The Lesson (38 page)

She brewed coffee while she took a quick shower, and then she searched through her closet for something to wear. Her flaming red dress seemed an obvious choice. Kevin had told her once that he liked the way she looked in it, but even better, it would make her stand out in the crowd of friends and family who would throng the dock to see their loved ones manning the rails. Perhaps it would cause Kevin to look in her direction. She hoped so. Without the blessing of Providence, Kevin would never see her in that sea of sad faces. The striking red dress could only help.

By nine-twenty Gina was racing north up I-680. Traffic was moving well. She drove as fast as the speed limit would allow, and when she was certain there was no police car around, she drove a little faster. A few more exits and the sign for Port Chicago rose above her on the freeway. She looked down at her watch: five after ten.
Please dear God. Let me get to the ship before it leaves. Help me find Kevin.

Within minutes Gina saw the silhouette of the uniformed guard inside the security shack at the
base entrance gate. Permission to enter the base was not an issue that had crossed her mind until now. She slowed her Austin so that it stopped to the right of the shack. Her heart pounded a little harder. She had to think of something.

“I.D., please.”

The shack guard smiled broadly. He looked to be a few years younger than Gina and terribly eager. She pulled out her driver’s license and handed it to him.

“Your business here, miss?”

“My fiancé’s stationed on the Flint. I’m here to watch it ship out today.” Well, it would be true in a few minutes. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“I believe you’re too late, miss. The Flint’s already shoved off.”

“Are you sure?”

How could he possibly know? He was stuck up here in this guard shack. The Flint was tied up at the dock. The guard had to be wrong. But on the other side of the guard shack Gina could see a steady stream of vehicles exiting the base. The faces inside the cars looked decidedly civilian: lots of young mothers with small children bobbing up and down in the back seat.

“You can go on and see for yourself if you like, miss. Make a left up at that sign, dead ahead. Keep on going till you see a sign for visitor parking. If the Flint’s still docked, you won’t be able to miss it.”

“Thank you.”

The guard handed Gina’s driver’s license to her through the window. She threw it onto the passenger seat and hit the gas.

The long snake of cars exiting the base wound its way through several blocks of ancient warehouses and nondescript pieces of very large, very heavy, rusty-looking lifting equipment. With a sickening feeling, Gina saw that the line of cars led to a parking lot about two blocks from the dock where the guard had said the Flint had already shoved off.
Perhaps there are two deployments today and all these people came for another, earlier ship, not the Flint.
She refused to believe that she was too late to find Kevin. It couldn’t be true.

The parking lot was nearly empty. She quickly found a spot, got out of her car, and sprinted toward the dock. As she neared the water she saw a few hangers-on still standing on the dock, looking out to sea. Gina stopped running and followed their gaze. Off in the distance she saw the distinct outline of a gray U.S. Navy ship, so far away that it hardly seemed to be moving.

“Excuse me.” Gina stepped up to a middle-age couple that was following the last movements of the ship. They reminded her of her parents. “Is that the Flint?” she said, pointing toward the ship.

“Yes dear,” said the woman. “You just missed her.”

Gina tried hard to remain composed but it was difficult. Her lower lip began to tremble. She shut her eyes tight to keep the tears from falling. She had missed him. She was too late. The words she had hoped to speak to him in person would have to wait. And in six months’ time, would Kevin even be inclined to listen?

“Your sweetie on the ship?” said the woman.

“Yes.” Gina’s voice cracked as she spoke. “And you?”

“Our son.”

Gina nodded in understanding. She wouldn’t even try to speak. She knew she would start blubbering as she always did.

“Don’t worry, dear. He’ll call you often. Probably the first port they stop in. He misses you even more than you miss him, I’m sure.” The dear lady patted Gina’s hand as she spoke.

Gina nodded again as a thin tear streamed lawlessly down her face. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. The three of them stood a while longer as the gray ammunitions ship became a speck on the horizon.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but trudge slowly back to her car. How could her heartfelt prayers have gone unanswered? The pain was unbearable.
I’m so sorry, Kevin.
She wouldn’t allow herself to believe the encouraging words of the woman on the dock. Why set herself up for another disappointment? Kevin wasn’t going to call from the Philippines or anywhere else that the Flint docked. He was angry. Just like Michael had been angry.
I’m a loser at love. Burk was right. My education has done me no good. Some things I’m just stupid about. Men is one of them.

She turned the key in the ignition and began to retrace the path to the main gate. The long line of cars exiting the base was gone now. As she approached the guard shack she slowed so the guard could wave her by. But instead, with his hand he motioned her to stop. She slowed her car till it stopped directly in front of the shack. The guard leaned out the small window on the exit side.

“Were you able to meet up with the Flint?”

“No. I was too late.”

“The ship is making a stop at Mare Island before it heads out to sea," he said. "If you hurry you might be able to get a glimpse of it at the dock there.”

“Thank you.”

With a flicker of hope still burning, she hit the gas, determined with all her heart to get back on I-680 and find her way to Mare Island while there was still time.

Mare Island

Gina prayed all the way down I-680. She prayed as she turned onto the Benicia/Vallejo exit. She prayed as she drove over the sparkling Mare Island Causeway. She was still praying as she drove between the blue-roofed guard shack under the palms on the left and the big sign, “Welcome to Mare Island” on the right that marked the entrance to the base.

She slowed her car and glanced at her watch. It had taken forty-five minutes to reach the Mare Island gate. She didn’t know how long the Flint would take to sail to Mare Island from the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, and she didn’t know how long it would stay docked at Mare Island or what its business was there. She desperately hoped she could at least get close enough to see the crew from the dock. Maybe even she would see Kevin, if just for a minute. Seeing him would be enough. She didn’t dare hope that he’d see her from the ship and recognize her red dress and realize that she had
come to see him shove off from the pier. After missing him at Concord, she didn’t have that much faith left.

“Your I.D. please, miss.”

Gina found her driver’s license and handed it to the guard. He looked at her photo and then at her.

“State your business, please.”

Gina gulped. This stone-faced sailor was much older and more imposing than the first panting puppy at Concord. The automatic rifle slung across his chest was all business.

“My fiancé is stationed aboard the Flint. It’s leaving today.”

“The Flint is deploying today from Concord, miss. You got the wrong base.”

“Yes, I know it was scheduled to leave from Concord. But I didn’t get there in time. The guard there told me it was scheduled to stop here before going out to sea. I thought I might try and see it from the dock here.”

“I’m not authorized to let family or friends of the crew onto the base unless it’s scheduled to deploy from here.”

Gina's heart sunk to the floor of the car. Now what? Kevin's ship was probably far from the continent by now. What did she have to lose by begging?

“But I missed the first deployment. If its final deployment is from Mare Island, isn’t that the r
eal
deployment?”

The guard grimaced. “Hold on a minute, please," he said.

Gina watched, her heart pounding in her chest like a war drum, as he stepped into the guard shack and dialed a phone on the wall. It irked her to be delayed again but she tried not to show it. That would look suspicious. She had been terribly bold, but everything depended on this man. The guard looked her way several times. She got the feeling he was talking about her to someone. Then she heard him describe her Austin by age and make to the other person on the phone. In a few minutes he hung up the receiver and walked back toward her car.

“You’ll have to fill out this form. It’s time-dated, so when you leave, be sure to exit through this same gate so I can clock you out. I need to see your driver’s license again.”

Gina filled out the form while the guard copied information from her license. Finally he handed it back to her and waved her through the gate and she took off. She was about a block down G Street when it dawned on her that she had driven away from the guard shack in such a panic that she had not thought to ask for directions to the dock. But she wasn’t inclined to turn her car around to deal with Stone Face again. She decided that it was merely a matter of looking for the water or any sign of a big gray superstructure above the water. How hard could that be?

She came to an intersection. Walnut Avenue. She turned left for no particular reason. She crossed E Street and then Pintado. More old buildings and ancient trees but no signs of the dock. She drove
farther. On the right she saw stately white homes from an earlier era, a few with small children playing in the front yard. She figured they were officers’ quarters.

She decided to return to the strait. Anything wet was more likely to hold a ship than all this concrete, brick, and landscaping. She turned at the first left she came to. A lovely old gazebo, like a bandstand, graced a small park on her right. She thought the water was dead ahead but her view was blocked by a multistoried brick building, notable for having survived decades of earthquakes and salt air. She turned right. Historic bunkers lined the street. Surely she must be nearing the dock by now. She turned right and then left, trying to push down the panic that threatened to crush all sane thought. A small park on the right and then a quaint chapel with the most beautiful stain-glassed windows she had ever seen. “St. Peter’s Chapel” she read over the door. She kept thinking that she should go left, toward the water she’d crossed on the way to the center of the island. Then another street sign. Bagley Street. She turned left. Another left, then another. Then the tired-looking bunkers again. She was driving in circles! But at least she knew now she should be going right instead of left. She took the first right turn she came to, and as she did, she saw the superstructure of a U.S. Navy ship above the brick building straight ahead.
Let it be the Flint.

As her Austin edged past the corner of the brick building, she saw what her heart longed for, the large white letters of the Flint, AE 32, like a
dream, soaring majestically up from the blue-green waters of Mare Island Strait. The ship was tied to the dock, but she could hear its engines roaring as she rolled down her window.

She parked in the first place that didn’t say “No Parking” and ran toward the edge of the dock. As she looked across the dark water to the ship she could see movement of men on the main deck. Her heart sunk. Dozens of sailors in blue dungarees, and they all looked alike. She’d never be able to pick out Kevin among the crew, and why should he be above deck anyway? There were hundreds of compartments below deck where he could be working out of sight, and once the ship pulled away from Concord, not one of them would be scouring the dock at Mare Island to find a loved one. So close, and yet she couldn’t even phone the quarterdeck. She’d forgotten to grab the phone number when she ran out of her apartment this morning.

She stood on the dock for several minutes and looked around. Everywhere there was busyness and activity. Men walking, men climbing, men operating large equipment. Many of them were not in uniform; she figured they must be civilians hired by the Navy to do ship maintenance. Here and there she saw blue clumps of sailors. She strained to recognize a face but to no avail. She was beginning to feel particularly forlorn and disappointed when off to the side at least one hundred yards in the distance she saw a half dozen sailors in Navy pea coats and Dixie cup hats, walking toward the Flint with their heavy sea bags on their shoulders. She watched them for a few seconds when, suddenly, one of them, tall and slender, waved and started jogging toward her. Her heart began to pound with excitement. As the young sailor drew near, she recognized Kevin’s face. He looked puzzled, but not, she thought with relief, unhappy.

“Gina, what are you doing here? I never thought you’d come down here for the send-off. Especially to Mare Island.”

“Actually I went to Concord first, because you said you were shoving off from there, but I overslept and missed all the excitement. I raced over here hoping to at least see the Flint before it sailed away. I never thought I’d actually get to see you.”

He stood several feet away, reserved and a little rigid, belying the sweet sense of intimacy that had only recently developed between them. Gina wished he would he pull her close and hold her, but considering the insensitive way she had spoken to him in her parents’ living room, she could hardly expect him to be anything other than self-preserving.