Message from Nam (12 page)

Two weeks after that, the American embassy in Saigon was attacked, and the American public began to understand that we had a serious problem in Viet Nam.

At the same time, in the States, the National Guard was obliged to protect the Selma-Montgomery Freedom March, and the University of Michigan staged the first antiwar teach-in.

But the teach-in didn’t stop the war, and the bombing didn’t stop the Viet Cong. Supplies were still reaching the South by the elusive Ho Chi Minh Trail. And there were more antiwar protests on Armed Forces Day in May. And Peter and Paxton participated in the one at UC Berkeley.

It was almost the end of the school year for them. And Paxton was getting nervous about leaving him to go back to Savannah. The thought of not being with him every day seemed almost frightening to her now. She couldn’t imagine a day without him.

He had volunteered for the law project he’d talked about. And he was planning on spending most of the summer in Mississippi. But he had promised to come and see her whenever he could. And she was going to be working in Savannah, on the paper. Gabby was to go to Europe with her parents again, and she had pooh-poohed the idea of getting a job when her father suggested it to her. She had promised to get one the following year but she wanted to play “just this last time,” on the Riviera with friends, and in Paris with her mother. Ed Wilson had scolded his wife for indulging her, but like Gabby, she felt that “one more year” wouldn’t hurt her.

All three of them left Berkeley on the first of June. Peter and Paxton spent a quiet weekend at a cabin he rented at Lake Tahoe, and they lay in bed together for the last time before they separated for the summer.

“I’m going to go crazy without you,” he whispered as he nuzzled the long golden hair. “It’s going to be so lonely in Mississippi.”

“Savannah’s gonna be worse,” she said glumly, but they forgot everything as they fell into each other’s arms again, and it was a long, happy weekend. His parents suspected that something had happened between them, and so did Gabby, but neither Peter nor Paxton admitted anything. They were together all the time, and their grades were excellent, so no one could complain. And Peter, Paxton, and Gabby had already agreed to look for a house together for the fall so the threesome could live off campus. Paxton knew that the secret of their affair would be obvious to her then, but by then they’d be willing to tell her. It would be worth it, in order to enjoy the luxury of living together off campus.

Gabby left San Francisco first with Marjorie. They were flying to London to visit friends, and stay at Claridge’s, before moving on to Paris. And then Paxton left, waving sorrowfully to Peter at the airport. And he left the same afternoon, in time to reach Jackson, Mississippi, for a voting protest that wound almost a thousand people in jail. Peter was among them, and he was quickly bailed out, and felt as though he had been appropriately christened.

Paxton’s introduction to her job was a subtler one, and she was bitterly disappointed to discover that she had been assigned to the editor who covered social news, and she was left to coordinate reports of who was entertaining whom, wearing what, and what the Junior League and the Daughters of the Civil War were doing. It was a job her mother Anally understood, and actually had a certain respect for, and at the same time it left Paxton feeling utterly useless. She would sit at the newspaper and watch the teletypes in despair, reporting sit-ins in Alabama, and the doubling of our ground troops in Viet Nam, raising the total to a “mere” hundred and eighty-one thousand men, numbers that were staggering. And Johnson doubled the draft that summer. Paxton knew that some of the boys over there were boys she had gone to school with, and in two cases, their younger brothers. One had already been killed, and she couldn’t bear to hear it. And suddenly it terrified her. What if, in some insane way, they managed to get Peter?

She called him almost every day and he called her as often, and in late July, he managed to come up from Mississippi for the weekend. He had planned to come up earlier than that, but he had been in jail twice, and the job he had was far more demanding than he had expected. But Paxton had never looked happier than when she took a cab and picked him up at the airport. He swung her into his arms, and he looked handsome and tan, his hair the same golden color as her own as he kissed her.

“Boy, is it good to see you!” He grinned. “I’m so tired of bailing people out of jail, I can hardly see straight.”

“Not nearly as tired as I am of garden parties and afternoon concerts! Christ, I thought I was going to be doing something meaningful, and I’ve done nothing but write about my mother’s friends all summer.”

He grinned at her and kissed her again, wishing they could go to bed somewhere on the way in from the airport. “How is your mother, by the way?”

“Same as ever. She can hardly wait to meet you.”

“Oh-oh. That sounds dangerous.” He kissed her again. He couldn’t stop kissing her. It had been almost two months since he’d seen her. But she was just as hungry for him. She had rented him a room in a nice quiet hotel just outside town, where she wasn’t likely to run into her mother’s friends, and she told him that as they drove into Savannah.

“May I make a suggestion?” He grinned and leaned over to kiss her in his rented car.

“Anything you like.” She was beaming.

“How about checking out the hotel on the way home?” He grinned mischievously and she laughed.

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” She was all his. She had taken two days off from the paper, in spite of a very social wedding they had thought she should cover.

They arrived at the little hotel shortly after that, and Peter looked extremely serious and responsible in his suit and tie as he signed the register Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and carried the single bag to a clean, simple room that became their honeymoon suite for the next several hours.

It was almost nightfall when he looked at his watch and she gasped. “Good Lord, my mother’s expecting you for cocktails.”

“I’m not sure I can still stand up, let alone drink,” he teased, and pulled her back into bed with him again, but only for a minute. And then they showered together, and dressed. For a brief moment, it was almost like being married. “Does she know we’re sharing a house together this year?” He didn’t want to put his foot in it and it was a good thing he asked, because Paxton shrieked at the very suggestion.

“Are you crazy? She thinks it’s me and Gabby and another girl, and even at that, she’s not crazy about the idea.” But she had finally relented.

“Great. I gather this means I can never touch the phone.” He looked amused, and he didn’t mind. All he wanted was to live with Paxton, even if it meant putting up with his sister. His mother had told him on the phone, when she called him in Jackson, that Gabby had chased every man over thirty on the Riviera. “I think she’s getting desperate,” he said to Paxton on the drive back into town. “She’s silly, she’s too young to get married.” Paxton smiled at the words, and he leaned over and kissed her. “That’s different. She’s a baby, you’re not. But I think you’re too young too. For about three more years. And then … watch out!” They both laughed. She knew how reasonable he had been, and she never felt pressured by him. He wanted her to do what she needed to, like this summer, working in Savannah, but she had to admit, she had been miserable without him.

George and her mother were waiting for them when they drove in, and her mother looked frankly disapproving at Paxton.

“I thought you’d be home hours ago.” Allison was there, and her mother thought Paxton should have changed for their “guest,” but Paxxie ignored her.

“I was showing Peter the sights. Peter,” she said formally, “my mother, Beatrice Andrews, my brother, George, and his … ‘friend,’ Allison Lee.” Her mother never failed to tell anyone that Allison was related to the great Confederate general. And Paxton had waited all summer for George to get engaged to her, but for some reason he hadn’t. At thirty-three, he didn’t want to rush into anything. Anything. Although, at thirty-one, Allison seemed to be getting decidedly nervous. “This is Peter Wilson,” she explained to all of them as though they’d never heard of him before. “His sister, Gabby, is my roommate.” Everyone murmured polite how-do-you-do’s, shook hands, and George offered Peter a drink, and Peter asked for a gin and tonic. It was deadly hot and the fan overhead did little to cool the room, although everyone pretended not to notice. Queenie had made her best hors d’oeuvres, and Allison passed them looking demure and as prissy as ever. Paxton had decided long since that she couldn’t stand her.

But Peter was congenial with everyone, and her mother was painfully polite, while George looked frankly bored, and Allison appeared not even to know someone was in the room with them. She almost never spoke to Paxton, and had said to George several times that she just didn’t understand her. And secretly, she thought Paxton rude and far too headstrong. Allison kept talking to George that night about the new curtains she had just ordered for her bedroom. Peter tried to explain what he was doing in Mississippi, but no one seemed to care, and her mother kept pointedly changing the subject. It took him a while to realize that it was because she disapproved of what he was doing there, and she was trying to keep him from embarrassing himself, and when the message finally got across, it shocked him. They were even worse than Paxton had said. They were distant and cold, and living in the Dark Ages.

He switched to discussing his parents’ trip to Europe then, which seemed a safer subject. Paxton’s mother seemed impressed to hear that they were in the south of France, and she asked him as genteelly as she could what his father did, and Peter was surprised Paxton hadn’t told her.

“He … uh … works for a newspaper in San Francisco.…” It seemed indiscreet somehow to say he owned it.

“How nice,” Beatrice Andrews said with a look of obvious disapproval. “And you’re going to be a lawyer?” He nodded, speechless at the iciness of her tone. She was everything Paxton had said and more … or less, as it were. She was glacial. “Paxton’s father was an attorney. Her brother”—her eyes indicated the deadly George—“is a doctor.” Now that was obviously a profession that measured up in her eyes.

“That’s wonderful,” Peter said, feeling wooden and wondering how long he could go on talking to them, and how Paxton could stand them on a daily basis. No wonder she was so unhappy when she came home. She was so unlike them. “And Allison, what do you do?”

“I … why … uh …” She was so startled to be asked, she had no idea what to say. She had been waiting around to find a husband for thirteen years, ever since she got out of high school. “Why … I … I’m very fond of my garden.”

“And she does marvelous work for us at the Junior League, don’t you, dear,” Mrs. Andrews said encouragingly. And then to Peter, “Her great-great uncle was General Lee.
The
General Lee. I’m sure you know who he is.”

“Yes indeed.” Peter felt as though he was going to run from the room screaming, and it was the longest dinner of his life, with endless silences, and awkward snatches of conversation, and only an occasional wink or nudge from Queenie, or look from Paxton, to cheer him. It seemed aeons before they went back to his hotel, and he pulled off his tie, and collapsed on the bed with a groan that didn’t begin to express what he had felt about the evening, and then he sat up and looked at Paxton. They had pretended they were going out for a little “dancing.” “My God, baby, how do you stand them? They are the most difficult, uptight people I’ve ever met. I know I shouldn’t say this about your family, but I thought I’d never get through that dinner.”

She grinned from ear to ear. “I know. Aren’t they awful? I never know what to say to them. I always feel like a stranger.”

“You are. You don’t even look related to them. Your brother is the most boring man I’ve ever met, his girlfriend is the most prissy, uptight, dumb pain in the ass, and your mother … my God, she’s like an iceberg.”

Paxton grinned happily, loving him more than ever. She felt avenged suddenly, and as though she had more in the world than just Queenie. “That’s my Mommy.”

Peter still couldn’t believe there were people like that in the world. They were totally different from his own family, and totally different from Paxxie. “I wish I’d met your father.”

“So do I. He would have loved you.”

“I’m sure I would have loved him too. But from everything you’ve said about him, Paxton, I just can’t imagine him with your mother.”

“I don’t think he was very happy with her. I was only eleven when he died, so the subtleties of their relationship kind of escaped me.”

“Maybe that’s just as well. Thank God you went to Berkeley.” He couldn’t begin to imagine what would have happened to her if she had stayed in Savannah with them. It would have destroyed her, or her spirit eventually. He had had three gin and tonics just to get through dinner, and they probably thought he was an alcoholic.

Paxton stayed with him as long as she could, and then he drove her home in the rented car, and watched as she went into the house. And much to her surprise, her mother was waiting up for her, which was something she never did, and wasn’t necessarily a good omen.

“What exactly does that boy mean to you?” she asked Paxton only seconds after she came through the door.

“He’s my friend. I like him.”

“You’re in love with him.” Her mother hurled the words at her like cannonballs, and as though she expected Paxton to fall down and beg for mercy.

“Maybe.” She didn’t want to lie to her, but she didn’t want to stir anything up either. Her mother was sitting on the couch in her dressing gown, and there was a small glass of sherry beside her. “I like his family. His sister is my friend, and his parents have been very nice to me.”

“Why?” It was a ridiculous question and Paxton couldn’t begin to find an answer.

“What do you mean, ‘why’? Because they like me.”

“Maybe because they think you’re a step up in the world for their son. Have you ever thought of that?” Paxton almost laughed at the suggestion, but she didn’t want to be rude to her mother.