The band finally took a break and Annie came back to me, pinks cheek from dancing so much. “I thought boys didn’t like seeing their girls dance with other men, but you’re over here smiling like you’ve got all day,” she said.
I looked at some of the other guys sulking around the edges of the dance floor and scowling when their girls came back, and laughed right out loud. “Darlin’, if they’ve got that much to worry about, I guess I wouldn’t like it either, in their shoes.” I winked, then cast a big look toward the dance hall clock an’ came in closer to say, “Is your ma waiting up for you to come home at the stroke of midnight?”
Annie’s chin came up just like I knew it would, half-pretending and half meaning it when she sounded offended. “I’m nineteen years old, Private Muldoon, and in college. I can go home when I want.”
“Yeah.” I kept grinning at her. “I just like seeing you get all huffy. C’mon, sweetheart.” I took her hand and pulled her outta there, ducking between other couples and hurrying for the door. We were back at the Eagles Hall where we’d first met, just far enough out of the local neighborhood to let the party run late. Summer was fading out an’ the woods smelled dry and dusty. Annie shivered and I pulled my coat off to put it around her shoulders. She looked like a doll in it, dressed in clothes too big for her.
“I’m lost in here!” She sounded happy, and slipped her hands through the arms, rucking ‘em up until I found her fingers again.
“That’s whatcha get for leaving your coat inside. Mind you, I left mine inside the first night I metcha, and you didn’t lend me your coat.”
Annie laughed. “If I’d thought you’d wear it, I might have. You’d have looked…quite astonishing, I’m sure.”
“It woulda been a good color on me,” I said, solemn as I could. Annie flashed another smile and tucked my coat under her to sit when we found a bench looking back at the Eagles Club. I stayed on my feet, nervous all of a sudden, an’ she looked up at me with a frown starting between her eyebrows. I said, “They’re sending me to Korea,” fast as I could, before she could ask.
Her breath caught and she knotted her hands together, hiding ‘em in the sleeves of my jacket. She looked down at ‘em, biting her lip, then looked back at me. “When?”
“Saturday.” Somethin’ was wrong with my throat. I cleared it an’ said, “We leave Saturday,” again. “You gonna wait for me, doll?”
Annie Macready stood up and shook my coat sleeves back so she could stand arms akimbo and give me a look that shoulda taken my skin off. Didn’t, though, ‘cause there was a lotta sweetness behind it, like she was tryin’ to be fierce and only partway making it. “What do you think I’ve been doing the last four months, Garrison Muldoon?”
Swear ta God, my knees buckled. Couldn’t let myself fall down, ‘cause that woulda been embarrassing, but I got a couple inches shorter for a second there and Annie’s lips twitched, tryin’ ta hide a smile. I said, “You’re laughing at me, doll,” and she said, “Yes,” without a bit of apology.
“Well, all right, I guess that puts a fella in his place when he’s…” My heart was slamming like a jackhammer, and I was getting dizzy with nerves. “Look, sweetheart, it ain’t much, but I wanted to…” I swallowed again, wonderin’ why it was so hard to get through a simple question. I muttered, “Ah, hell,” and fished in my slacks pocket for that box, and held it up.
Annie’s hands went to her stomach an’ I thought she’d stopped breathing. All of a sudden I figured I’d better do this right, an’ got down on one knee, scared as a kid sneaking into a haunted house. Annie watched me with eyes big as saucers, and she wasn’t breathing, so I hurried it up, stumbling over my own words. “Well, it ain’t much, but I’ll getcha something better before we—I mean, will you, Annie? Will you marry me, sweetheart?”
The box just about flew outta my fingers when I tried opening it. Annie caught it, her hands tiny and delicate next to mine, and I turned red from the collar up. She straightened the box in my palm and put her hands over it, smiling right at me and not looking at the box at all. “Of course I will. Of course I’ll marry you, Gary. I love you.”
All the breath rushed outta me. Funny how thinking a girl’s gonna say yes and waiting for it to happen are two separate things. “I love you too, sweetheart. Right from the first moment I saw you.”
Annie tipped forward to kiss me, murmuring, “You’re a romantic,” against my mouth. “Now get up before you stain the knee of your trousers.”
I got up, sorta offended and mostly grinning. “Some romantic you are. Doncha wanna see the ring?”
Her dimples showed up again. “Of course I do, but I’m marrying you, not a ring.” She opened it then, though, while I was back to mumbling, “It ain’t much, but I wanted to have somethin’, and I’ll getcha somethin’ better—”
“Gary.” Her voice was funny an’ tight. “Gary, it’s perfect. It’s beautiful. I forbid you to get me a different one. Put it on me?” She wasn’t so graceful, either, takin’ the ring outta the box, so I felt better fumbling it onto her hand with thick cold fingers. We both stood there looking at it a moment when it was on, a pretty little gold thing with pearls on either side of a chip of diamond. Annie had long fingers for somebody her size, and sensible nails that wouldn’t get in the way of working, an’ she was right. The ring looked perfect. I tucked my fingers under hers and brought her knuckles up to my mouth for a kiss. She laughed and threw her arms around me, the long sleeves of my coat smacking my shoulders. I picked her up and spun her around, feeling like some kinda movie star, an’ put her on her feet again to give her a kiss.
“Wish I could marry you right now, doll.”
“You could,” she said impulsively. “Or tomorrow, at least.”
“Nah.” I brushed my thumb over her jaw and shook my head. “No, sweetheart, I wanna do it right. I don’t wanna be in a rush. And I don’t wanna—”
“Don’t.” She put her fingers over my mouth. “Don’t even say that, Gary.”
“I didn’t say nothing!” But I’d been gonna, and we both knew it. I’d been gonna say I didn’t want to risk leaving her a widow. I didn’t want to risk leaving her with a baby and no Pop for it. I didn’t wanna risk leaving her with a baby and me not being there when it was born, for that matter. But she didn’t want me to say it, maybe afraid I’d jinx something if I did, so I just took her hand away and kissed it again. “And I won’t say nothing,” I promised. “You write to me, though, all right, sweetheart? Everything about your day, so I know what I’m comin’ home to. Swear to God I’ll never get bored of it. It’s gonna be my lifeline.”
“Are you afraid?”
That wasn’t the kinda question a guy should answer truthfully, I bet. They’d been teaching us to fight, an’ teaching us not to think, but anybody with two brain cells to rub together knew war wasn’t safe. So it took me a minute to answer, standing out there in a park with a warm spring breeze playing with Annie’s hair and making everything seem all right with the world. “Not afraid. Kinda…apprehensive, I guess. I wish there as another way, but if there was—well, I wouldn’t have met you, if there was, so it ain’t worth thinking about. It’s gonna be fine, Annie. It’s all gonna turn out all right. I’m gonna come home to you.”
Her eyes were brighter than I liked to see them. “You sound so certain.”
“I am. I got a feeling.” I guessed maybe a lot of soldiers had that feeling at the back of their minds, saying they were coming home safe, or they might end up deserters. But mine was the one I’d heard before, telling me something was right or wrong, like Annie’s Pop being an artist, even if I didn’t know why it was wrong that he was. I trusted it, either way, an’ brushed tears off Annie’s cheeks before kissing her again. “I got a feeling,” I promised. “It’s gonna be okay. You wanna head back? Warm up?” I smiled. “Show off that ring?”