"I don't know as I like this, you staying in a fraternity house.", commented my mother.
"Mom, she'll be fine. I won't let her drink and nobody's going to run in here and ravish her in the middle of the night."
"What? What if I want to be ravished in the middle of the night?", asked Suzie.
That got Marilyn to laughing, me to groaning, and Mom to start sputtering at my father. He settled it by simply saying, "Shirley, they'll be fine."
"Did you bring your swimsuit? We can use the pool?", asked Marilyn.
Suzie frowned. "No, I didn't know there was a pool here."
"Only frat on campus with a swimming pool.", I said. I smiled at my father. "And there's a nursing school just a block down the road, too."
"Let me guess, there's an open invitation to borrow the pool."
I gave him a pious look. "It's our neighborly duty!"
Marilyn gave me a shot to the arm at that. "Maybe you can borrow one of mine.", she told Suzie.
I snorted. "Good luck with that. You two aren't anywhere close to the same size." Marilyn was at least a cup size or two larger and several inches wider, although she wasn't fat; Suzie was simply very slender, and about as flat-chested as her mother, an 'A' cup with delusions of grandeur. I gave my mother a wicked grin. "Maybe she can simply swim in her bra and panties. Not much difference to a swimsuit."
That earned me howls of outrage from all three women, although my Dad chuckled at the thought.
Afterwards, we went out to their car and brought in Suzie's suitcase and my sleeping bag. Along the way, I pointed out to my mother some of the many redeeming features of the house. "Over there, Mom, that's where we would worship graven images by the light of the moon, and there, at the barbecue pit, that's where we would sacrifice freshmen every spring, to appease the demons." I looked over at Marilyn. "Don't you remember that, honey, all the fun we had and their screams as they were taken up to the high altar?"
"You think you're so funny!", she replied. As expected, Suzie and Dad laughed, and Mom huffed and puffed.
"Don't you remember the good old days, Dad, when you would sit around and roast pledges over the open fire?"
"Don't get me involved with this.", he laughed.
I commented to Suzie, "Dad's just afraid I'll tell you and Mom what really happens in frat houses. Did you know Dad was in Delta Upsilon back in the Dark Ages?"
"Really?"
"Ask him about it on the trip home."
"You really are just full of piss and vinegar, aren't you?", he commented.
"Charlie!", protested Mom.
"Get in the car, Shirley. Let's get out of here and go find a drink!" Dad loaded Mom in the car and waved good-bye to the three of us.
We went swimming after dinner, but Suzie wore one of my frat shirts and a pair of her regular bikini underwear. The shirts are heavy enough that you aren't running a wet tee shirt contest, and long enough they went down past her butt.
The next morning Bruno, Joe, and I loaded ourselves into the Impala and went down to the Armory, where our commissioning ceremony was being held. Leo and Harry were going down with their parents. Marilyn and Suzie were going to wait for my parents to pick them up and then they would all go down together. I hadn't planned on the extra guests, but I was ready for it. Every student got four tickets to graduation, and I had the two spare still sitting around. The last time I did this, I had to get an extra ticket for Marilyn. Mom sort of held up her nose at that, thinking it was for family only, but even then I would have stuck with Marilyn over them in a heartbeat.
I wasn't the honor graduate, but I didn't really care. The honor graduate was a supergeek with Coke bottle lenses on his glasses who was going off to some lab at Fort Meade with a perfect 4.0 GPA. I had good marks, but it wasn't perfect. I didn't mind. That guy was about as much of a soldier as Hamilton. I just smiled at him and rubbed my jump wings and crossed cannons in his face. I did rank high enough that I was going into the army as a Regular Army officer, not just as a Reserve Officer on Active Duty. It's an important distinction. We listened to a speech or two and swore to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Considering what would become of the Congress over the next two generations, I wondered if it might not be a good idea to start there.
Afterwards, I found my parents in the bleachers coming down to greet me. For the first time I was in a real officer's uniform, in that instead of my collar insignia reading O.C. for officer candidate, now they had my gold bars, one to each shoulder, and my collar insignia had the crossed cannons of artillery. When my father came down, I snapped to attention and threw him a salute. He started for a second at this, and then returned the salute to me. He had been a Lieutenant Junior Grade, the Navy equivalent of an Army 1st Lieutenant, during the war, and outranked me.
I had learned a lot about the military and what was expected of an officer from him, even if he had never said much about his service. I knew that 'the buck stops here' wasn't just a catchphrase, but it really meant something, and I knew the standard he held an officer to. He was totally disgusted over the Pueblo incident, when the North Koreans captured an American spy ship during the cold war. I had to write a paper on it for school at the time (1968) and the ship was poorly officered, poorly crewed, and poorly outfitted. As far as he was concerned, it didn't matter; the captain, Lloyd Bucher, should have tried to ram something and gone down with his ship!
My mother, on the other hand, had a somewhat distressed look on her face. I kissed her on the cheek, and then wrapped Marilyn in a big bear hug, picking her up and twirling her around. She was wearing a lovely knee length halter top sundress, cute and cool. My dress uniform was already getting warm and I peeled off my jacket as soon as we got outside. Suzie unintentionally pointed out today's problem when she gushed, "I love the ring! When did you get it?" She was holding up Marilyn's left hand and looking at her engagement ring.
Mom's face hardened at that. Marilyn hadn't been wearing any jewelry yesterday, because she always took it off when swimming. Marilyn responded, "At Christmas. We had already talked about it and Carl bought me the ring earlier than that, but we didn't ask my folks until Christmas."
My mother's voice was a little icy as she asked me, "Carling, when were you going to tell your family?"
I turned to face her, making sure I had a blank look on my face. "Well, I suppose now's a good a time as any."
"When is the wedding? Is this some sort of an emergency?" Did I knock Marilyn up?
I controlled myself, although Marilyn looked horrified, and even my father was upset by the question. "No, mother, no emergency. Marilyn has another year of college, so it will be sometime next summer. I'll need to report in and talk to my commanding officer about it before I can say for sure. I'll be saving up all my leave for this in any case."
"And are you inviting your family?"
I stared at her briefly. "I don't know yet, mother. We haven't decided yet. I know Marilyn asked me if Suzie wanted to be a bridesmaid. I can tell you flat out, Hamilton is not invited."
Suzie squealed in delight. "A bridesmaid!?" She was practically jumping with joy, and Marilyn grinned at her and nodded.
Mom looked like I had just slapped her. "Hamilton is your brother!"