He went back to the glass and watched her through the bus windows. She didn’t look back at him. She sat staring straight ahead. She was still sitting like that when the passenger door closed and the bus pulled away.
That evening Captain Jake Grafton informed his wife that Lieutenant Toad Tarkington was getting orders to the staff of the Joint Chiefs, just as he desired.
“That’s very nice,” Callie told Jake. “Did you have to twist many arms to make it happen?”
“A couple.”
“Does Toad know yet?”
“Not yet. I think they’ll tell him in a day or two.”
“You’ll never guess who stopped me after class today to chat.”
Jake Grafton made an uninterested noise, then decided to humor her and take a stab at it. “That commie professor, ol’ what’s-his-name.”
“No. It was that Washington Post reporter, Jack Yocke. He thanked me for the party and …”
Jake went back to today’s newspaper think-piece on Soviet internal politics. For generations the forces at work inside the Communist Party had been Soviet state secrets and the subject of classified intelligence summaries that circulated inside the U.S. military. Those summaries had been mere guesses made by analysts based on poor, fragmentary information. Now the Soviets were baring all with an abandon that would make even Donald Trump blush.
As he mused on this curious miracle, Jake Grafton became aware of a questioning tone in his wife’s voice, which had risen in pitch. “Say again, dear?”
“I said, Jack suggested you and he have breakfast some morning. Would you like to do that?”
“No.”
The captain scanned the column to find his place.
“Well, why not?”
He lowered the paper and scrutinized his wife, who was poised with a ladle in one hand, looking at him with one eyebrow raised aloft. He had never been able to figure out how she got one eyebrow up but not the other. He had tried it a few times in the privacy of the bathroom with no success.
“We are not friends or social acquaintances. We haven’t said two dozen words to each other. And I have no desire to know him better.”
“Jack is a brilliant, socially concerned journalist whom you should take the trouble to get to know. He’s written an excellent book that you would enjoy and find informative: The Politics of Poverty.”
“He wants to pump me on what’s going on inside the Pentagon. And there’s absolutely nothing I can tell him. It’d be a waste of time for both of us.”
“Jake …”
“Callie, I don’t like the guy. I’m not about to waste an hour listening to him try to pump me. No.”
She sighed and went back to stirring the chili. Jake rustled the newspaper and raised it ostentatiously.
“I’ve been reading his book,” she said, undaunted. “He gave me a copy.”
“I saw it on the nightstand.”
“It’s excellent. Well written, lots of insights that—”
“If I ever become CNO and get an overpowering itch to leak something to the newspapers, Jack Yocke will be the first guy I call. I promise.”
Callie changed the subject. Her husband grunted once or twice, then she abandoned conversation. Jake didn’t notice. He was engrossed in an account of Fidel Castro’s latest speech, in which the dictator announced that the rice and meat ration of the Cuban people had been cut in half. Again. To two ounces of meat and a pound of rice per week. In addition, Cuba would henceforth purchase its oil from Mexico, not the Soviet Union, and it would cost more, a lot more. This meant more sacrifices, which Castro was confident the Cuban people would take in stride. The Cuban comrades had been betrayed by their Soviet brothers in socialism, but viva la Revolución!
The socially concerned journalist of whom Callie spoke was thinking impure thoughts. He had picked up Tish Samuels at the apartment that she shared with a mousy girlfriend and they had gone to a postwedding party at the home of a fellow reporter who had eloped several weeks ago with an oral surgeon. Earlier in the evening Yocke had been miserable company, but now, several drinks and two hours later, he was feeling fairly chipper and more sociable. Perhaps it was the cheerful bonhomie of his colleagues, who were ribbing the newlyweds unmercifully. Whatever, in spite of himself Jack Yocke had absorbed some of the glow.
Just now he stood half listening to one of the sports columnists expound on the coming NFL playoffs while he watched Tish Samuels on the other side of the room. She had glanced this way several times and was aware of his scrutiny.
The next time she looked, he gave her a wide grin. She returned it. He raised his glass at her and took a sip. She gestured with her glass in reply and nodded.
Yes indeed, in spite of everything, life goes stumbling on. And Jack Yocke did like life.
So he sipped his drink and listened to the sportswriter and assessed Tish’s womanly charms as she moved along talking to everyone. She was a tall woman, but she certainly had it in all the right places. Jack Yocke took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he waited for her to turn his way again.
The sportswriter rambled on. The most interesting events in the world were happening in the NFL. This was the Redskins’ year. Hallelujah!
Tish turned. She smiled broadly and blew him a kiss. Jack Yocke grinned foolishly, exposing every tooth in his head.
An hour later in the car, she hummed softly while he kissed her. He kissed her again and she returned it with a fervor that he found most pleasant.
Finally, reluctantly, he inserted the key in the ignition and brought the engine to life. “Where to?” he asked.
“Your place?”
“Got a roommate too. He’s home tonight.”
“The bookstore.”
He put the car in motion. In the empty parking lot in front of the strip shopping center, he parked and sat staring at the blank windows.
“Come on,” Tish said, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s.”
Jack Yocke dug in the glove box and pulled out something red and frilly. “Would you wear these?” he asked hesitantly.
There were two of them. She held the soft cloth up so the light caught it. “What are these? Garters?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged and grinned hopefully.
His grin was sort of cute, in a pathetic sort of way, Tish decided. “A little kink, eh?”
“Well, they’re just—”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I just thought …”
“Garters.” She sighed. “Jesus, I haven’t worn garters since the senior prom.” She took a good look at his face. “Oh, all right, you pervert.”
She fumbled for the seat belt release. He reached down to help. She pushed his hands away. “I’m not going to put them on here in the car, for Christ’s sake!”
“I—”
“Oh, shut up! Garters!”
Really, Tish thought as she walked toward the door of the bookstore, feeling in her purse for her keys. Is this my fate at thirty-one? Sex with oversized adolescent boys whose ideas of erotica came straight from a whorehouse?
“Are there no men left?” she murmured.
Jack Yocke missed that comment. He was furtively scanning the parking lot.
If he weren’t so good-looking and so thoroughly nice …
She opened the door and held it for him, then relocked it. The only light in the store was that coming through the display windows from the big lights in the parking area. She walked by the light switches without touching them and led the way between the book racks toward the little office by the back door. Behind her she heard Yocke stumble over something.
The second time he stumbled she heard books fall. She took his hand and led him around the racks to the office. Yocke helped her with her coat. The scruffy couch held a half dozen cartons of books, which they set on the floor.