Now she stood, clutched my MP’s shirtsleeve. “In that uniform? You know, they shoot spies for that…. Just wait. Have your coffee, first … I may have a better idea.”
“Maria, I’m running out of time.”
The coffee had stopped perking; she went over and poured me a cup. “Cream or sugar?”
“Little sugar,” I sighed, walking over to her. “What’s your better idea?”
Stirring in a spoonful, she said, “Let me change into civilian clothes, and I’ll walk over and get your car…. Where is it?”
“In that lot on Third Street, but-”
She put the cup of coffee in my hands, walked me over and forced me to sit; weak as my legs were, she didn’t have much trouble accomplishing that.
“I’ll drive it back here,” she said. “I’ve got a little garage just across the alley, where I usually park the Studebaker. I’ll tuck it away in there till you’re ready to leave.”
I was shaking my head. “Even so, I still need clothes, and going after my things in that hotel room is out of the question …”
“You’re right, that would be too dangerous, for either of us.” She looked side to side, as if an answer might be hiding somewhere in the kitchen; then her expression firmed, as if she’d found one. “I have … some things here you can wear.”
“Your husband’s?”
She nodded. “They’re in a trunk in my bedroom. May smell a little of mothballs, but they should do you fine-you must wear the same size Steve did, or darn close.”
“I can’t let you do this,” I said. “Too risky. What if you’re followed back here, and they find out you were helping me …”
“It’s no risk, not if we get you out of that MP uniform, and I dump it in a garbage can on my way over to your car. Then, if it comes to that, I simply plead ignorance: how was I to know the Air Force was after you?”
No question about it: she was making sense. Even if they had my notebook, and knew she’d spoken to me on the forbidden “saucer” subject, that didn’t mean she knew about my fugitive status.
So I got out of the MP uniform, and bundled it up in brown paper for her, while she changed into a maize-color T-shirt and blue denim slacks and open-toed leather sandals.
“You look like a college coed,” I said, handing her the bundle.
Those full cherry-lipsticked lips twisted sideways and she arched an eyebrow knowingly. “You look like a big lug in his boxer shorts.”
“That’s when I like you best,” I said.
“When?”
“When you get out of character. Who’d have guessed the sensitive waif I met last night could take charge like this?”
Her eyes lowered and her mouth quivered; I wasn’t sure whether she was taking offense or letting some nervousness show through. Quietly, she said, “Well, I am in the military, you know.”
Then, bundle under her arm, she slipped out the back way, and I sat thinking fond thoughts of her as I drank my coffee.
The trunk in her bedroom provided plenty of choices; I picked out a blue-knit T-shirt, some gray tropical slacks, and some socks with clocks on them. They did smell of mothballs at that, and I laid the clothes out on the dresser, to air out a little, and flopped onto the bed in my shorts, just to rest a wee bit before she got back. I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep, particularly after the caffeine in that coffee. But the alertness of my mind fooled me: my weary body had been right all the time.
I was asleep in maybe ten seconds.
Another dream, pleasant dream, of the small pale child/man with the big head and big eyes and silver suit, speaking soothing words, friendly, unthreatening….
I opened my eyes; it was dark and I was under cool sheets again, and someone was hovering over me-not a space creature, an exquisite creature: Maria, tousled black hair, blue eyes, red lips, creamy naked curves, bending down to kiss me on the mouth.
This was not a dream, but it was much, much better, as she buried that lustrous black hair in my lap, fingers fishing expertly in the flap of my boxers and if I really was only the second man she’d ever been with, that first guy had taught her plenty. I made her stop before I came, and she stroked me gently and mounted me and rode me, tenderly, like a child guiding its pet burro up an arroyo, and very soon she came and I came, in a mutual shuddering loss of control. She withdrew me from her, then slipped away, went off to do whatever women do, and, in bra and panties, came trundling back with a Kleenex for me and fell into my arms, whispering, “You must be very tired, very tired, very tired,” and I was, I was, I was….
16
The room was still dark, but sunlight was finding its way in and around the closed window blinds; birdies were tweeting and paperboys were missing porches and milkmen were clattering bottles and traffic was just starting to flow.
I sat up. I felt incredibly rested; never slept better in my life, and if I’d been dreaming, whether about spacemen or pretty girls or an imaginary day at the racetrack, I had no memory of it.
Hair pinned up under the cocked overseas hat, Maria was sitting in the kitchen, in her khaki nurse’s uniform, having toast and coffee, looking cuter than Shirley Temple. And these days Shirley Temple was looking pretty cute.
“Must be morning,” I said.
“Yes,” she purred, and her smile was gently wry, even if her toast was white. “Question is, what morning?”
I pulled up an eyebrow and a chair and sat. “What do you mean?”
Her lush lips formed a mocking kiss. “Are you hungry, by any chance?”
“Actually … now that you mention it, yeah! Ravenous.”
“That may be because you’ve been sleeping since the night before last.”
“What? Straight through?”
My private nurse rose and began making me breakfast; she was prepared: a skillet waited on the stove, and-on the counter nearby-two eggs in a bowl, a bottle of milk, several strips of crisp bacon already shedding their grease on a paper towel, toast in a toaster poised for pushing down.
“How do you like ’em?” she asked, an egg in hand.
“Like my brains, scrambled. Maria, tell me I didn’t sleep straight through.”
She cracked two eggs and started scrambling. “You roused once and wanted to know where the bathroom was. And I showed you. And you used it. And went right back to bed, to sleep.”
“God, I don’t remember that, at all. They must’ve pumped a lot of drugs into me, for me to need to sleep it off like that…. What about the car?”
“I got it. Notebook, too.”
“Any sign of trouble out at the base?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I called in sick yesterday to baby-sit you. Today I start back on morning shift.”
I rubbed my face; heavy beard but not outrageous. “Jesus-we’re lucky they didn’t put your absence together with my ‘jailbreak.’”
She stirred the eggs, adding some milk. “If they haven’t connected us by now, they’re not going to. But I did have a call from the commanding officer, himself.”
“Blanchard! What the hell did he want?”
“I’m being transferred. Remember, I had that hanging over me? The colonel wanted to thank me personally for my ‘fine service.’”
“Transferred to where?”
“I haven’t received my orders yet.”
“Could it have anything to do with …”
“I don’t think so-this has been a long time coming. Anyway, Nathan, if they knew about us, they’d be here, wouldn’t they?”
“You would think. You would think. Maria, I have to go.”
“Go sit down. I’ll serve you.”
I sat, and soon she placed the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon before me, and a glass of orange juice, buttered toast and a cup of coffee. “Where do you have to go, Nathan?”
I began eating; God I was starved. “Not home. I’m going underground for a few weeks, maybe longer-my friends in Chicago will tell me if the heat is on or off.”
Her brow furrowed. “What if the heat is on? And what if it stays on?”