Read Online The Edge of Honor by P. T. Deutermann - Free Book Online
Authors: P. T. Deutermann
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something really clever like ‘Yup.’ “
Maddy laughed nervously and shook her head as Tizzy sped up Rosecrans toward the base known throughout San Diego as MCRD, shorthand for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Her right hand fingered her bare ring finger as she thought about what Tizzy had said. It was well after dark on a Thursday night, but the overcast San Diego sky reflected enough of the city lights to dilute any sense of nighttime. Tizzy had picked Maddy up at her Balboa apartment to go to a seven o’clock movie, after which they had put down a Big Mac attack. While stuffing debris into the white bag, Tizzy had proposed they go check out the scene at the MCRD Officers’ Club. Initially, Maddy had had some reservations. She tended to distance herself from knowing much about the Navy scene in San Diego, much to her husband’s annoyance.
But even she had heard MCRD O-Club stories and was aware that Thursday night offered one of the city’s hotter body exchanges. She was also mildly apprehensive about Tizzy Hudson. She suspected Tizzy might have more on her mind than just spectator sports. It was rumored among the wardroom wives that the Hudsons’ high-flying, swinging sixties lifestyle was centered on what the wives delicately called an “open relationship.”
Tizzy’s instructions to take off her rings hadn’t helped.
Maddy gave up on her hair, clasped her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes, as much an attempt to relax as to ignore Tizzy’s outrageous driving. The ship had been gone how long? Four weeks, two days, twelve hours, seven minutes—but who’s counting? Only six months to go. What’s half a year between friends? As she listened to Tizzy’s hilarious description of several standard MCRD opening lines, she realized that Tizzy knew more about that scene than any proper Navy wife should.
Tizzy Hudson was a tall, dark-haired, vivacious woman whose appearance inevitably inspired the adjective cute. She seemed to be irreverent about wardroom protocol in general and the intricate network of Navy wives’ social functions in particular. Maddy had been attracted to her from their first meeting at Brian’s hailand-farewell party.
They had become even closer friends now that the ship was gone, if only because Tizzy displayed no inhibitions about saying what many of the wives so obviously felt.
Like Maddy, Tizzy had a day job, while most of the other wardroom wives stayed at home raising children. The two of them generally declined invitations to join the coffee klatches, shopping trips, and playground gatherings that united the wives.
Maddy’s quiet sigh was snatched away by the wind.
Her life had gone into limbo with Brian’s departure to WESTPAC. She woke up each morning with an oppressive amalgam of sadness, self-pity, rejection, and even despair puddled in her stomach like a lump of yesterday’s oatmeal—the “poor me’s,” as the captain’s wife, Mrs.
Huntington, described it, feelings we endure but do not enunciate, especially in letters to the ship, girls. Or, as Tizzy was wont to put it, “Deployments really suck.”
Maddy experienced the familiar flash of guilt for being so self-centered about the separation, realizing that her own anger and sense of abandonment implied that Brian felt none of these things as he chased around some godforsaken place everyone called the Gulf on his oversized “frigate.” And all because of this tragically absurd war in Vietnam.
Like most Navy wives, Maddy despised the disheveled, screeching antiwar protestors who were paraded nightly on the television news by supercilious anchormen. But as the deployment dragged on, she sometimes found herself wishing they would prevail. At least now, President Nixon was talking about ending it.
She tugged on her skirt as Tizzy swung the white convertible into the bright lights of the MCRD main gate area. She noted that Tizzy didn’t bother and that the Marine guard very definitely did not keep his eyes in
Maddy laughed nervously and shook her head as Tizzy sped up Rosecrans toward the base known throughout San Diego as MCRD, shorthand for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Her right hand fingered her bare ring finger as she thought about what Tizzy had said. It was well after dark on a Thursday night, but the overcast San Diego sky reflected enough of the city lights to dilute any sense of nighttime. Tizzy had picked Maddy up at her Balboa apartment to go to a seven o’clock movie, after which they had put down a Big Mac attack. While stuffing debris into the white bag, Tizzy had proposed they go check out the scene at the MCRD Officers’ Club. Initially, Maddy had had some reservations. She tended to distance herself from knowing much about the Navy scene in San Diego, much to her husband’s annoyance.
But even she had heard MCRD O-Club stories and was aware that Thursday night offered one of the city’s hotter body exchanges. She was also mildly apprehensive about Tizzy Hudson. She suspected Tizzy might have more on her mind than just spectator sports. It was rumored among the wardroom wives that the Hudsons’ high-flying, swinging sixties lifestyle was centered on what the wives delicately called an “open relationship.”
Tizzy’s instructions to take off her rings hadn’t helped.
Maddy gave up on her hair, clasped her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes, as much an attempt to relax as to ignore Tizzy’s outrageous driving. The ship had been gone how long? Four weeks, two days, twelve hours, seven minutes—but who’s counting? Only six months to go. What’s half a year between friends? As she listened to Tizzy’s hilarious description of several standard MCRD opening lines, she realized that Tizzy knew more about that scene than any proper Navy wife should.
Tizzy Hudson was a tall, dark-haired, vivacious woman whose appearance inevitably inspired the adjective cute. She seemed to be irreverent about wardroom protocol in general and the intricate network of Navy wives’ social functions in particular. Maddy had been attracted to her from their first meeting at Brian’s hailand-farewell party.
They had become even closer friends now that the ship was gone, if only because Tizzy displayed no inhibitions about saying what many of the wives so obviously felt.
Like Maddy, Tizzy had a day job, while most of the other wardroom wives stayed at home raising children. The two of them generally declined invitations to join the coffee klatches, shopping trips, and playground gatherings that united the wives.
Maddy’s quiet sigh was snatched away by the wind.
Her life had gone into limbo with Brian’s departure to WESTPAC. She woke up each morning with an oppressive amalgam of sadness, self-pity, rejection, and even despair puddled in her stomach like a lump of yesterday’s oatmeal—the “poor me’s,” as the captain’s wife, Mrs.
Huntington, described it, feelings we endure but do not enunciate, especially in letters to the ship, girls. Or, as Tizzy was wont to put it, “Deployments really suck.”
Maddy experienced the familiar flash of guilt for being so self-centered about the separation, realizing that her own anger and sense of abandonment implied that Brian felt none of these things as he chased around some godforsaken place everyone called the Gulf on his oversized “frigate.” And all because of this tragically absurd war in Vietnam.
Like most Navy wives, Maddy despised the disheveled, screeching antiwar protestors who were paraded nightly on the television news by supercilious anchormen. But as the deployment dragged on, she sometimes found herself wishing they would prevail. At least now, President Nixon was talking about ending it.
She tugged on her skirt as Tizzy swung the white convertible into the bright lights of the MCRD main gate area. She noted that Tizzy didn’t bother and that the Marine guard very definitely did not keep his eyes in
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