But her hand came out of the purse with a five-dollar bill. She dropped it on the bar and stood up.
Now she's going to walk out of here, and I will never see her again.
She looked into his face.
"Come on," she said. "Let's get out of here."
She walked to the side door; and in a moment he followed her. She waited for him to open the door for her, and walked out. Then she put her hand on his arm.
"As long as we both understand this is insane..." she said.
"Where are we going?"
"Rittenhouse Square," she said. "We-I-have an apartment there."
There was a hand on Sergeant John Marston Moore's shoulder and a voice calling gently, "Hey!"
He opened his eyes. He was lying belly down on a bed, his arm and head hanging over the edge. He could see a dark red carpet and a naked foot, obviously a female foot. This observation was immediately confirmed when he saw that the leg attached to the foot disappeared under a pale blue robe.
He remembered where he was, and what had happened, and rolled over onto his back.
She was standing there, holding a cup of coffee out to him.
I don't even know her name!
"Hi!" she said.
"Hi," he replied, looking into her eyes. "What's that?"
"Coffee," she said.
"Coffee?"
"You said you had your father's car. I don't want you driving drunk."
"You're throwing me out?"
"I'm sending you home."
"Why?"
"Didn't we both get what we were looking for?"
"We gave each other what the other needed would be a nicer way to put it."
"All right," she said. "Yes, we did. I hope I did. I know you did. But now it's time to come back to the real world."
"And for me to go home."
"Right."
"I don't want to go home. I want to stay here with you, forever."
"That's obviously out of the question."
He sat up. She tried to hand him the cup and saucer. He avoided it.
She touched the top of his head.
"You are really very sweet," she said.
He tilted his head back to look up at her. She smiled.
He reached up for the cord of her robe.
"Don't do that."
He ignored her.
The robe fell open when he pulled the cord free.
He put his arms around her and his face against her belly.
He heard her take in her breath, and her hand dropped to the small of his neck.
"Oh God!" she said.
Her navel was next to his mouth and he kissed it.
"I'm going to spill the coffee."
"Put the coffee on the floor and take the robe off."
"And if I do, then will you go?"
"No."
She dropped to her knees and put the cup and saucer on the floor, shrugged out of the robe, and then turned her face to him and kissed him.
"Oh, Baby, what am I going to do with you?"
"I don't know about that," he said. "But I know what I'm going to do to you."
He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her onto the bed and looked down at her.
"God, you're so beautiful!" he said.
"So are you," she said.
And then he surprised her very much by pushing himself off the bed. She raised her head to look at him. He walked to the other side of the bed and sat down and reached for her telephone.
"Father," he said into it. "Uncle Bill and I have had a long talk and a lot to drink, and I think it would be best if I stayed over with him at the Union League, rather than driving."
There was a pause, and then Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, said: "You're going to have to understand, Father, that I'm no longer a child. I can drink whatever and whenever I wish."
There was another pause.
"There's something else, Father. My orders have been changed. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon. When Mother's awake, please tell her that I'll be out there sometime before noon to pack. I have to see Mr. Schuyler at First Philadelphia, first."
One final pause.
"I think you know why I have to see Mr. Schuyler, Father," John said.
A moment later, he took the receiver from his ear and looked at it.
It was clear to Barbara Ward (Mrs. Howard P.) Hawthorne, Jr., that John's father had hung up on him. There was pain in his eyes when he turned from putting the receiver in its cradle and looked at her.
"Oh, Baby," she said. "Whatever that was, I'm sorry."
"Do you think you could manage to call me 'Darling,' or 'Sweetheart,' or something besides 'Baby'?... I'll even settle happily for 'John.'"
She held her arms open.
"Come to me, my darling," she said.
He didn't move.
"I thought you wanted me to leave."
She put her arms down and pulled the sheet up and held it over her breast.
She found his eyes and looked into them and said, "I want what's best for you."
"You're what's best for me."
"You really have to leave tomorrow? Which is really, now, today?"
"No. Thursday."
"Then why... ?"
"I want to be with you until I go."
She took her eyes from his and lowered her head and fought the tears. Then she raised her eyes to his again and opened her arms again and said, "Come to me, John, my darling, my sweetheart."
And this time he went to her.
Chapter Six
(One)
HEADQUARTERS
MARINE AIR GROUP TWENTY-ONE (MAG-21)
EWA, OAHU ISLAND, TERRITORY OF HAWAII
1325 HOURS 19 JUNE 1942
Lieutenant Colonel Clyde G. Dawkins, USMC, Commanding MAG-21, was a tall, thin, sharp-featured man who wore his light brown hair so closely cropped that the tanned and sun-freckled flesh of his scalp was visible.
He was wearing a stiffly starched khaki shirt with a field scarf tied in a tiny knot. A gold collar clasp held the collar points together and the knot in the field scarf erect. He had heard somewhere that the collar clasp was now frowned upon; but that brought the same reaction from him as the suggestion from Pearl Harbor that since Navy Naval Aviators were now discouraged from wearing their fur-collared leather flight jackets when not actually engaged in flying activities, it behooved him to similarly discourage Marine Naval Aviators from wearing their flight jackets when not actually on the flight line: He said nothing; thought, Fuck You; and wore both a collar clasp and his leather flight jacket almost all the time, fully aware that if he did so, the Marine Naval Aviators of MAG-21 would presume it was not only permissible but encouraged.
He was not at all a rebel by nature. He did not relish defying higher authority, even when he knew he could get away with it. But he was a practical man, and the wearing of flight jackets by aviators seemed far more practical and convenient than forcing his officers to waste time taking off and putting on their uniform tunics half a dozen times a day. And the gold collar clasp, in his judgment, struck him as a splendid means to keep an officer's collar points where they belonged, even if some people in The Corps thought of it as "civilian-type jewelry." An officer with one of his collar points in a horizontal attitude looked far more slovenly than one with his collar points fixed in the proper attitude with a barely visible piece of "civilian jewelry."