CHAPTER 8

TISSUES, TEAPOTS, AND GARDENIAS

 

“Sarah’s leaving,” Mickie announced.

Wearing silky PJs, her brown hair pulled into a frizzy ponytail on top of her head, she plopped down on my bed amid the piles of laundry. I’d slept in—something I’d started doing on my day off—and was trying to get the sorting finished before Luu Thi Bian came.

“Hold on a sec. I’m almost done.” I shoved the piles in a laundry bag, fatigues on the bottom, underwear on the top, then placed the bag outside my door for the hooch maid.

“I know,” I said, closing the door. “Beth told me.”

“You going for breakfast?” She yawned. “I need some coffee.”

I eyed the can of beer in her hand. Coffee would be better than that, I was about to say, but decided against it. I didn’t feel like arguing this morning.

“Don’t have time,” I said, positioning myself on the bed for a girl-talk. “I’m meeting Seth in an hour. He’s flying down to Tan Son Nhut to get a shipment of med supplies that came in. I’m going along.”

A mischievous grin spilled across her pale face. “Spending a lot of time with him lately, huh? Glad to see you’ve gotten past your stubbornness.”

“Sarah’s transferring to Cu Chi,” I said, taking a sip of my lukewarm cola. “We’re taking her with us today.”

Mickie gulped the last of what had become her favorite morning beverage. “After what she’s been through, you’d think they’d send her to Cam Ranh Bay and the beaches, not a burn unit next to a petroleum dump,” she said, wiping her lips with her sleeve. “And with that artillery battery nearby, she’ll never get any sleep.”

I plucked the box of tissues from my nightstand and dropped it on the blanket between us.

“She requested it,” I said. “She wants someplace noisy—and busy. Says it helps to keep her mind off Dan.”

Sniffling, she yanked a few tissues out—I counted four—and crumpled them in her hand.

“Easy,” I said, “That’s my last box of soft stuff until the next care package.”

“She won’t be at the Twelfth very long. Her DEROS is sometime in December. Six weeks, I think she said.”

Seth’s DEROS—Date of Expected Return from Overseas—was seven months away, at the beginning of June. Mine was two months later. I didn’t want to think about it.

“I heard the Twelfth’s getting deactivated in December,” Mickie said. “Part of Tricky Dicky’s Vietnamization plan.”

Something else I didn’t want to think about.

“Wonder when they’ll send Sarah’s replacement,” she said. “Soon, I hope.” She pulled a tissue from the wad in her hand and began shredding it, dropping the ragged pieces on the blanket. I decided, with what I was about to tell her, to ignore her nervous habit this time.

“They’re not sending a replacement,” I said.

Mickie’s eyebrows shot up. “Why not, for heaven’s sake? It’s just gonna make it harder on the rest of us, having to take up the slack.”

I took a breath. “Because the Seventy-First is getting deactivated at the same time. Seth told me.”

She stared at me, her expression blank.

“We need to decide where we’ll request to go,” I said.

Mickie blinked, then tossed the wadded tissues on the bed. “Just when I was getting used to Rocket City. I need to think about it. Along the coast, for sure. Maybe Cam Ranh Bay. Hey, wait—what about the 283^rd—Seth’s unit?”

I sighed. “Staying here.”

“Oh.” Cursing the war, the government, and the Army, she yanked more tissues from the box—five this time.

“They’re not shutting down the base,” I said, putting the box of tissues back on the nightstand. “Just deactivating the hospital.”

“I know you, Vange. You’ve already picked the next hospital. Where?”

“Qui Nhon. It looks to be the closest to Pleiku—and Seth says he could make the trip on his off day. And since Qui Nhon’s in II Corps, he’ll bring the casualties he picks up to the hospital there.”

“But you won’t be together, Vange. Not like here.”

I reached across the bed and grasped her hand. “I know.” Hot tears welled in my eyes. “I know.”

After Mickie left, I packed my shower things, makeup, perfume, and the black lace lingerie Mama Rose sent me in my overnight bag. Seth was taking me out to dinner—someplace special, he said, but wouldn’t say where. I argued he had to tell me so I knew what to wear, but all he said was “Bring a nice dress.” I’d brought few civilian clothes with me in-country, but nothing appropriate for a dinner date. But what did I find when Mickie and I opened our latest care package? My black cocktail dress, neatly folded inside a plastic cleaner’s bag with a scented sachet hanger and note resting on top. “When you’re feeling down, Cara Mia, put this on. A pretty dress always makes a woman feel better. Love, Mama Rose.”

“Mama Rose,” I murmured now, draping the dress over the sachet hanger, “you always know what I need.” I zipped it in a black garment bag, then, on a whim, tucked my robe in the overnight bag. Neither Seth nor I had to be back on duty until tomorrow evening. Tonight I’d be all woman.

Sarah was attempting to fit a thick book in her oversized handbag when I stopped by her room to help her with her bags.

“I’ll do that,” I said, draping the garment bag across the bed and dropping my purse and overnight bag on the floor. “Finish packing.”

Somehow I didn’t feel it was right for me to pack the framed photos of her and Dan, which looked to be the only things left, with the exception of a tea set on her nightstand.

Smiling softly, she handed me the book. It was a Bible. “Thanks, Vange.”

While Sarah wrapped a hand towel around each photo, I rearranged her handbag, putting the Bible, which was the largest and heaviest item, on the bottom. When I was done, I glanced around to see if there was anything else to pack. Sarah, her wispy blonde hair arranged in a French twist, stood at the window, staring outside. The seams of her crisp uniform shirt drooped over her shoulders. I glanced at my watch. We had another fifteen minutes before her ride came.

“I’ll start taking your stuff outside,” I said, grabbing her duffel bag.

“Not yet,” she said, turning from the window and stepping to the bed. “We still have time. Let’s have tea.”

“There’s tea in that teapot?” I said, aghast. How could she think of tea at a time like this?

With a soft smile, she lifted the blue-and-white flowered teapot and poured the steaming liquid into two matching cups. “I brought a thermos of hot water from the mess after breakfast,” she said, handing me a cup. “I always have tea on hand. You know that.”

I nodded. Sarah was the tea lady of the hooch. Of the hospital, for that matter. No matter what time she got off duty, she had to have a “cuppa.” You’d think she was British.

“You going to drink that standing up?” she asked, patting the bare mattress beside her.

“You amaze me,” I said as I complied. “I’ve known Seth only for a couple of months—been seeing him only a few weeks, but I’d be a basket case if anything happened to him. You’ve been so calm since . . . since . . . .”

She sipped her tea. “Oh, I’m tearing up inside, Vangie. I feel like crying every time I think of him, which is every minute. But it’s getting better. I’ve learned that peace and grief can exist side-by-side.”

“Aren’t you angry?”

“About what?”

“That God didn’t answer your prayers?”

Folding her hands around her teacup, she shook her head. “No, I’m not mad at God.”

“Why bother praying, if he doesn’t answer? How do you know he even hears?”

She turned to me, a strange mixture of love and sorrow in her gray eyes. “Is that what happened? You prayed for something, and when you didn’t get what you prayed for, you lost your faith.”

How did she know?

“It happens a lot, Vangie. People give up on God when they need him most.”

I shook my head. “How can you have faith when it’s let you down?”

Putting her cup on the nightstand, she slid next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Dear, dear Vangie, I’ve learned that there are two kinds of faith: faith in what God does or what you think he’ll do for you, and faith in who God is. The first kind will let you down because we humans can never understand the mind of God. It’s too easy to blame him when things don’t go the way we want. The second kind is like bedrock. Because God never changes. You can build on it, and when the storms come, your faith won’t crumble like a sand castle.”

“You have a strong faith.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “I have a faithful God.”

Tires screeched on the pavement outside.

“Soup’s here,” I said, placing my empty teacup on the nightstand. “I’ll take your stuff to the Jeep while you pack the tea set.”

I grabbed her bags and headed for the Jeep. When I returned to the room, she handed me the box with the tea set.

“For you,” she said. “Happy birthday.”

When we arrived at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Seth borrowed a Jeep and took Sarah to headquarters then dropped me off at the women’s quarters while he and Buzz loaded the supplies on the chopper. After two and a half months in the highlands, I’d forgotten how suffocating the tropical heat could be at the lower altitudes. The first thing I wanted was a shower, but by the time Seth picked me up, I’d be a walking bead of sweat. So I’d put the three hours to good use. First, a nap. Seth had made arrangements for me to use an unoccupied room in one of the hooches for the afternoon. Apparently his reputation as a crack Dust Off pilot opened doors.

LuAnn Something-or-other, a Black WAC with a moderate Afro, was waiting for me in front of the hooch.

“You must be someone really special,” she said as she led me to my room.

Why would she say that? I wondered, dabbing my sweaty forehead with my sleeve.

I knew why when she opened the door. A vase of white gardenias sat on the nightstand, filling the room with their exotic fragrance. A flowered bedspread draped over the single bed, which was pushed lengthwise against a wall. Two pillows in matching pillow shams leaned against the wall, giving the setting a daybed look. And wedged between the curtained window panes was—oh, heaven!—an air conditioner, running full blast.

Clutching my purse, overnight bag, and dress, I stepped to the nightstand. A small white envelope with “Evangeline” neatly written in blue ink nestled among the shiny dark green leaves. How did he manage all this? I turned to LuAnn, who stood just inside the doorway.

“How? Who?” I stammered.

Her brown eyes twinkled. “Let’s just say Captain Martin called in a few favors.”

“Oh.” I dropped my purse and overnight bag on the bed then hung my dress on the locker door.

“The shower’s two hooches down, to the left as you go out the back door,” LuAnn said. “If there’s anything you need, I’m next door. First room on the right.”

“Thanks,” I said as she turned to go. “Wait! You wouldn’t happen to have a hair dryer, would you?”

“As a matter of fact,” she said, a grin spreading across her high cheekbones, “I do.”

After giving me instructions for using the hair dryer—“If it shuts off while you’re using it, just give the motor a few hard taps”—LuAnn left. Now I could read the card. I lifted the white envelope from its bed of green leaves and studied the handwriting. I didn’t even know if it was his.

You’re a fool, Blanchard. You think you’re in love with the guy, and you can’t even recognize his handwriting.

I slid the florist’s card from the envelope. There was no name on the “Happy Birthday” card—only three words: “Remember the nightingale.”