The rest of the days of Lenny’s leave passed quickly and, fortunately, without any recurrences of his stomach problem. It was tough to have to say good-bye to him, but he assured me he would find some way to see me again before too long. I didn’t know how he intended to do this, but I had faith that if a way could be found, Lenny would be the one to find it.
His first letter from Florida had good news— Lenny had finally signed up to take his equivalency diploma test. He also wrote that while the weather was already extremely hot, he was able to get to the beach when he was off and enjoy the balmy ocean waters.
His next letter was not so positive. In fact, it was totally negative:
Dedicated to the girl I love—
My love,
Here I am confused as ever. I totally despise school. Contrary to what I had hoped, the work is extremely boring. The first thing we have to learn is typing, and I’ve always had a mental block against typing. My brain and my fingers don’t seem to make the connection. Since we have to type at least four hours a day here, I find it’s slowly driving me crazy. I’m thinking of trying to get out of this school and into another.
When I read this, I felt this awful sinking sensation in my stomach. Here we go again, I couldn’t help thinking. One more situation where Lenny was running into problems. The whole idea behind joining the navy was for him to straighten himself out and to go to school where he could learn something to enable him to get a good job when he came out. If it didn’t work out with this school, then what?
This letter upset me terribly. I wrote Lenny a long letter back, lecturing him on the importance of disciplining himself to stick by his decision for once in his life, even if to do so wasn’t fun or easy. Then I tried to keep my mind off what was going on with Lenny as much as possible by busying myself studying for and helping the kids I tutored study for final exams. Fortunately, the days were longer now, and the weather was nice enough so I could be outdoors a lot, which always helped me feel better.
His next letter commented on how unhappy he had felt on reading my lecture. He said he knew it would be upsetting to me if he left the school, but he hoped I would find it in my heart to stick by him no matter what happened with the navy. He added that he would love me no matter what I did with my life, even if it was something like go to an out-of-town college, which, of course, he hoped I had decided against by now.
All this made me feel really guilty for having been down on Lenny. After all, I wasn’t there in class with him and had no right to judge him. Maybe being a communications technician was the wrong thing for him. He had to make his decision about how to handle that, just like I still had to make my decision about college.
I read on, and felt even worse. Lenny wrote that he had suffered another episode of stomach pain, this time so bad they really were ready to operate for appendicitis. Once again the pain disappeared after he was given medication, but this time the doctors thought they knew the answer to the problems he was having. They decided it was all due to an infection in his throat they believed had spread to his stomach. They had him on antibiotics and were confident this would take care of the problem.
I read this and felt even guiltier. This latest episode of illness illustrated the fact that it didn’t really matter whether Lenny made it in this school or not. The important thing was for his health to be okay. He could always go to another school in the future—as long as he was okay.
* * *
By the end of May I still didn’t know if Lenny would make it through school. His letters were still negative, but as long as he remained in school, there was hope.
As the end of the school year grew nearer, my parents began increasing the pressure on me to make my decision to go to college either at Binghamton or Buffalo. Roz was also accepted at Buffalo, and I knew that if she decided to go there, it would make it even harder for me.
One day Roz called and asked me to meet her by the park wall because she had some news she wanted to tell me in person. “Guess what, Linda!” she said when I got there. “I made my decision! I’m going to Buffalo next year!”
“You are?” I boosted myself up next to her on the wall, trying not to show how uncomfortable this made me feel.
“Yup! I went to visit there this weekend,” Roz bubbled right on. “The campus is great—it really gives you that ‘away at school’ feeling. And you know Judy, my friend from Fine Arts? Well, her big brother, Steven, goes to Buffalo, and he met me there and introduced me to everyone. The social life is fantastic!
“That’s nice.” I tried to sound enthusiastic. It was hard to do when I kept thinking of what my parents would say once they found out Roz was going to Buffalo. By now I was pretty certain I didn’t want to go there. Buffalo was right in the heart of the snow belt of New York State. The winters were known to be horrible, and the thought of being there day after dreary day, snowed in and unable to see Lenny, did not appeal to me.
“I hope this encourages you to decide to go there, too,” Roz went on, oblivious to my thoughts. “But even if you don’t, something else great came out of this visit—Steven turned me on to the most wonderful summer job! It’s at a hotel in the mountains of New Hampshire, working with preschool kids. The area is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous, and there will be tons of other college kids working there. We should have a terrific time!”
“We?” I asked in surprise.
“Of course. That’s the whole idea, Linda. This job is for you and me. We’ll room together and we’ll run the preschool group together, too. I already spoke to the owners and told them all about you. Of course, you’ll have to go for an interview, but it’s really already settled. They were very impressed with the experience you’ve had tutoring and working at Holiday Camp last summer.”
“But, Roz,” I protested. “I was thinking about going back to Holiday Camp again this year. I was waiting to see what Nat was going to do. She’d like to go back, but her parents want her to work in the city. They think that since she’ll be going away to an expensive college like Boston University, she should be earning more money than she can at Holiday Camp.”
“Which is exactly why you should take this job in New Hampshire with me,” said Roz. “We get a good salary and make tips, too. You should come home with three times the money you’d make at Holiday Camp.”
“Really?” I said. “That makes a big difference.” My head was spinning with what Roz had told me. As much as I had liked working at Holiday Camp last summer, I had learned about all I possibly could from the job already. The idea of working in a hotel in New Hampshire, where I had never been, and managing my own group of preschoolers sounded good. So did the extra money I would be earning, which I would certainly need if I decided to go away to college. Of course, if I chose to go to City College, I could probably manage without the extra money. And it would be a lot easier to get to see Lenny if I was close to the city in case he got leave before his next assignment.
“I don’t know, Roz. I need some time to think about it,” I told her.
“Think about it! What’s there to think about? You have no idea what’s going to happen with Lenny. He could get stationed halfway around the world, where you’ll never get to see him, or he could fall in love with someone in a foreign country and wind up living there forever. You can’t base your life on someone else, Linda. Do what’s right for you!”
Do what’s right for me. That was the problem. I still wasn’t sure what was right for me. I knew what it was that Roz thought was right, and what my parents thought was right, and what Lenny thought was right. But exactly what was it that I thought was right?
The direction I would chose to go in now could determine the direction of the rest of my life. What really was the right thing to do?