When I got home that afternoon, I was as down as I thought it was ever possible for me to be. Then I found a letter waiting for me from Lenny with more bad news. I took it into my parents’ bedroom where I could be alone, closed the door behind me, sat down on the bed, and began to read.
Dedicated to the girl I love—
Darling Linda,
Bad luck has struck again. I’ve been in the sick ward for several days now and will be here for another four or five days the way things are going. I’ve got tonsillitis, terrible stomach pains, and a high fever and am so weak and tired I can hardly stand up. I get two penicillin shots a day, but it’s still taking me forever to get better. But the worst of it is that this sickness will delay my progress through boot camp. By the time I get well, my company will be too far ahead of me for me to catch up. I’ll have to wait and make it through with the next company, and that means I’ll lose my position as platoon leader. But, worst of all, it means it will take me longer before I get out of boot camp and can come home on leave.
There is some good news among all this bad, however. The way I figure it now, I should be home just abut the time you get off from school for Easter vacation, and that means we’ll have lots more time to spend together. That’ll almost make up for the extra time we have to be apart.
Almost make up for the extra time we have to be apart! How could Lenny even write anything like that? Didn’t he know that each day away from him was pure torture to me? Nothing could make up for what I was going through—nothing!
That’s when I started to cry. I cried for the fact that Lenny had gotten sick and was held up in boot camp, and I wouldn’t be able to see him now until April. I cried for myself, so in love with him and so alone without him. I cried for my friends, who were now drifting away from me because they didn’t understand how I felt about Lenny. I cried for my parents, who I knew loved me but no longer could understand how I felt about anything. I cried because I felt good and sorry for myself and I didn’t know what else I could do.
Usually, crying made me feel better, but this time was an exception. All I accomplished with my tears was to give myself a splitting headache and a nose that was red and runny.
I took a tissue from a box on my mother’s night table and blew my nose. I rubbed my eyes until they were clear enough to focus on Lenny’s letter once again. Then I read on:
It’s the conditions here that got me sick. The temperature is below zero every day and the barracks are freezing; the doors don’t close right, and the icy winds blow right in. It has snowed off and on for the past three days. Yesterday, before I was admitted to the sick ward, it was sixteen below zero with fifty-five mile-per-hour winds. Living in New York, I never experienced such cold before.
You don’t know what torture is until you stand outside on a chow line for fifteen minutes as I did, my fingers and face hurting so badly I was practically crying, along with the rest of the company.
I miss you terribly, and the thought of holding you again when I first see you is the only thing I have to keep me going so I can complete boot camp. I hope you’re still dedicated to me.
All my love, always,
Lenny
I sat there staring at his letter, trying to picture what it must be like in boot camp for Lenny. There he was, far away from home and anyone who loved him, trying to build a new life for himself in the navy. Not only did he have to deal with cold, miserable conditions every day, but now he was sick and faced with doing extra time in boot camp because of it. As much as I missed him, as unhappy I was in the city with him away, it was nothing compared to what he was dealing with.
Now I felt totally ashamed of myself for the state of self-pity I had allowed myself to sink into. By going into the navy Lenny had taken a step he knew would be very difficult. But he had done it anyhow, because he believed it would be right for him, and if it was, in the long run it would be right for me as well. I had made my decision to stick by Lenny and wait for him until he got out of the navy. I had known at the time it would mean being lonely and isolated from my friends, who were busy with their own social lives. I had decided to take this route because I loved Lenny, and because he was worth all this to me. I had known all along what I was getting into. I had no right to feel sorry for myself now.
I dried my eyes. Easter. It was still such a long way off. There was only one thing I could do that would make the time seem to go by faster, and that was to keep myself as busy as possible. Nat still wasn’t dating anyone, and neither was Cesca. I would spend more time on the weekends with them. And it was a new term now at school. I would talk to Mr. Levin, whom I felt much better about since he had given me a final grade of ninety-five, and see if there were any more students who needed tutoring. Helping other people was always a good way to keep from feeling sorry for yourself. And I realized that feeling sorry for myself did me no good at all.
* * *
Mr. Levin gave me enough tutoring to keep my weekday schedule so busy that time seemed to go by a lot faster. On weekends I tried to see my friends whenever I could. Once I made it clear to Roz and Fran that I definitely did not want any more unexpected “fix-ups,” we got along fine again. Every couple of weekends I would either go to Nat’s house to sleep over, or she would come to mine. Being with her made me remember how lucky I really was. Nat had felt about Andy much the way I had felt about Lenny, and then Andy had rejected her. She had to deal with the pain of rejection and had no hope for a future with Andy. I at least had the wonderful satisfaction of knowing that Lenny loved me and that someday we would be together again.
This kind of positive thinking worked for me most of the time. On the occasions I felt myself getting down, I started taking long walks, bundling up against the cold air and biting winds of winter. The physical effort seemed to bring me back to myself quicker than anything else. I got to the point where life, while not great the way it was when Lenny was with me, was at least bearable, and any episodes of self-pity were few and didn’t last long.
Then, in February, my parents came up with some wonderful news.
“The two elderly sisters who live in the large apartment next door to ours have come to the conclusion they’re getting too old to keep it up any longer,” my mother told me. “They decided to move to a retirement home, which means our family has the opportunity to move into their apartment. What do you think, Linda?”
“What do I think?” The meaning of what my mother had told me didn’t take long to sink in. “That apartment has three bedrooms, doesn’t it? And that means that finally, after all these years, I’ll have a room of my own, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right,” my mother said with a smile, and I couldn’t resist going over to hug her with my great joy.
I could hardly believe it! Ever since my brothers had been born, I had either shared a room with them or slept in the living room. I had never had my own room to fix up the way I wanted, to keep my things in, to escape to when I needed to be alone or have some privacy. At this point in my life, I had given up on even hoping to get my own room. But now, totally unexpectedly, my parents had come up with the one thing that would make me happiest, next to having Lenny back with me again, of course.
Not only that, moving would give me something to do to fill those empty hours when thoughts of missing Lenny still managed to get me down. I would be busy packing and unpacking and helping to paint the new apartment. I would be busy shopping for and making things with which to decorate my room.
My mother and I went downtown together to pick the fabric for my bedspread and curtains. We both agreed on a blue and white floral print, with a matching solid blue for an accent. It was the first time in a long time my mother and I had agreed so readily on anything.
With all the preparations for moving, February went speeding by. We moved in the beginning of March, and the rest of the month I was busy sewing and getting my room to look the way I wanted it to before Lenny came home.
At the end of March I received a letter from Lenny telling me that, despite the fact he had been in sick bay several more times with high fevers and bouts of stomach pain, he had managed to keep up with his new company and would graduate boot camp on time. I could scarcely believe it. It was almost April, almost Easter vacation, and almost time for Lenny’s leave. The days were getting longer now; the sun was stronger, and the air had lost its biting chill.
It was no longer months or weeks I had to wait. It was only a matter of days until I would be feeling Lenny’s arms around me once again.