running around constitute his idea of "getting together"
with other people.

Her parents warned her when she announced her
intention to marry him: "Honey, Nelson's a nice enough young man,
but he doesn't have any class, he's not very 'presentable.'" She
didn't listen. He appealed to her in a way that the other boys her
parents introduced her to back home didn't. Perhaps the appeal was
that Nelson needed her and the others didn't.

Nelson starts the car. "I just hope no one
says anything about 'niggers.' It could really ruin my
appetite."

“
Protocol is simply good manners.”
Mrs. Lieutenant
booklet

Sharon places the beef hotdogs and buns on a
paper plate and adds a paper towel on top to keep off the flies.
All the other hotdogs will probably be pork. And while she and
Robert don't keep kosher, she doesn't eat pork. She'll have to keep
a close eye on her beef hotdogs while they cook on the communal
grill.

This AOB class barbecue will be a chance to
get together where there isn't a band so loud you can't hear
yourself think let alone talk. Hansen's Apartments has an area with
barbecue pits and picnic tables. Perfect for this.

"Hurry up,” she says to Robert. “We don't
want to be late to our own party."

"One minute, honey. I'm just filling out a
withdrawal slip for our savings account."

"Why are you doing that?"

Robert looks up from the kitchen table. "I
need the money to buy more uniforms. I told you I haven't gotten my
uniform pay voucher yet. The paperwork apparently keeps getting
lost."

"Don't you think that's odd?"

"It's routine for the army to mess up."

Sharon hesitates before speaking. “Robert, we
agreed not to spend any of our wedding money."

"I promise to replace it just as soon as my
pay voucher comes through."

A car enters Hansen's parking lot. With these
thin windows and walls you can hear everything from inside the
apartment. Sharon peers out the living room window as Wendy and
Nelson get out of their car.

Sharon hopes there won't be any trouble at
the party. There's no telling what someone might say about
blacks.

Sharon well remembers the day at college when
an edict was announced to the editorial staff of the “State News”:
"From now on the correct description in our pages for Negro is
'black.' It will be used lower case. The word 'Negro' will no
longer be used." And henceforth and forevermore no one used the
word “Negro” in the pages of the college newspaper. One of her
colleagues even wrote an editorial about the mandate. The editorial
had been an eloquent plea to adapt one's oral speech to the written
word.

"I'm ready," Robert says now.

Sharon hands him two bags of potato chips and
a large bottle of Coke, then picks up the plate of hotdogs and a
stack of paper cups. "I hope no one's going to get drunk," she
says.

Robert holds open the front door for her. "An
officer is a gentleman. We have nothing to worry about."

"And the officers' wives?" Sharon asks.

**

"South Carolina is hot, too," Wendy says,
swatting away a fly hovering over the apple pie. "You get used to
it."

The women sit at the picnic tables talking
and watching over the desserts. In a few minutes Sharon will call
the men back to the tables.

They have already cooked and eaten their
hotdogs. Then the men separated, moving off towards a still-hot
barbecue grill. During dinner, food talk was the focus. Now the men
will discuss more serious things: their AOB class, their army
commitment, maybe even Vietnam.

Sharon wonders why the women aren’t
discussing their husbands’ time in the army, their fears of a
Vietnam tour. Is something not real if you don't talk about it? Or
is it because it is only their husbands’ decision – they have been
brought up to support such choices regardless of their own
feelings?

In a letter last week to her mother she
wrote: “In many respects one could think we were on a huge college
campus, but the war hangs over everything. The career men’s wives
don’t seem as worried about it as the wives of other second
lieutenants who want to serve their time and get out. Of course,
the career women could be putting on a front because they have
to.”

Sharon watches Wendy, Kim, Donna and the
others chatting about the food in the commissary and the bargains
at the PX. How many of these women believe the war in Vietnam is
right? How many feel it is the duty of their husbands to fight?

The truth is, she is relieved the women don't
talk about their feelings because undoubtedly they would expect her
to reciprocate. She doesn't want to share with these other women
her opinions and fears. Ever since ... ever since sixth grade she
has chosen not to reveal her innermost thoughts. There are things
even Robert does not know.

She blinks away the moisture in her eyes and
walks towards the men to see if they’re ready for dessert.

As she approaches she hears Jim talking,
gesturing with his hands. "The South has a long history of military
tradition," he says. "At my college graduation the Confederate flag
was bigger than the American flag."

Sharon's breath catches. How can this be?
Then she remembers Anne's words when they visited Elizabeth –
"These Southerners are in love with the 'noble duty' of the army."
And in psychological terms, doesn't it seem reasonable that the
descendants of the losers would continually strive to prove that
Confederacy soldiers are as good as the Union ones?

Sharon reaches a spot behind Robert just as a
man with a shaved head laughs. He's in cutoff jeans and an olive
green sweatshirt cut out at the armholes.

"You guys don't know shit about what you're
talking about." He grins and looks at the other men. "Now you
should see the dinks fight. That's something to see."

Sharon leans close to Robert to whisper in
his ear. "What does he mean by dinks?" Robert turns his head to
look at her, then places a hand on her arm and leads her away from
the group.

"Don't listen to that guy. He and his warrant
officer pals are the helicopter pilots in our class I told you
about. They're a little rough."

Sharon glances back at the man. "I still want
to know what he meant by dinks."

Robert hesitates. "It's a derogatory term for
the Vietnamese." He pats her arm and returns to the men.

Sharon's face flares hot. She sinks down on a
picnic table bench as Kim walks towards her.

"Sharon, this is a great idea. I'm so glad
you thought of it," Kim says.

Donna stands behind Kim. "And it was so nice
of you to invite the entire class. Not everyone would have."

Sharon smiles, picturing herself in the
dining hall of her sorority house. They'd come downstairs in their
pajamas, hair wrapped around jumbo rollers, bunny or puppy slippers
on their feet, after taking off the cocktail dresses worn for this
final stage of sorority rush. Time to vote on which potential
pledges to offer places to in the sorority. Who would be living in
their house next year, learning the secret handshake and password,
wearing the special jeweled pin?

Several girls were voted in with minimal
discussion. Then they got to Amanda. Not the most attractive
potential pledge – Amanda could have a better haircut and her
clothes could be more fashionable. On top of this, she came from a
small Midwestern town instead of an affluent suburb of Detroit or
Chicago.

Only one blackball vote would keep Amanda out
of the sorority. From the way the discussion progressed it looked
like she'd get more than one blackball. At that moment Sharon,
surprising herself, burst into tears and said: "We shouldn't
exclude people just because they are a little different. There's
nothing wrong with Amanda except that she's not so attractive!"

The outburst had been so unexpected – Sharon
not known for histrionics – that the naysayers had withdrawn their
potential blackballs. Amanda was voted a member of AEPhi.

"Sharon, thank you so much for the
invitation," Wendy says, standing next to Donna. "This is
terrific."

Sharon looks at Wendy. There were no blacks
in her sorority. Of course the Jewish sororities were first
organized because Jewish girls couldn't join the non-Jewish
sororities. Sharon shakes her head at the memory of that terrible
first stage of sorority rush at MSU when potential pledges had to
visit all the houses on campus. At the Kappa Kappa Gamma –
I'm
so
glad that I am a ...
– house Sharon felt as if she
had fallen through Alice's rabbit hole into a world populated by
blond-haired and blue-eyed giants. She had been as anxious to exit
the elegant, two-storied house as they had probably been anxious
for her to leave.

She smiles at Wendy, Kim and Donna. "Let's
get the men. It's time for dessert."

**

Sharon lies in bed that evening while Robert
brushes his teeth. All in all, everyone seemed to have a good time
and no one got noticeably drunk.

Yet for Sharon the barbecue’s light mood was
overshadowed by that helicopter pilot’s derogatory term for the
Viet Cong. Because regardless of what you called the Viet Cong,
their soldiers could kill your husband.