For All Their Lives (23 page)

Mac held her away from him for the barest second before he brought her close to him. “Would it surprise you to know I feel exactly the same way? We have the rest of our lives. This is just a moment, a slice of time we have to get through until we can leave this place and move into that little house with a front and back porch. What do you think we should call the dogs?”

Casey bolted from his arms. “But that . . . that means . . .”

“What that means is you'll have to marry me, because I have no intention of living in sin behind a picket fence. My God, what would those dogs think?”

“Who cares what they think? You hardly know me,” she croaked.

“I know everything I need to know. I found you. That's all that's important to me. Besides,” he said lightly, “we're engaged.”

Casey wiggled her finger. “I thought it was a joke,” she whispered.

“Back there it was. I had to make a joke out of it so you wouldn't see how devastated I was if you'd handed it back to me. I guess you can say I'm a coward.”

“We haven't slept together,” Casey blurted.

Mac grinned. “A small matter that can be rectified in a moment. Next time.”

“Are we sure there will be a next time?” She snuggled against him, content with all she was hearing. God, wait till she told Lily.

“Damn right there will be a next time, and a time after that. As often as I can I'll see you.”

She sighed happily. “Promise me one thing, Mac.”

“I'll promise anything, just tell me what it is you want.”

“Just promise me honesty. If you can do that, then we can have a wonderful life together.”

At that moment Mac would have promised to gift wrap the moon and sprinkle the package with stars. He promised. He believed implicitly that he wasn't lying. He held her closer, burying his chin in her sweet-smelling hair.

He wanted to take her back to the hotel and make love to her, but the hands on his watch signaled danger. He told her so.

“Next time,” she whispered. “I guess I should tell you now that I'm a virgin.”

Mac pretended mock alarm. “No!”

Crushed by his response, she said, “Does it make a difference?”

“Not to me, it doesn't. But if you weren't, it wouldn't make a difference either. Before, when I told you I thought I was falling in love with you . . . that wasn't quite true. I fell in love with you in San Francisco. When it comes to women, I'm afraid I don't know too much about the way they react to certain things. I guess you could say I was feeling my way, hoping you felt the same. Do you?” he asked boyishly.

“Oh, yes,” Casey sighed happily.

“Will you wear the blue dress next time?”

She nodded, burrowing into the crook of his arm.

“Then it's settled,” Mac said exuberantly. “We're in love. It's official!”

Casey laughed. “I've never been in love before. It's wonderful!”

“I haven't either!” It was true, he'd never been in love the way he was in love with this beautiful girl. Now, finally, at long last, he had someone to call his own. Someone who loved him, who wanted the same things from life that he wanted. There was no way in hell he was going to even
think
about his wife now.

They snuggled on the blanket, their cheeks brushing. They talked in soft whispers about the future and the remainder of their tours in Southeast Asia.

When it was time to leave, Mac couldn't find the words. He held his wrist out so she could see the luminous hands. Her shoulders slumped, as did his. They were like two beaten, tired warriors when they left the zoo, the soft pink blanket under Mac's arm.

“Do you mind if we stop at the hotel before we head out to Tan Son Nhut?” he said. “I want to see if I can get a call through to the States.”

“Not at all. I have to get my bag anyway.”

 

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Mac saw Casey get off the elevator in the hotel lobby. He spoke hurriedly into the receiver. “Listen, miss, I'm calling from Vietnam, interrupt Stewart. What do you mean, you can't interrupt him? I'm his client too,” he said angrily. He listened a moment. “Okay, then take down this message and repeat it back to me verbatim.” He was listening to the tail end of his message when Casey approached him. She winked at him. In his life no girl had ever winked at him. He felt himself grow light-headed. “Tell Stew to call Benny if there's a problem.”

Mac grinned sheepishly at Casey. “People”—he'd almost said lawyers—“don't like to accept calls from Asia. I think it's hilarious myself.”

“I do too. It's amazing that you got through at all. Are you ready?”

“No. Are you?”

“No, but we have to leave.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her again, a long, lingering kiss that spoke of the future.

At Tan Son Nhut, Casey's windowless, patched-up C-130 set down. She tossed the Mickey Mouse bag into the yawning opening in the back of the plane. With ease Mac lifted her onto the cargo ramp. The plane's engines wheezed and sputtered. “You didn't tell me what you want to call your dog,” Mac shouted.

As the hydraulic ramp lifted up with a loud whine, and the wind whipped at her hair, Casey yelled at the top of her lungs, “Fred. What are you going to call yours?”

“Gus,” Mac bellowed. The ramp slammed shut and the plane taxied off. He waved frantically.

Then Mac checked into the flight operations office, and minutes later boarded a Huey helicopter. He was airborne almost instantly.

Even though they were going in separate directions, they were doing what they'd come to do, trying to make a difference. But they'd also found the love that had eluded them all their lives.

B
ACK IN THE
world, the Beach Boys topped the charts with “Sloop John B,” and the front pages of newspapers carried headlines that Sophia Loren had tripped to the altar for the second time. Those headlines gave way to others when an unmanned spaceship filmed the moon. The populace buzzed anew when twenty-one-year-old actress Mia Farrow, star of
Peyton Place,
married fifty-one-year-old crooner Frank Sinatra. On American campuses, students began to picket, march, and chant, and sometimes riot in opposition to the Vietnam War.

In New York, at the United Nations, Hanoi insisted that the United States must end the bombing in Vietnam before peace talks could begin. Three days later attention turned to the Baltimore Orioles, who swept the Dodgers in the World Series.

The headlines swept back to Vietnam seventeen days later with LBJ's surprise visit to South Vietnam and his unexpected visit to Cam Ranh Bay to salute his troops. “You are fighting a vicious and illegal aggression across this little nation's frontier,” he told them. The same troops looked on while the President of the United States awarded General Westmoreland the Distinguished Service Medal for courage and leadership. The Distinguished Service Cross was presented to Captain Mac Carlin, U.S. Army Provisional Reconnaissance Detachment. Their handshakes were firm and manly. Secretary of State Dean Rusk clapped Mac on the shoulder and said in lowered tones, “Mac, your father is going to be so proud of you he'll strut like a peacock.”

“Yes, sir,” Mac said stiffly.

“I'll give your regards to him.”

Mac wanted to tell him not to bother, but he remained silent. He found himself laughing after LBJ turned to the troops as he was boarding his plane and said, “Come home safe and sound.”

Mac did his best that day to hitch a ride north on a Huey to see Casey. He had already boarded when he was asked to give up his spot on the plane to two wounded men. After that, he hadn't had much choice but to head back to the Ho Chi Minh trail, his home away from home.

Five days later, on Halloween, Mac received word that he was the father of a seven-pound, three-ounce baby girl named Jenny. He tried to absorb the news, wanted to be happy and elated, but only felt sad and depressed. He didn't even care that Alice hadn't kept her word to name the baby after his mother.

 

T
HE ONLY THINGS
that interested Mac were Casey Adams and his own safety.

He didn't see Casey again for six months. It seemed an eternity. He did, however, write weekly to her, sometimes only a few scribbled lines, other times, long two-page letters, which she returned in kind.

When word filtered down the Bamboo Pipeline that a Fourth of July picnic was being planned on China Beach, Mac finagled and connived to get a twelve-hour pass to Saigon, where he wasted three whole hours trying to get a call through to Benny at the Pentagon. When he finally heard his friend's voice, he said, “Just listen, Benny, and do what I tell you.” He spoke loudly so his voice would carry over the static on the wire. “You got it all?”

“Every word. This is all the way to . . . the top. I saw that picture of you shaking hands with LBJ and Rusk. Rusk is your old man's new best buddy, according to the papers. They played golf when he got back, in case you're interested.”

“I'm not. How's Sadie?”

“Misses you. I saw little Jenny. Are you interested?”

“No,” Mac said coolly.

“Okay, I can deal with that. Who is this girl, Mac?”

“My destiny, my life. Don't ask questions unless you can handle the answers. I gotta go, have some shopping to do for the men. I want this done ASAP, Benny.”

“Yesterday, old buddy. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

 

O
NE WEEK LATER
, as Casey Adams and Lily Gia were peeling off their operating gowns, the chief operating room nurse, Maureen Hagen, appeared at their sides with a sheaf of papers in her hands and a murderous look on her face. “Get your gear together, girls, you're being transferred to Da Nang. According to that chopper pilot, you have about five minutes.”

“What?” Casey blurted. “Why?”

“Did we do something wrong?” Lily demanded.

“Ever see this before?” Hagen waved a crackly piece of paper under Casey's nose.

“It looks like a notarial seal. No, I never saw that before.”

The disgust on Hagen's face finally registered with Casey. “Someone very high up wants you transferred to Da Nang where you will work in a nice, clean, air-conditioned hospital with trauma patients. You will work nine to five. The same thing goes for you, Gia. There will be accommodations for you, your own apartment with your very own bathroom, and you will have air-conditioning. You'll be able to go to the beach. Enjoy yourselves, ladies,” she said nastily.

Casey stood rooted to the floor. “Major Hagen, there must be some mistake. I didn't put in for a transfer. Maybe there's another Casey Adams someplace in Vietnam. I don't want to go. I'm needed here.”

“Me too,” Lily bleated.

“This is a direct order, ladies. Get your gear and move out.”

Casey still didn't move. “I don't understand this.”

“Obviously, someone you know has a lot of political power,” Major Hagen said, her voice less harsh than before. “I didn't think for a minute it was you. Good luck, girls. Think about us up here from time to time.”

They scurried like rats across the compound, throwing their belongings into their duffels. Lily was waiting when Casey joined her, carrying the cornflower-blue dress bundled in the cornflake wrappers under her arm. Overhead the rotors of the helicopter whined. It sounded to Casey like
MacMacMacMac.

“I figured out why you're going, but I don't know why I'm going. It was Mac, right? They can't make me go, can they?” Lily said in a strange little-girl voice.

“The army can make you do whatever it wants. They allowed you to work in our hospitals, so I guess they feel they have a claim to you. If it was Mac, he would want to make sure I had a friend. Oh, Lily, do you think he's at Da Nang now?” Casey asked excitedly.

“Let's go, ladies,” the chopper pilot called out. “Straight to Da Nang, no stops along the way.”

 

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, their blanket spread out on the sand, books in hand, Lily giggled, “I can get used to this real easy.”

“Me too. Nine to five is wonderful. And two days off. It's almost obscene.”

“And all the comic books I want.” Lily sighed happily. “I just love comic books.”

While Lily's eyes scanned the colorful, tattered comics, she wasn't really reading the captions. She was thinking instead about her friendship with Casey and what it really meant to be here in Da Nang. She was a nurse, trained in the United States to help the sick. She thought of herself as a good nurse, graduating second in her class of sixty. It was right, and just, that she give back a little here in her own country for the wonderful education she'd gotten in the States. She'd done her share, given one hundred percent, just the way Casey had. Now, thanks to Mac Carlin, she had a plum assignment. This was her chance to lead an almost normal life with nine-to-five hours. She had time off. She could go to the Officers' Club and socialize, make new friends. She turned the page of the comic book.

Tomorrow, if she wanted, when she got off duty at three-thirty, she could hitch a ride to Saigon to see her family and Eric, sleep in her own bed, and be back to go on duty at seven. She could take Casey with her if she wanted to. Immediately, she negated the idea. Later, she would invite Casey to her parents' home. She looked at Casey, who was struggling hard over a letter to Mac. She knew her friend would write the letter over and over until it was perfect, long after she herself was asleep. Casey was in love, that was obvious. Lily crossed her fingers the way she'd seen her American friends back in the States do and whispered,
“Don't let anything go wrong for Casey.”

They were so alike. They were the same size, right down to their shoe size. They liked the same things, liked to read the same books, liked the same movies, felt the same way about world politics and religion. They were both dedicated nurses, and both loved totally.

Casey was closer to her than a flesh and blood sister. Sisters rarely confided details to one another about their love life. She and Casey did, in the quiet, sultry nights. They also shared their hopes and dreams, and in the darkness, it was easy to speak of one's humiliations, one's fears. But there was one great difference between them. Lily turned her head slightly, her oblique eyes full on Casey; she knew she would give up anything if she could be an American with yellow hair and blue eyes. If she were American, she might stand a better chance with Eric. If she were American, she wouldn't have to see the shame in her parents' eyes. The thought was so stupid, so shameful, Lily slid down in her beach chair. If she were American, she wouldn't have Vietnamese parents who didn't understand how their daughter could fall in love with a married doctor who was going to leave her behind. But then, if the situation were reversed and she had American parents and fell in love with a Vietnamese, those same parents would toss her out on her ear. Why can't I just be a human being? she wondered.

There were no letters, no messages from Eric in her room. There was nothing for her to read, to hold close to her heart, except a picture of him. In the beginning he'd made crazy promises to her, saying he'd take her back to the States with him. He said his marriage had soured and he would divorce his wife. He'd said he never had an affair, and she believed him. Now, she wasn't sure. If he really loved her, he would have found a way to get word to her, the way Mac had with Casey. Mac had found a way during a war. But then, Mac was an American and Casey was half American. Maybe that was the difference. It was obvious to her that neither one of them worried about shame, while she herself felt consumed with guilt. Was Eric seeing other women? Honesty forced her to acknowledge that he probably was, as he had an enormous sexual appetite, which needed to be satisfied on a regular basis. She felt like crying when she wondered how many women he'd seen since she'd left Saigon for Qui Nhon. Once she'd asked Casey what she thought about her romance with the American doctor. After Casey hemmed and hawed, she'd said, “In my eyes, marriage is forever. Any man who cheats on his wife will cheat on his mistress. I won't marry until I'm certain in my mind it will work. Marriage is hard enough without having to worry about faithfulness. If you aren't in too deep, Lily, get out before your heart breaks. What will you do when Eric leaves to return to the States?”

“I'll wait for him to return to me,” she'd responded.

And then Casey said, “What if he doesn't come back? What if he doesn't get a divorce and decides to stay with his family?”

Lily recalled how blase she had been when she'd responded, “There is no other man for me. I will love only once. I will simply wait. It is my way.”

She'd read pity in her friend's eyes, but it hadn't mattered. Now they didn't talk about Eric anymore because it made Casey uncomfortable. So Lily did what the American girls did—she wrote it all down in her diary and relived her memories in the darkness before she fell asleep. Memories and dreams, that was all she had. And, of course, Casey, and her disapproving parents. That they didn't go together was all right. She'd accepted it and lived one day at a time. Happiness would find her when it was time.

“Lily, listen to what I've written and tell me if it sounds . . . ungrateful. I don't want to hurt Mac's feelings. I'm sure he went to a great deal of trouble to have us sent here.”

The Asian girl listened, her dark eyes troubled. Afterward she said, “A bit strong, Casey. Why don't you just be honest and tell him you want to go back?”

“Then I'll never get to see him. Five times we were scheduled to meet, and five times we were—what's that expression?—blown out of the water. I need to see him. Letters and notes aren't enough. I keep telling myself I've packed more into the time I've been here than if I worked in a hospital for ten years. Maybe twenty. We left Major Hagen shorthanded. I feel so guilty when I think of all the parents of those wounded soldiers. I have to go back, Lily,” Casey said firmly. “But that doesn't mean you have to go back.”

“If you go, I go. We're a team. Will it be as easy as it was to get here?”

“I have no idea,” Casey said. “We aren't needed here. If anything, we're resented.”

“Then you have made the decision?”

“Yes, right after the Fourth of July picnic. I'm not giving that up. It might be the last time I get to see Mac. I have seven more months to go after the picnic, and the way our luck is running, we'll be lucky if we squeeze one more meeting in. Do you think he'll understand, Lily?” Casey asked anxiously.

“If he's the man you think he is, then yes, he will understand.”

“What about Eric?” She counted on her fingers. “It's almost time for him to leave here, isn't it?”

“One more month,” Lily said lightly.

“You're going to Saigon this weekend, aren't you?”

“Yes. I've made arrangements with one of the C-130 pilots.”

“The blue dress is ready.” Casey smiled.

“Oh, no, I can't. You haven't worn it yet. I was to be second, not first. It is not right. Thank you anyway.”

“I don't want to hear another word. You're taking it with you. I can't wear that gorgeous creation to a Fourth of July picnic. It's perfect for an evening of dancing and dinner in Saigon. Take notes, I want to hear every single thing that happens. Well, almost everything.”