Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (29 page)

The door opens. Kim stands in the doorway,
dressed in a cotton bathrobe.

Sharon says, "I came over to" – make sure
you're alive? make sure you're all in one piece? – "to ask you for
some sugar. I just ran out."

Kim gestures for Sharon to enter the
apartment. "I don't think I can go anywhere today," Kim says. "I
... I don't feel so well."

Sharon sits down on the couch. What can she
do?

Before Sharon can figure out what to say, Kim
says, "Do you swear not to tell anyone what I'm about to tell
you?"

Sharon nods.

"You have to swear."

"I swear."

"I've never told anyone this." Kim swats a
fly off her arm. "Before we met Jim had an affair with a married
woman. Now do you see?"

Regardless of what Sharon may think of this,
she knows that many people wouldn't consider Jim's affair such a
big deal. Sharon asks, "What does that have to do with you if it
was before you and Jim met?"

Kim clasps her hands in her lap. "Jim is
terribly afraid that I'll have an affair with someone."

"Why would he think you'd have an affair just
because he once had one? It's obvious how much you love him. The
other woman must not have loved her husband."

"He ... he thinks women are weak. That a
woman will just fall for any man who wants her."

"Does he think that because he started the
affair with the married woman?" Sharon asks.

Kim brushes tangled curls out of her eyes and
swats at the fly again. "He says the woman started it. She was a
waitress at a drive-in. She asked him to meet her after work. He
knew she was married – her husband worked the night shift at the
nearby factory."

“I still don’t understand,” Sharon says.

Kim stands up. "Could you wait a minute? I'd
like to show you something."

Sharon puzzles the significance of Kim's
story while Kim walks towards the bedroom. What is Kim really
saying?

Minutes later Kim returns wearing navy blue
slacks and a flower-print blouse, her hair combed. She holds a
frame out to Sharon.

Sharon takes the cheap metal frame in her
hands. There is no glass over the picture.

"These were my parents."

Sharon knows that Kim's farmer parents were
killed in a car accident, knows that the only family Kim has is a
younger sister back home. That's all she knows.

What can she say? Looking at a picture of a
man and woman who would not live to see their children grow up, who
would not know whether their farm would ever provide a decent
living, who would not know the name of the elected president every
four years since they died. Who would not know about the Vietnam
War.

"There’s a family resemblance,” Sharon says.
“Do you have a photo of your sister too?"

Kim takes back the frame and leaves the room
again, returning with an unframed school photo. "This is her senior
year picture. We do look alike."

"She's as pretty as you are." Two spots of
pink dab Kim's cheeks.

Sharon hands the picture back. "Thanks for
showing me these pictures."

Tears trickle down Kim's cheeks as she sits
next to Sharon. "I haven't ever shown anyone that photo of my
parents except for Jim. I don't talk about my parents. I ... I
don't want people to feel sorry for me."

"Why did you decide to show it to me
now?"

Kim wipes away the tears with her hands. "I
wanted you to understand why Jim is so important to me – no matter
what he does. He is the only one I have. I mean, I've always taken
care of my sister, she's never really helped me. Jim is the only
person who takes care of me, who truly loves me for me. I have to
understand his anger, why he's so ... suspicious of me having ...
sex with someone else."

Say nothing, Sharon tells herself. Jim, as
Kim has just pointed out, is all she has. Sharon has no right to
say that Jim's obsessive behavior is abnormal. Sharon says, "What
can I do to help?"

Kim shakes her head. "He'll calm down. Maybe
I shouldn't go with you to the pool."

"It's so hot!"

"Right now I don't want to do anything that
will upset him."

Sharon stands up. "Let's go use the phone at
my apartment. I want to call Wendy and Donna and see if they’ll
meet us at the bowling alley. It should be air conditioned and
there’s safety in numbers."

Kim stands up too. “Do you still need the
sugar?” she says.

**

An hour later all four of them place their
rented bowling balls in the ball holder in their lane as Donna
says, "I have some good news."

Oh, oh. Is Donna going to tell the others
about her husband's Vietnam exemption? "What is it?" Sharon
asks.

"I'm pregnant."

"How wonderful! Terrific!" Kim and Wendy
say.

Sharon hesitates. Donna's awfully good at
coming out with shocking statements. Yet there's no comparing the
announcement of the death of her first husband with the
announcement of being pregnant by her second husband.

"That's so exciting!" Sharon says. "When are
you due?"

"January."

"What does Jerry think?" Kim asks.

"He's pleased."

Wendy hugs Donna. "I'm so happy for you. Have
you thought about names yet?"

Is that pain in Donna's eyes? Is she thinking
of her first husband?

"No, we haven't," Donna says.

Sharon says, “Who wants to bowl first?”

Donna goes first, followed by Kim, Wendy and
Sharon. Kim is a good bowler, and Wendy and Donna are pretty good
too. Sharon is lousy, although that’s to be expected. She’s only
bowled perhaps three other times in her life.

They finish a game and decide to bowl another
one. Donna heads towards the restrooms, and Wendy and Kim follow
her. Sharon walks towards the rental counter to buy a Coke.

The tap on her shoulder spins her around.
It’s Mark Williamson, again.

“Are you following me?” she says.

“Hey, there’re only so many places to go on
this post when you’re killing time. When the sun gets too hot at
the pool, this is a good place to hang out.”

Mark waves his hand in the direction of the
restrooms as Sharon hands money to the clerk.

“You’ve brought reinforcements today. Do you
need that much protection from me?”

Sharon looks at Mark. Instead of the man in
front of her now she sees the boy to whom she once said
good-bye.

“Sharon,” he says, then hesitates.

Out of the corner of her eye she spots the
other women exiting the restrooms. She has to get away from Mark
before Kim spots him.

“I have to go,” she says, and flees back to
the bowling lane.

“
Remember, a gentleman calls on all adult members
of a household, but a lady never calls on a man, so, she is calling
only on the female members of the family.”
Mrs. Lieutenant
booklet

"Hurry up, we're going to be late," Jim yells
as Kim packs their picnic food into the grocery bag.

Pain stabs above her left eye – his voice
still echoes his anger from the pool four days ago.

She doesn't recall the drive back to her
apartment from the club or whether she said anything to Sharon. She
only remembers standing in the living room reliving those horrible
seconds.

What did that man Wayne say about Jim?
"Good thing your husband didn't have a gun with him."

The gun.

She had run into the bedroom and yanked open
the drawer. It crashed onto the floor, tipping the unsteady night
table and sending the photo frame skittering over the edge. The
glass shattered when the frame hit the floor.

She grabbed the gun, looked around. What
should she do? Where should she hide it?

He'd check. He did every night. Even if he
didn't go for it the moment he got home, he'd know soon enough
she'd done something with it.

Take the bullets out. That's it! If he
checked, the gun would be there. If he squeezed the trigger ...

She stared at the gun, seeing in her mind’s
eye a man, surely her father, sitting at a kitchen table cleaning a
gun. He holds it out to her, saying she can never touch it without
him, it can kill her. "Guns can be darn dangerous," he says. "Never
treat 'em lightly."

A gun hadn't killed her father – a car had.
Yet she believed her father's words. A gun could kill her. She took
the bullets out.

She hadn't been so anxious, so fearful that
something terrible was going to happen, since ... yes, since that
night she and her sister waited – and waited and waited.

Headlights appeared in the living room
window. Then the car door slammed, the apartment door clicked
open.

Jim threw his army gear on the floor and
walked towards her.

Seated at the table, she flinched.

"Thought you'd be asleep. Had a busy day,
didn't you?" he said.

"I always wait up for you."

He was inches from her. "Not because you
don't trust me. You can always trust me. It's you who can't be
trusted."

How could he think this? Kim’s hands, already
clasped together, squeezed tighter.

"Jim, ask Sharon. Just ask Sharon what really
happened."

"It's a little late to go calling. And
besides, she'll stick up for you."

He strode towards the bedroom. Pain jabbed
above her eyes; she made herself follow him.

He jerked open the replaced drawer. Rainbow
colors blurred her vision.

He lifted the gun out of the drawer, twisted
towards her ...

Then he grabbed a pillow and the blanket off
the bed. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

In the morning she didn't come out of the
bedroom until Sharon knocked on the door.

Then that evening Jim gave her the silent
treatment. Even when he returned to their bed, he slept with his
back to her. This continued for two more days with all meals eaten
in silence.

Now this morning he spoke only to remind her
of the AOB class picnic. A classmate had an uncle with a farm
nearby. The entire class and their wives had agreed to meet
there.

In the car Jim listens to the Beach Boys sing
"Sloop John B." Heat pricks her skin, her hair clumps to her
forehead. Jim turns down a back road as bleak as the one she and
Sharon drove to Louisville. The one on which she wished she'd
brought the gun.

The gun. This morning, when Jim brushed his
teeth in the bathroom, she checked the night table drawer.

The gun was back. Still no bullets. Hadn't
Jim noticed the missing bullets? Or did he notice but not trust
himself with a loaded gun?

"Everyone will be talking about going vol
indef," Jim says to the windshield. "That's probably the whole
purpose of this darn picnic. And I sure as hell don't want to
discuss my plans with a bunch of men I hardly know."

Kim doesn’t risk answering him. Instead she
fans herself with a paper napkin from the picnic supplies. Fans
were all they had in their first apartment, not even an unreliable
air conditioner like here at Ft. Knox. They'd been lucky to get the
apartment on campus. Jim had known someone who'd known someone and
their name miraculously moved to the top of the list of married
housing. She and Jim set up housekeeping there right after their
small church wedding – a brief ceremony followed by cake and a
bottle of inexpensive champagne for the toasts. Jim's parents
weren't going to pay for anything more elaborate and she had no one
on her side to even offer.

Ahead cars line both sides of the dirt road.
Jim wedges their car in between a Corvair and a Chevy.

Wrinkles crumple her pink cotton dress thanks
to the heat and the pressure of the bag on her lap. She smooths the
wrinkles with one hand while wrapping her other arm around the
picnic food.

The bag escapes her grasp and slumps to the
ground.

Red strawberries spill out –
the pool of
blood widening on the store's checkout counter
. She
freezes.

Jim stuffs the strawberries back into the bag
and thrusts the bag into her arms. Her breath comes in short
gasps.

Several yards away long metal tables have
been set up under oak trees whose abundant leaves offer shade. The
scent of honeysuckle beckons from shrubs edging the tables.

As a young child Kim loved honeysuckle with
its bright scarlet trumpet-shaped flowers. She and her sister would
pluck and twist the flowering vines into crowns. They imagined
themselves modern-day Cinderellas whose princes had carried them
off to beautiful castles set high atop enchanted mountains where
servants fulfilled their every wish – and where they never had to
iron or clean house for anyone else ever again.

Then one day honeysuckle betrays Kim. Lulled
into such wonderful visions, she doesn't see the Kruger boy
sneaking up on the other side of the shrubs. He reaches his arms
through the shrubs and pulls her panties down around her
ankles.

Red splotches cover her panties! This
surprises even the Kruger boy, who races off screaming, "Kim made
blood! Kim made blood!" Kim pulls up her panties and flees with her
sister to their foster home.

The foster mother explains to Kim, "You're
not dying. It's natural to start at your age."

Since then the bright red honeysuckle flowers
always remind her of the red splotches. One whiff of the sweet
blooms floods her with shame.

Robert waves from where he stands with the
other men around a keg of beer, and Jim joins Robert. Kim holds the
bag with both arms and reaches the tables where the women watch
over the food.

"What are the men talking about?" Kim asks
Sharon.

Sharon shrugs. "Whether to go vol indef."

Jim's probably boiling right now, annoyed and
angry about all the talking. "I joined ROTC to do my part," he said
when he first told her about his commitment. "A Southerner has a
military tradition to uphold." She had been tearful, afraid of
everything connected with the army. "It's only for two years," he
said, taking her into his arms. "We'll be entitled to officer
housing, and, with careful planning, we should be able to even save
a little money."