Carl Van Marcus: The tempted bride

San Mateo, California, was suffocating under a coat of brownish-purple smog. On the Bayshore Freeway, traffic crawled, stopped, then crawled slowly forward another fifty feet before stopping again. Horns honked. Tempers were short.

Grace Hope was aware of neither the sweltering heat nor the traffic delay. She barely listened to Judi Sprague's monologue; besides, she already knew it by heart. Judi's favorite topic was men. As far as that went, that was all Judi lived for: men!

"Well," Judi was saying in her Bronx accent as she fluffed up her hair and gazed coquettishly at the young man in the Mustang next to her car, "I told him it was no go. I mean… who did he think he was? What did he think I was? Some common street girl? So I told him, 'See here, Bill Hill. I don't care if you are the Sales Manager. I'll thank you to keep your sweaty little hands to yourself.' So he started simpering and playing Mister Nice Guy and says I have him all wrong, that he didn't mean to imply I would go to bed with him. 'All I want,' says he, 'is a female companion for the weekend at Tahoe… someone to dance with, gamble with, walk along the beach with.' So I says right back, 'Well, why didn't you say so. Ah… where is it that you plan to stay at Tahoe?' He mentions some cheap cruddy flea-trap motel, and I says 'You'd never catch me dead in that cruddy dump. How about King's Castle. He kinda goes white around the gills and I can see him thinking it's going to cost him thirty bucks a day. Finally he says he'll get reservations. So… the weekend isn't shot anyway." Judi braked suddenly, viciously honked her horn, and swore at a woman who had abruptly switched lanes in front of her. She turned to Grace and asked, "What you doing this weekend, honey?"

"Oh, I plan to wash my hair, write a few letters, and do my laundry. And I thought I'd bake some cookies for Stan."

Judi chewed her gum silently and looked sympathetic. "You heard from him lately? I mean, he's okay and everything? That cruddy Vietnam." She brightened, blinked her eyes, and dimpled as she saw the Cadillac convertible driver in the far right lane staring at them in speculation and open admiration.

Grace seemed unaware that Judi had switched her attention from Stan to the other driver. She felt her eyes misting as she thought again about Stan and what he must be going through over there. Finally she cleared her throat and said, "He's okay. Or at least he was two weeks ago. They were getting ready to go out on patrol and he said he wouldn't be able to write for a while. I haven't had a letter for five days now. Maybe," she crossed her fingers, "there'll be one tonight."

"Gee… I hope so, for your sake. It's bad enough being alone, but when you don't get any letters either, I just don't know how you stand it, honey. Why, I'd be climbing the wall within a week if I didn't have an occasional fella to talk to."

In spite of her sorrow, Grace had to fight back a grin. "Talk to," indeed! Her apartment was right next to Judi's. They shared a common balcony, and it was difficult not to overhear what went on in the next apartment. Not much talking went on when Judi had one of her boy-friends over. A lot of grunting and panting and moaning, maybe, but not much talk.

Grace knew she probably should move out of the apartment complex; to stay there was to imply that Judi's promiscuousness was acceptable. To move, though, was out of the question. The apartment had been Stan's and her only home; true, they had been married less than three months when Stan went overseas, but still it was his bed she slept in, his television she secretly shared with him during the lonely nights, his clothes in the closet. That made it bearable, that made life livable, even during those hot summer nights when the sound of hot sexual love making came from the apartment next door.

Too, Judi was truly her only friend. Grace hadn't been around San Mateo long enough to make friends with other people. Married men she avoided… like the plague! And single men? The ones she knew who were still single were either homosexuals or always on the make. No, thank you; Stan had only nine more months in Vietnam. She'd spend it alone – maybe having coffee in the mornings and an occasional beer in the later afternoons with Judi. She kept busy, that was the main thing. And best of all, she had her self-respect, her love untarnished, her memories unblemished. Topping it all off was her unexpected promotion to Office Manager of Austin Motor Sales. Not bad for a twenty-three-year-old girl just recently from Butte, Montana. All she needed to make life complete now was Stan to come back to her.

Traffic suddenly lessened at the 280 Interchange, and Judi's Volkswagen picked up speed. Five minutes later, the little bug darted under the carport of the San Mateo Polynesian Gardens apartment complex. Although they were now parked in the shade, the heat was more intense than ever.

Judi slammed the car door and made no effort to pull down her mini-skirt which had slid up to the point where her powder blue bikini panties were plainly visible. She fanned herself with a newspaper and grimaced. "God, it's hot. I'm going for a swim. How about you?"

Grace nodded. The pool would be heavenly. Best of all, the running, screaming kids who usually flocked like wild birds around it during the late afternoons, would all be in having dinner.

Judi disappeared, heading upstairs to her apartment. Grace lost no time in going around front to the column after column of bronze mail boxes shining dully in the sun. The heat was forgotten as the key was inserted. "Please… please!" she silently prayed, "let there be a letter from Stan."

The metal door fell open to reveal three white envelopes hiding in the cubicle. She didn't need to look at the addresses; she knew from the shape of the envelope that all three were from Stan. She hugged them to her breast as though she were protecting gold nuggets and ran upstairs. It seemed to take an eternity to open the door, but then the refreshing wave of coolness rushed out of the apartment and engulfed her. Kicking the door shut behind her, Grace headed for the bedroom, tossing her purse on the couch as she passed. Then, unmindful of her dress, she threw herself across the bed and picked up the first letter. With impatient fingers she ripped open the first envelope and read:

Darling,

Today we returned from patrol and now I have three days to do nothing but think of you. (And do all the paper work that has accumulated, and sit in on a court martial of a kid in the 101st who was caught smoking pot on guard duty, and lecture the men on keeping their weapons clean, and make sure none of my men get caught in off-limits places, and… so on.) But mainly, through it all, I'll think of you.

It was the oddest thing. Last night I called a halt to our activities and we settled down for the evening on the banks of the Mekong. It was horribly hot, the bugs were really chewing away on us, and the humidity was high enough to take a shower in it. The moon came up and then, through the trees, I saw the light dancing on the waters. All of a sudden I wasn't in Vietnam any longer. I was on the banks of the Spence, and you and I were lying there watching the moon come up. Do you remember? That was the night…

It was as though Grace had unexpectedly taken a ride on a flying carpet. Suddenly she was back in Montana. It all came back to her. She wasn't lying on her bed, but on the white sandy banks of the Spence River. The river made soft sucking sounds as it nuzzled the tree roots hanging over the bank. Frogs and crickets croaked and chirped their love songs in the blackness of the night. Overhead, the stars gazed down in approval at Grace and Stan's nude bodies.