Message from Nam (14 page)

She spent Thanksgiving with his family again that year, and this time she felt like a member of the family, and she was totally at ease with the Wilsons. It was hard to believe that she and Peter had been involved for only a year. It seemed as though they had lived together forever. His parents suspected that was what was happening, too, but they stayed out of it, although more than once Marjorie asked Ed if he didn’t think she should say something to them.

“Why? They’re responsible kids. Do you think you’ll change anything by talking to them?”

“Maybe they should get engaged if that’s what they’re doing.”

“What difference does that make? If they want to get married, they will. And if they don’t, they won’t. They’re too young to get married anyway. Peter will be twenty-four next month. And she isn’t even twenty. Just wait. They know what they’re doing, believe me.”

Paxton spent Christmas with them, too, and by then she was horrified to read in the
Morning Sun
that the number of troops in Viet Nam had escalated to two hundred thousand.

“But that’s insane!” she said to Peter, over breakfast.

“I know.” He looked unhappily at her, praying he wouldn’t flunk out of law school. It was getting so damn tough that sometimes it scared him. And the prospect of getting drafted scared him more. It was terrifying.

“Why don’t people see what’s happening over there? Boys are dying every day. Not just Vietnamese, our boys too. And they’re sending eighteen-year-olds over to fight them.”

“I’m too old for this war,” he groaned as he poured himself another cup of coffee.

“If they ever call you up, I just want you to know now, I’ll either shoot you in the ass myself, or lend you my black lace underwear and buy you a ticket to Toronto.”

“I might take you up on that. The underwear anyway. As long as you’re still in them.”

“That can be arranged.” She kissed him over their morning coffee, and Gabby groaned as she wandered into the kitchen in her nightgown.

“Are you two at it again? You make me sick.” But in truth, she loved them both. She just wanted to find someone for herself now.

But after Christmas, when they all went skiing together, it finally happened. Gabby was roaring down the slopes one day and collided with a man who flew into the air, and then came crashing down on her, and they lay in a breathless heap for a moment, untangling their limbs and their skis, trying to make sure that nothing was missing, damaged, or broken.

“That was one hell of a spill, are you alright?” he asked with considerable concern, standing up to his full height and offering a hand to pull her up, and she looked up at him with amazement. His name was Matthew Stanton and he had movie-star good looks and was wearing a one-piece black ski suit. He had dark hair and blue eyes and a well-trimmed beard, and he looked intrigued with her as she dusted herself off and apologized for not looking where she was going. He skied back to the lodge with her, invited her to lunch and dinner every night after that. Peter and Paxton scarcely saw her again except to wave from the lift, or as she ran in to change and go out with Matthew. He was thirty-two years old, in advertising, and seemed thoroughly amused by Gabby’s constant antics. So much so that he seemed to appear constantly at the house in Berkeley when they went back, and whenever he did, Gabby seemed not to reappear until the following morning.

“Do you think he’s serious?” Paxton asked Peter finally when they were studying for finals a month after Christmas.

“Who knows with those two. I don’t see how he can put up with her.” But whenever Paxton saw Matt with her, she thought they seemed very happy.

He had admitted to Gabby that he was divorced, but had no kids, and he seemed to be spending a lot of money on Gabby. There were flowers from him constantly, and books of poetry, and bracelets, and things he knew she’d like, trinkets and dolls and silly things that pleased her. He seemed to be imaginative and fun and playful. “And too old to get sent to Viet Nam,” Paxton added to her list of virtues. “These days that’s a real bonus.”

“That’s disgusting,” Peter said. But it wasn’t. Young men were being sent there every day to die for their country. And on January eleventh, student demonstrators had been reclassified 1–A, which had caused a real outrage in California. And three weeks later, Johnson resumed the bombing of North Viet Nam after a Christmas halt. It had lasted exactly thirty-eight days, and now it was all starting again. And all Paxton could think about at times was the war, and the danger of its finally reaching out to Peter.

Paxton had spoken to her family over the Christmas holiday several times, and her mother was hinting broadly that George might have a surprise for her in the spring, which hardly seemed a surprise anymore. If he finally got engaged at thirty-four, it was becoming a lot more surprising than if he wasn’t. And Queenie was sick again, and she hadn’t sounded well on the phone. Paxton was worried about her, but she didn’t get a chance to call again for a long time, and when she did, her old friend insisted that she was much better.

“You’re not lying to me, are you?”

“Would I lie to my baby girl?” Yes, she would, they both knew, but Paxton didn’t say that.

In March 1966, government troops took Da Nang over from the Communists again, and Peter and Paxton took part in three days of antiwar protest.

Paxton had lined up her summer job by then. Peter’s father had offered her a wonderful job as a cub reporter at the paper. She had hesitated at first, not wanting to take advantage of her relationship with Peter. But it was too good to resist, and Peter’s father promised that she wouldn’t cover a single garden party or fashion show during the entire summer. And all she had to do now was tell her mother she wasn’t spending the summer in Savannah.

She went home over the Easter holiday to explain it to them, and George finally got engaged, and they were planning to get married sometime that summer. But Allison didn’t ask Paxton to be one of her bridesmaids, which made it easier to explain that she would just be coming for the wedding and then flying back to San Francisco. She told them she had taken a job on a paper there, and her mother, remembering what Paxton had said about his family, immediately blamed Peter for the defection.

“That has nothing to do with it. They offered me a terrific job on an important paper. That’s too good an offer to turn down for a job on the paper here.”

“Just where are your loyalties?” her mother accused. “Here or there?”

“That’s not the point. My real loyalties should be to myself and my future.”

“That’s all you think of,” her mother said through clenched teeth, and Paxton tried to turn the conversation back to George and Allison and their upcoming wedding. The wedding reception was going to be at the Oglethorpe Club, and they said they were only having about a hundred friends. She was so old by then that to Paxton it almost seemed ridiculous to have a thirty-two-year-old bride at the center of an enormous wedding.

Paxton had a chance to visit a few of her old friends, and was amazed to find that even more had gotten married, still more engaged, and some of the early married ones were having second babies. It made her feel ancient, even though she had just turned twenty.

“Do you think he’ll marry you?” Queenie asked her about Peter late one night, and Paxton smiled and shrugged. They didn’t really talk about marriage anymore. It was not in their immediate plans, but Paxton knew that eventually they probably would, if he didn’t mind the wait, while she got all her independent wanderings out of her system. But she was terribly used to him now. She loved living with him, and she could no longer even begin to imagine a life without him.

It was a good visit for her, and the only thing that worried her was how tired Queenie looked when she left, and despite her enormous size, she somehow managed to look frail and Paxton urged her brother to keep an eye on her. No one knew exactly how old she was, but it was clear that she was no longer young, and not as strong as she once had been.

There was still a strain between her mother and herself when Paxton left, but she tried not to think about it, and she promised to come home again that summer, for the wedding. And when she got back to Berkeley, Peter was waiting for her. He had been impatient for her to come home this time. In many ways, their relationship was just like being married.

And when Gabby came home the next day, from a trip to Hawaii with Matt, she had stars in her eyes, and a look that Paxton knew she had seen somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember where, and it was late May before she remembered. Suddenly, Gabby was constantly in bed and asleep all the time. She never seemed to go anywhere, except out with Matt at night, but she always had that sleepy look, and a look in her eyes that Paxton recognized almost instantly once it clicked, and she confronted Gabby one day when they were alone in the house, and there was no one else there to hear them. She had just gotten up at two o’clock, and Paxton had just come back from one of her classes. And all she could think of was Dawn. The girl from Des Moines who had slept through the first three months of school. And then gone home at Christmas, to have her baby.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” She decided not to beat around the bush, and Gabby wheeled where she stood, with a look of amazement.

“That’s ridiculous. Why would you say a thing like that?” For a moment, she looked frightened.

“Because you are. Aren’t you?”

“I’m … no, I’m not … that’s a stupid thing to say … I’m … I …” But she couldn’t go on with the he. She sank into a kitchen chair, put her face in her hands, and started to cry as Paxton watched her. And then Paxton sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“What are you going to do?” she said gently.

“I don’t know … I kept thinking I was late, but … I just don’t know what to do now.”

“Have you told Matt?” The redhead shook her head. “How pregnant are you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe about six weeks. I started to ask around about abortions last week, but everyone has horror stories about Mexico or East Oakland. I don’t want to do something like that. What if I die?”

“You could go to Tokyo, or London.”

“Yeah, and say what to my parents? I’m going on a business trip? A research project for my art class? Shit, Paxxie, what am I going to do?”

“What do you want to do? Do you want the baby?”

“I don’t know.” And she honestly didn’t. She had thought about it constantly and she couldn’t make her mind up about any of it, she was so confused. It was a relief to be talking about it to Paxton.

“What about Matt? Do you want him?”

“I think so. He’s so good to me. And so sweet. I think I love him.” It wasn’t good enough. At least not to Paxton. But Gabby’s standards weren’t as high as hers were.

“You have to be sure, especially if you’re going to have a baby.”

“How can I be? How do you ever know? You’ve been going out with Peter for almost two years, are you that sure about him?”

“Yes,” Paxton said honestly. “I’m not as sure about myself. I’m not quite sure I’m grown up yet. But I do know that I love him.”

“Then you’re lucky. But you’re different than I am.”

And she had only been going out with Matthew Stanton since Christmas. And sometimes Paxton thought he was so smooth, and so calculating and so perfectly orchestrated, that it was hard to tell who he really was beneath the veneer. It was easy to see why Gabby wasn’t sure. And Paxton also suspected that it meant a lot to him that he was going out with Gabby Wilson. He knew exactly who her father was, and even indirectly, he seemed to enjoy the connection.

“What are you going to do?” Paxton asked her again. “You’d better decide soon, or you won’t have a choice.” But it was true. After three months, she couldn’t even consider an abortion.

“Oh, God, Paxxie, don’t say that.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“What if he walks out on me?”

“Then at least you’ll know what kind of guy he is, won’t you? And maybe you’ll have your answer.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you have to think about that too. But Gabby, think about what
you
want. A baby is forever.” She had too many friends who, at twenty and twenty-one, were regretting the children they had and the marriages they had either rushed or been forced into.

They were still talking about it that afternoon when Peter walked in and both of them fell suddenly silent. “Christ, what’s with you two? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

“No. Don’t be so paranoid.” Paxton kissed him hungrily. “How did your exams go?” He had almost finished his second year, and they both knew that this one was the hardest.

“I think I flunked everything. I should be on a plane to Viet Nam by tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t joke about stuff like that.” Paxton looked upset as she poured him a cup of coffee.

“Don’t be so sensitive,” he said as he put the cup down and kissed her again, and then watched his sister leave the kitchen. She looked as though she had been crying. “What’s with her?” he asked in a whisper. “She break up with that guy?” Peter never seemed to remember his name, which wasn’t a good sign. “He’s too old for her anyway. And he’s too interested in my father.” Paxton thought so, too, but under the circumstances, she had no intention of admitting it to Peter.

“I think it’s just a little spat. I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said noncommittally, and Peter knew instantly that she was lying, but he didn’t press her. She obviously knew more than that, but she wasn’t telling. When Matthew showed up that evening to pick Gabby up, she was wearing a bright orange minidress, and huge cube-shaped plastic earrings. But she looked surprisingly somber, considering the outfit. And she looked closer to hysterical when she came back less than an hour later. And this time, she looked straight at Paxxie, as though her brother didn’t even exist.

“He says he has to think about it. How do you like that?” She burst into tears and then ran into her room and slammed the door as Peter stared at her in confusion. And then suddenly it clicked, and he looked at Paxton.