The sailor retreated to the shack and closed the door. He began to whistle to himself.
An hour later Lieutenant Jake Grafton finally found his new two-man stateroom and dumped his bags. His roommate, a Navy pilot, wasn’t around, but apparently he had moved into the bottom bunk.
Jake climbed into the top bunk and stretched out.
Just five months into his first shore tour — after three years in a fleet squadron with two combat cruises — his tour was cut short. Now he was going to sea again, this time with a Marine squadron.
Amateur hour! Jarheads!
How had he gotten himself into this fix anyway?
Well, the world started coming unglued about three weeks ago, when he went to Chicago to see Callie. He closed his eyes and half-listened to the sounds of the ship as it all came flooding back.
“Do you know Chicago?” Callie McKenzie asked.
It was 11 A.M. on a Thursday morning and they were on the freeway from O‘Hare into the city. Callie was at the wheel.
Jake Grafton leaned back in the passenger’s seat and grinned. “No.”
Her eyes darted across his face. She was still glowing from the long, passionate kiss she had received at the gate in front of an appreciative audience of travelers and gate attendants. Then they had walked down the concourse arm in arm. Now Jake’s green nylon folding clothes bag was in the trunk and they had left the worst of O‘Hare’s traffic behind.
“Thank you for the letters,” she said. “You’re quite a correspondent.”
“Well, thank you for all the ones you wrote to me.”
She drove in silence, her cheeks still flushed. After a bit she said, “So your knee is okay and you’re flying again?”
“Oh, sure.” Unconsciously Jake rubbed the knee that had been injured in an ejection over Laos, six months ago. When he realized that he was doing it, he laughed, then said, “But that’s history. The war’s over, the POWs are home, it’s June, you’re beautiful, I’m here — all in all, life is damn good.”
In spite of herself Callie McKenzie flushed again. Here he was, in the flesh, the man she had met in Hong Kong last fall and spent a bittersweet weekend with in the Philippines. What was that, seven days total? And she was in love with him.
She had avidly read and reread his letters and written long, chatty replies. She had told him she loved him in every line. And she had called him the first evening she arrived back in the States after finishing her two-year tour in Hong Kong with the State Department. That was ten days ago. Now, here he was.
They had so much to talk about, a relationship to renew. She was worried about that. Love was so tricky. What if the magic didn’t happen?
“My folks are anxious to meet you,” she said, a trifle nervously Jake Grafton thought. He was nervous too, so nervous that he couldn’t eat the breakfast they had served on the plane from Seattle. Yet here with her now, he could feel the tension leaving him. It was going to be all right.
When he didn’t reply, she glanced at him. He was looking at the skyline of the city, wearing a half-smile. The car seemed crowded with his presence. That was one of the things she had remembered — he seemed a much larger man than he was. He hadn’t changed. Somehow she found that reassuring. After another glance at his face, she concentrated on driving.
In a moment she asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Oh, getting there.”
“I thought we’d go downtown, get some lunch, do some sightseeing, then go home this evening after my folks get home from the university.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“You’ll like Chicago,” she said.
“I like all American towns,” he said softly. “I’ve never yet been in one I didn’t like.”
“You men! So hard to please.”
He laughed, and she joined in.
He’s here! She felt delicious.
She found a parking garage within the Loop and they went walking hand in hand, looking, laughing, getting reacquainted. After lunch with a bubbling crowd in a pub, they walked and walked.
Of course Callie wanted to hear an account from Jake’s own lips about his shootdown and rescue from Laos, and they talked about Tiger Cole, the bombardier who had broken his back and was now undergoing intensive physical therapy in Pensacola.
When they had each brought the other up-to-date on all the things that had happened to them since they last saw each other, Callie asked, “Are you going to stay in the Navy?”
“I don’t know. I can get out after a year in this shore tour.” He was a flight instructor at Attack Squadron 128 at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, transitioning new pilots and bombardier-navigators (BNs) to the A-6 Intruder. “The flying is fun,” he continued. “It’s good to get back to it. But I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
“Oh, this and that.” He grinned at her.
She liked how he looked when he grinned. His gray eyes danced.
She thought she knew what the decision depended on, but she wanted to hear him say it. “Not finances?”
“No. Got a few bucks saved.”
“On a civilian flying job?”
“Haven’t applied for any.”
“On what then, Jake?”
They were on a sidewalk on Lake Shore Drive, with Lake Michigan spreading out before them. Jake had his elbows on the railing. Now he turned and enveloped Callie in his arms and gave her a long, probing kiss. When they finally parted for air, he said, “Depends on this and that.”
“On us?”
“You and me.”
The admission satisfied her. She wrapped her hands around one of his arms and rested her head on his shoulder. The gulls were crying and wheeling above the beach.
The McKenzies lived in a brick two-story in an old neighborhood. Two giant oaks stood in the tiny front yard between the porch and the sidewalk. After apparently struggling for years to get enough sunlight, most of the grass had surrendered to fate. Only a few blades poked through last autumn’s leaf collection. Professor McKenzie appeared to be as enthusiastic about raking leaves as he was about mowing grass.
Callie introduced Jake to her parents and he agreed that he could drink a beer, if they had any. The professor mixed himself a highball and poured a glass of wine for each of the ladies. Then the four of them sat a few minutes in the study with their drinks in hand exchanging pleasantries.
He had been in the Navy for five years, liked it so far. He and Callie had met in Hong Kong. Wasn’t this June pleasant?
Callie and her mother finally excused themselves and headed for the kitchen. Jake surveyed the room for ashtrays and saw that there weren’t any. As he debated whether he should cross his legs or keep both feet firmly on the floor, Callie’s father told him that he and his wife taught at the University of Chicago, had done so for thirty years, had lived in this house for twenty. They hoped to retire in eight years. Might even move to Florida.
“I was raised in southwestern Virginia,” Jake informed his host. “My Dad has a pretty good-size farm.”
“Have you any farming ambitions?”
No, Jake thought not. He had seen his share of farming while growing up. He was a pilot now and thought he might just stick with it, although he hadn’t decided for certain.
“What kind of planes do you fly in the Navy?” Professor McKenzie asked.
So Callie hadn’t mentioned that? Or the professor forgot. “I fly A-6s, sir.”
Not a glimmer showed on the professor’s face. He had a weathered, lined face, was balding and wore trifocals. Still, he wasn’t bad looking. And Mrs. McKenzie was a striking lady. Jake could see where Callie got her looks and figure.
“What kind of planes are those?” the professor asked, apparently just to make conversation.