Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (32 page)

Even this early in the day the apartment
feels like a blast furnace. Outside there might be a breeze. She'll
walk at a slow pace to Kim's apartment and get there before Kim
leaves.

How did people get along before telephones?
Of course, in all Sharon's favorite English novels people find
somebody, a servant or a street urchin, with whom to send a
handwritten note. Sharon has neither at her disposal.

Telephones, though, are not the primary
invention that Sharon would miss most. That convenience is indoor
plumbing – flush toilets! She hated Girl Scout camp, hated the
outdoor latrines with the putrid smell. She would run down the
path, do her business at lightning speed, and race back up the path
to sweet-smelling civilization.

Americans take flush toilets as part of their
national right. Yet what about Donna's brother, perched in a tree
where even the slightest movement betraying his forward position
could bring a fatal bullet? How does he go to the bathroom? War
movies, the ones where the good buddies save each other against
overwhelming odds, never show these things. If they did, perhaps
fewer little boys would dream of going off to war to prove they are
men.

Sharon tramps through the field. A patch of
bluebells reminds her of the imitation bluebells on the large
Marshall Field's box that Bonnie Morgen, the daughter of Sharon’s
mother’s best friend, opened at her bridal shower Sharon attended
the same weekend she had told her parents about Robert first coming
to visit.

"Look, Mother,” Bonnie had said, “aren't
these towels beautiful!"

Farther down the restaurant banquet table
Sharon twisted around to whisper to her own mother. "For heaven's
sake, the way she carries on you'd think Bonnie was the first girl
to ever get married," Sharon said.

Sharon's mother leaned closer. "Just because
you don't approve of things like wedding showers doesn't mean you
have to be rude."

"How bourgeois," Sharon mumbled, not quite
loud enough for her mother to hear, then turned back to watch
Bonnie unwrap more gifts.

Bonnie Morgen. Sharon's long-standing
competitor in the "my daughter is the best" contest that Bonnie's
mother and Sharon's mother have engaged in since the two girls were
young children and the Morgen and Bloom families first became good
friends.

Rainbow lights darted from the large
pear-shape diamond on Bonnie's left hand as she tore into yet
another package. Sharon could visualize the night Bonnie announced
her engagement to her AEPhi sorority house at U of I. The same type
of ceremony took place regularly at Sharon's AEPhi sorority house
at MSU.

The house mother announces on the loud
speaker, "Everyone come to the dining room now. There's a candle
ceremony."

They all rush down the stairs dressed in
their pajamas or robes, hair set in curlers, barefoot or with
slippers, and stand in a circle alongside the dining room tables.
Then the electric lights are turned off and a single candle lit.
The sorority president passes the candle to the girl on her left
and around the circle the candle goes once for good luck. Then if
it stops before making a complete second circle, the girl who blows
out the candle is announcing she's pinned. If the candle is on its
third trip around when the lucky girl blows it out, she's
engaged!

Bonnie blows the candle out on the third
circuit. Everyone exclaims and hugs her. She takes her engagement
ring out of her bathrobe pocket and slips it on her finger for all
to admire.

Sharon could puke, particularly since
Bonnie's intended is Neil Rosen, already attending law school at
Northwestern. Bonnie has definitely won this contest – becoming
engaged before Sharon. That's really hitting the jackpot for Mrs.
Morgen.

Yet a few weeks later, now with brown hair 12
inches shorter than her dyed blond hair of last quarter, she met
Robert's plane at O’Hare Airport on his way back from Ft.
Riley.

At the gate the deplaning exodus included
mothers with small babies, soldiers in uniform, old people, young
people. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a young man in a
short-sleeve shirt and jeans, his head practically shaved.

"Robert!"

"Sharon!"

Two steps take her to him.

"I didn't recognize you with such short
hair," she said.

"I didn't recognize you. What did you do to
your hair?"

They walk to the luggage carousel to claim
his meager army luggage.

"I really appreciate how you wrote every day
– it kept me going," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't write more.
There was no time."

He wrote her four short letters in his six
weeks at Ft. Riley. He did call twice, once on each weekend he'd
gotten leave, when he and some other guys piled into an
air-conditioned motel room and slept for two days.

At home when she brings Robert into the house
her parents and Howard are gracious to him. They sit down for
dinner and no one even obliquely refers to military training or the
war. Until her father stands and says, "The news is on."

Robert nods his head at her father, then
turns to her mother. "Thank you, Mrs. Bloom. Delicious dinner."

"Let's go out on the patio," Sharon says.

She grabs his hand. Finally a closed door
separates them from her parents and Howard.

Robert recites:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Sharon laughs. "You're quoting
Shakespeare?"

"I've had six weeks to think," he said.

"About what?" How wrong the war is? How he
wants out of his military commitment?

He took her hand. "Sharon, will you marry
me?"

She hadn’t expected this.

"We’ve only known each other a short
time.”

“I know what I want,” Robert said.

“I love you – I really do,” she said. “I just
can't marry you now."

"It's Vietnam, isn't it?"

"You're a second lieutenant commissioned in
infantry. Those are the men with the shortest life expectancy in
Vietnam."

"Sharon ..."

She disengaged her hand. "There are flies out
here. Let's go back inside."

As she now approaches the parking lot of
Kim’s apartment building, Sharon wipes an arm across her
sweat-beaded face. Maybe staying in the apartment would have been a
better idea.

Sharon spots Kim's car in front of her
apartment, heat waves shimmering off it the same as all the other
cars. Sharon knocks on the apartment door.

Kim doesn't answer. Sharon waits. Calls out
"Kim." Then knocks again.

Not even an "I'm in the bathroom; I'll be
right out" which would be heard across the small apartment and
through the flimsy door.

Sharon's hands itch and her armpits clutch.
Is Kim ill? Is she too sick to walk to the front door or lift her
head and call out?

The laundry room! Sharon runs over to the
separate building. Empty.

Sharon dashes back to the apartment and
twists the doorknob. Locked. The curtains across the living room
window block the view. She runs around the apartment building to
the back side of Kim's apartment. Like hers, these apartment units
have no back doors.

Curtains stretch across the bedroom window,
but the bathroom window stands open. "Kim, Kim!" Nothing.

Firewood logs lean against the side of a tool
shed. Sharon scoops some logs up and piles them at the foot of the
window. She drops her purse into her swim bag and throws the bag
through the window. Then she removes her sandals – useless for
climbing – and throws them through the window.

She steps up carefully onto the logs so as
not to get splinters in her feet, grabs hold of the window sill,
and pulls herself up, her bare feet bracing against the outer wall.
She swings one leg over the sill, assesses the drop zone, then
swings the other leg over.

She drops into the bathroom.

On the floor an open medicine bottle tilts
against the sink base. It's empty! Her hands shake.

Kim. Where's Kim?

Sharon turns left out of the bathroom and
into the bedroom. She stumbles against something in the dark
room.

Sharon flicks on the light switch. Kim lies
on the floor, one arm stretched towards Squeaky in his cage, the
other arm cradling her head.

"Kim, Kim!" Sharon shakes Kim by the
shoulders. Her head rolls forward.

First aid! What has she learned in high
school first aid class? Feel for a pulse. Kim's wrist – no pulse!
The spot on the neck – something! Please may she be alive.

Sharon dashes into the kitchen, fills a glass
with water, and runs back to the bedroom. Splashes the water on
Kim's face. A slight reflex!

Hospital. Call an ambulance. No, wait.

Kim would die of embarrassment if people knew
what she's done. The apartment complex might look deserted. Yet the
moment Muldraugh residents hear an ambulance, they'll scurry
outside. Better to keep this quiet. AND KIM DOESN'T HAVE A
PHONE!

If Sharon can somehow get Kim into the car,
she can drive to a hospital as fast as waiting for an ambulance.
Which hospital? The only one Sharon knows is the post hospital.
This might go on Jim's army record. Jim would be furious.

Fred. Dr. Fred Weinstein. He could help. How
to find him? Call Judy. Ask her to reach her husband. KIM DOESN'T
HAVE A PHONE!

First things first. Sharon can't lift Kim.
Maybe she can drag her. Sharon runs into the bathroom and slaps on
her sandals, shoves the empty pill bottle into her swim bag and
hooks it over her arm. Then she runs back and places her hands
under Kim's armpits.

Two good things. One, Kim wears street
clothes, not a nightgown. Two, Squeaky isn't a bull dog who will
devour Sharon.

Sweat pelts down Sharon's face, back, arms
and legs as she tugs Kim across the living room floor. At the
apartment door she remembers. NO CAR. She runs back into the
bedroom. The car keys lie on the bureau top, in the same spot
Robert keeps his keys.

Sharon opens the apartment front door and
pulls Kim out. She props Kim against the apartment door while she
opens the car door on the passenger side. Please may no one decide
to come outside right now.

She drags Kim across the asphalt to the car
door. Kim's slacks should protect her legs from the blazing
pavement.

How to lift Kim up into the seat? People are
supposed to have Herculean strength in life-threatening
circumstances. Sharon doesn't. "Kim, Kim," she says. "Please,
please, wake up."

Sharon slaps Kim across the face. She has
seen this in a movie. Maybe it will work. One eye opens. Sharon
slaps Kim again. The other eye opens.

"Kim." Sharon shakes her. "You have to help
me. Please help me get you in the car."

No response. Sharon places her hands under
Kim's armpits. She's not as heavy as before. Perhaps the slight
consciousness makes Kim less of a deadweight.

Sharon pushes and pushes. Kim's upper body
rolls onto the seat, her head sliding beneath the steering wheel.
Sharon straightens Kim into an upright position and slings her legs
in front of her. Sharon fastens the lap belt around Kim's waist and
rolls down the window on her side. The car feels like a fondue pot
of bubbling oil.

Sharon slides into the driver's side, fastens
her lap belt, and rolls down her window. The steering wheel burns
her fingers. She grabs the towel out of her swim bag to hold the
wheel.

She drives out of the parking lot, then
around the block to her complex. In front of her apartment she
jumps out of the car and dashes up the outer stairs. Inside her
apartment she grabs the phone. With all those children Judy should
be home at this time in the morning. The number appears on a list
with other Ft. Knox numbers next to the phone.

A young child answers. "May I please speak to
your mother?" The receiver bangs against the wall as the child
calls "Mommy, Mommy."

"Yes?" Judy says.

Sharon gulps tears back into her throat, then
tells Judy what has happened and why she doesn't want to take Kim
to the army hospital. "It could affect her husband's career and
he'd be furious."

"Call me back in two minutes,” Judy says.
“I'll try to reach Fred at the hospital and ask if he can come home
for a 'family emergency.' Then you can bring her here."

Sharon runs outside and leans over the
railing. Kim sits upright in the car. Please may all the other
wives be inside watching their favorite television programs.

"...119, 120." She redials Judy's number.

"My husband will meet you here in 10
minutes,” Judy says. “Drive carefully but hurry!"

**

Forewarned that Kim has swallowed a bottle of
pills, Judy's husband Fred prepares to pump Kim's stomach. "Watch
the children while I help Fred with the procedure," Judy says.

The four children catapult around the
backyard, fight over the sandbox toys, chase each other up and down
the slide. The four-ring circus keeps itself amused until the
youngest falls off the swing.

"You're fine," Sharon says. The child ignores
her and climbs back up on the offending swing.

Judy appears in the backyard. "Go speak with
Fred. I'll watch the children."

Fred meets Sharon in the hall outside the
bedroom. "She’s going to make it,” he says, then adds, “You should
have called the post ambulance, had her taken to the post
hospital."

"You don't understand about her husband."

He shakes his head, then asks, "Do you know
why she took the pills? Was she trying to kill herself?"

"She was dressed to go out," Sharon says.

Fred twists the clasp on his doctor's bag.
"She may not have wanted to be found in her nightgown."

"How is she?"

"She'll be very tired. Can you take her home
by yourself and stay with her?"

Sharon nods. The apartment key resides on the
ring with the car key – Sharon tried the wrong key first in the
ignition – so she will be able to get back in the apartment. Then
what? How to help Kim and what to tell Jim? She’ll ask to use
Judy’s phone – call Wendy and Donna.