Part 4 - Back to the Beginning

The next part. Now we’re getting to the good stuff. I figured that this would be the right moment to write to you about some happy times. A nice way to make me smile – and maybe you, too.

If you don’t know the story, you should probably read Parts 1, 2 & 3 first. They’re dated October 12, October 20 and January 29. Come back here when you know what’s going on. Nothing worse than missing half the movie.

Of course, before you get to the good stuff, sometimes you have to go through some bad stuff again.

………

Once upon a time in a land far, far away … don’t all good fairy tales start this way?

Ok, things had been bad. Mind-numbing, wrist-slitting, wrap-it-all-up-and-call-it-a-day bad. And then they got better. There were babies and dogs prancing around, flowers in the garden, and people all around to give me what I needed. Mostly. Love mates came and went. Some lovers stayed around longer and became friends. My steely heart was locked away in a private box in the attic, wrapped in a black velvet ribbon with dust settled into the creases of the double knot. I’d given it away one too many times, so this time I wasn’t taking any chances.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away … we have to flash back to the very beginning, so you’ll understand.

I got married when I was very young. Good Italian girls don’t leave home until they’re either married or dead – at least that’s what they told me. They also said I couldn’t get married until I was 20 years old, and since I decided picking out a wedding dress seemed more fun than picking out a casket, I got married to my High School sweetheart. I was 20 years and 7 days old. It was a very hopeful choice. We were friends and lovers, and sweet on each other as only first loves can be. The damage we caused each other didn’t come until later. The first days were fresh like the scent of daisies tucked into my waist length hair, everything filmed in soft-focus. But of course when it’s time for young men to join the war parade, some of them have to go. Two months after our champagne toasts were over, his unit was shipped overseas. He taught me to play chess before he left so we could play long distance games from 6,944 miles apart. I went back home to my parents’ house, no better off than I was at 19, but I held the “Mrs.” in front of me like a talisman.

My High School Sweetheart Husband was sent on an un-accompanied tour to a security base. Sugar-sweet love letters were filled with longing and chess moves. Two months later I bought a one-way plane ticket, packed two very large suitcases and shipped a couple of boxes filled with important things like an electric frying pan, a hotplate and a couple of canisters of Johnson’s Baby Powder. (I was sure a security base where wives were uninvited wouldn’t stock up on Baby Powder. And a girl needs her Johnson’s Baby Powder in hot weather.) I told him I was on my way. I thought he might be happy about it.

When I arrived in the steamy summer, I climbed onto a rickety civilian bus already filled with people with straight black hair and whose language I didn’t speak. Suspicious eyes. A crate of chickens. We all bounced on wooden benches past mountains jutting up to the dazzling sun, past shanty houses made of torn down billboard signs and corrugated tin roofs. We bumped and waddled for thirty-five miles from the city and into the impoverished countryside. At the gated entrance to the security compound the bus squalled to a stop and spewed me out into the dust.

Up until that moment I’d felt pretty entitled by my American citizenship, Unlimited Entrance and Length of Stay Visa and “get-out-of-jail-free card” obtained by an uncle in the exalted echelons of the State Department. But being tall and fair with waist length, wavy hair, a pink mini skirt and high heels gives courage even to the frightened. So I strutted into the compound, a little more swagger in my step than I felt. I’m sure – even now – that it was the miniskirt and heels that gave me courage. Young men leaned out of their windows, whistling and howling as I swayed past the barracks and into the Captain’s office. “Hi! (Pale green eyes flutter black lashes, and the pink mouth turns up in a coy smile. An ever-so-slight soft Southern drawl.) You don’t know me, but I just flew in from the States. I’m married to your company clerk. I just thought I’d check in with you – since I know I’m your responsibility while I’m here. I’m going to live in the city, and I’d sure love to be able to live with my husband, but only if it’s ok with you that he has off-post living privileges, of course! If that’s something you can arrange, I’d feel so much safer. But if not, I completely understand. Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you. Nice to meet you! Any chance I can say hi to my husband while I’m here? I’ve traveled so very far. (Flutter. Smile.) (I should be forgiven. I was young and appealing, and knew well how to get what I wanted. My momma always told me to “use the gifts you’ve got.”)

That hug and kiss – even in the middle of the OD Green Battery B Field Office – felt like a sweet, soft-focused, daisy-haired dream. Of course the dazed Captain arranged for my soldier boy’s off-post privileges the next day. Every night my boy climbed on the bus and lurched home to our city apartment, and every morning he lurched back to base. But the sweetness was as delicate as cotton candy – delicious and ethereal. And like cotton candy, it quickly melted into faint, bittersweet nothing.

I’m tired now. I’ll write more later. Promise.