The War Game (14 page)

             
Great. How did I find myself walking into these situations and how did I walk backwards out of them?

             
I started making a lot of requests to insure my sanity.
Just two inches from the bottom! No bangs!
She just shooed me off with, “Don’t worry, Darling. You’re going to look darling!”

             
I’d gotta get that kid a thesaurus. 

             
Dana was rifling through everybody’s clothes, trying to find something suitable for me to wear. “Aww, now, that’s just gorgeous. If I had a camera, I’d take a thousand pictures of that face! And honey, you are going to melt hearts tonight.”

             
“Don’t worry, girl. You look so pretty! Any man would be lucky to shag it up with you!” Miriam said from behind the makeshift curtain stall door.

             
Umm, thank you? Same back at you?
I wanted to say. I tried to smile in return.

             
Dana’s hair was getting longer, I could see some wisps curling up under the brim of her hat.

             
“Don’t mention it, darling. Just be sure to spill all the details when you come back later tonight. Now I’ve gotta run to the market and see if I can find me anything that will remove nail polish before it gets too dark. Don’t do anything I would do! Ta da, love!”

             
And what would that be? I wondered.

~~~

             
I hung out in the courtyard after hours. Most people tend to turn in at sundown (long before the soldiers “tuck us in”), no matter what time sundown happens to be. There was enough moonlight so I took a stick and practiced drawing good luck symbols in the dirt. Me in my dress, playing around in the dirt.

             
“What are you doing out here?” demanded a voice from the dark.

             
I turned around but I didn’t need to. I’d know that voice from anywhere. It was John.

             
“None of your business.” Who was he to try and tell me where I can and can’t go? Let a soldier do that, we can’t do all the work for them.

             
He eyed me up and down freely. I felt suddenly uncomfortable in my dress and with my face caked with makeup. “It would be a wise decision if you went back inside.”

             
“I can do whatever I want, I don’t need your permission.”

             
“Get back inside,” he said through his teeth.

             
“No,” then I leaned against the wall as if I intended to stay.

             
Then his shoulders dropped and he seemed to relax. “Pearl.”

             
I waited a moment, “What?”

             
“Don’t do this.”

             
“Don’t do what?”

             
“You’re so naive.” He started to turn around, like he was talking to an irrational child about wearing a cape to the doctor’s office.

             
“Fuck you!” I screamed. I lost my cool, not as if the tension wasn’t already soaring from the beginning.

             
He mumbled something nearly intelligible, like a cursed grumble. It sounded like he said, “Yeah, I wish you would.”

             
I walked back to the beds. I left him standing there. I’m glad I got to be the one to leave this time.

             
It felt like the air dropped at least ten degrees since I came out here.

~~~

             
Something had changed. Felt it in the atmosphere before I stepped into the sleeping area. Had someone gone missing? I counted the people I knew, everyone was here. Dana, Miriam, Sue, Sheila, Luann, and Ricky. John was somewhere. Who cared where Laura was.

             
Miriam looked on the verge of either breaking or erupting. She paced around a little bit, alternating between eyes becoming wet and worrying and then turning red and tightening with rage. Dana was face down on the bed, covers and all. Sheila was reciting some poem or prayer in Spanish. Sue even looked sympathetic to whatever was going on. She sat on the bed with her hands folded in her lap. Waiting to be called on for whatever might be needing to get done, I suppose.

             
Then I settled in for the night next to Ricky. I moved his arm over to his side of the bed. I let it go and it flopped like a limp rag doll. He was sound asleep and just as oblivious as I was to whatever went down while I was gone.

             
I knew now would not be the time to ask.

             
The Ladies were much too quiet. I hoped that someone could tell me what happened in the morning, although I really wanted to know right now. Maybe Luann would know. I’d ask her in the morning.

~~~

             
I was awoken to a loud megaphone of a soldier spitting out directions. Everyone was slowly spilling out into the courtyard. I was just about to pull Luann aside but John got to me first.

             
“I need to talk to you.”

             
My heart skipped a beat. “About what?” I inquired. The heart can continue to beat even when separated from my body. Another useless fact that would do me no good. The heart could still live on a little, even if my head were to be sliced from my neck.

             
“Hey,” he said. He sat down beside me, pulled his hair through a thin elastic loop (Sheila has about a hundred of these things), and put his hands on his knees.

             
He stopped and started a couple of times. Then he took my hand.
             

             
“I just don’t want to be part of something that you might later regret.”

             
“Regret what?” I didn’t know if I needed to be mad.

             
“Regret this. Me. What could happen between us.”

             
“But I won’t regret it.”

             
“We could be bombed at any time. We could be packed up like sardines and shipped off to separate camps. I could die.”

             
That didn’t seem possible to me. I didn’t want to say that so I lied, “I know. We all could.”

             
“Don’t take it as if I don’t want to be with you or anything like that, because I do. I know you may not believe me, but I do care for you. That’s why it’s better if there’s a distance between us.”

             
“No, I don’t. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” Right after that, I regretted saying those words. I knew he probably had been through more than I would in three lifetimes. But he didn’t come back with that.

             
The words “I’m” and  “sorry” have never left my lips in that order in a quick procession. And they wouldn’t tonight, but they were caught in my throat.

             
“Do you still like me?”

             
“I have not granted you permission to ask questions.”

             
I was pissed he was avoiding my question. Now that he’d decided to talk to me and acknowledge my existence, he still had to make a game out of everything.

             
Fed up with his word play, my voice was a little shaky when I said, “You know what? I don’t even care anymore.” I walked away.

             
I could feel the tears swelling and sitting on the edge of my lower eyelid. They were ready to plummet. I kept walking and he kept staying. Didn’t men know they were supposed to fix things? If he liked me, he would try harder to be with me.
             

             
“Wait!” he yelled, interrupting my pity party of one. He started walking and I stopped. I was frightened now, trying hard to control the shaking.

             
Of course, I wanted him to run back after me. Of course, I wanted him most of all to be on his knees and begging. Of course, I wanted him to forget that Laura even existed.

             
Now that I had what I wanted, what the hell did I do next?

             
Time seemed to be frozen or, at least, have considerably slowed down. He took my face in his hands, like a scene out of an exotic romance novel, and kissed me.

             
Well, probably the tamest scene out of an exotic romance novel.

~~~
             

             
Laura was gone the next day. I was wandering around the slop tables to see if the soldier that she had been getting friendly with would be here today.

             
But he wasn’t. The trucks came early but they didn’t bring any food. They brought extra buses along with them. They made everyone stand in long lines and the soldiers picked people out.

             
I try to guess why they chose the people that they did. They picked me and John. They also picked Miriam, Sheila, Luann, and Ricky. Sue and Dana were left standing in line, as well as tree girl.

             
I think they picked out the better-looking people, to be honest. Not just healthy-looking, but also more attractive.

             
John and I stood a foot away from each other, trying to think of something to say. Something important. He took my hand instead.

             
He took off my bracelet.

             
“What’s this silly thing?” he asked, examining the symbol on the charm.

             
“It means good luck.”

             
“You don’t need objects to bring you luck. You make your own luck.”

             
He slides it back on my hand, slowly up my wrist.

             
“She broke your heart, didn’t she,” I asked. People used to believe, in a different time, that hearts could move around the body whenever they pleased. Wished mine could. I’d hide it behind my kidney or something so no one could stab it.

             
“No, she wasn’t the one I gave it to.” He looked at me, trying to read my thoughts.

             
“Do you like me?”

             
“Let’s just say that it wouldn’t be a misconception to say that I do.”

             
He kisses me. I kiss him back. Again and again and again. I don’t know whether time is standing still or if it’s warping right past us. Either way, I didn’t care.

             
He leaned to kiss me again but instead his lips touched my ear. “We’ll get to Canada, no matter what. Like I said before, people risk their lives for pearls.”

             
The soldier broke us up and directed us onto our buses. John was on the bus next to me. I took a seat in the middle of the bus, and opened the window. I only managed to push it halfway down before it got stuck. He took a seat so we could see each other.

             
I waved, he gave me the peace sign. It was just a few minutes until both engines got started. Soldiers did a head count and the buses started down the road.

             
Our buses rode along side each other. John tried to tell me something but I couldn’t hear all of what he said.

             
I shouted as loud as my lungs could carry me, “Tell me later, okay!”

             
He mouthed, “Okay.”

             
The buses pulled near an intersection. I thought hopefully that maybe the buses would eventually stop at a red light so John and I could continue talking. The light ahead was red, I said a little quick prayer that it would stay that way. “The light better not goddamn change. Preferably for a while, at the very least.” And then I realized my prayer was probably canceled out with taking the Lord’s name in vain. But maybe He would understand.

             
John was looking straight at the light too, concentrating on it. Probably thinking the same thing as me.

             
As the buses started to slow down, that damn light changed to green. I cursed it in my head.

             
My bus began to accelerate towards the green light, John’s bus was staying the same, slow speed.

             
Damn it, I thought. With all these buses, his bus probably won’t be able to catch up.

             
Then John’s bus turned right.