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“Helen’s.”

“I tell you that’s all hokey-pokey.”

“Jack, there’s only one thing wrong with it.”

“Which is?”

“You’re lying.”

Why couldn’t I keep on lying, lying, and lying some more? I don’t know. A lie’s got no legs. Once around the track and it’s done, and all I could do was sit there and blink. She went on: “Jack, if that was all I think, I’d let it go. I’m quite insane about you. For your audacity. For that machinist’s soul you’ve got, that can see the stars reflected in a pool of oil and not smell the oil — or smell it and make incense out of it. For your beauty. You’re a damned blond tower of sin that I love to touch, that I’d give my eye teeth to cuddle right now. But I’ll not play second fiddle to—”

“Second fiddle! This was eight years ago.”

“It was not. It’s now.”

“How could it be? Am I still in college?”

“If it wasn’t now you’d have told me about her.”

“Why would I? That would be nice, wouldn’t it? To—”

“You told me about Margaret.”

“Why sure. She didn’t—”

I broke off and bit it back but the heartbeats pounded on and all she did was sit and sip coffee and stare out to sea. After a long time, she said: “Go on, Jack, I’m listening. ‘She didn’t—?’ I’m hoping and praying it’s some kind of lie I can swallow down, and relax with, so I can come over, and sit in your lap, and pull your foolish-looking ears, that always make me want to cry. She didn’t... WHAT?”

“Oh, to hell with her. Come here!”

“Let me alone! Margaret didn’t mean anything to you, did she? Not a thing in the world. So we can get rid of her. And of Denny, your best friend. Who loves you, and has been stood on his head by the way you’ve acted about everything. We can get rid of them, so that family won’t come out here, and bring Helen, and bust up this mess of duck soup you’ve got, with me, and Seven-Star, and the banquets you speak at, and the pictures of yourself in the paper, and the mahogany office — CAN’T WE?”

“Listen, Hannah, we’re both dog-tired, and—”

“No! Not I!”

“Well, I am, if you don’t mind.”

“Jack, there’s nothing I’d love better than to put my pride in my pocket, to come over to you, and to marry you, as you’ve asked me to do, and as I want to do. But I know what it would bring me. You’re not that guy that you think you are, who’ll take the cash and let the credit go, who’ll put material things ahead of love. You’re a damned romantic, who kicked the beans into the fire once, and will do it again. You really want love. And you despise me, as you’ve told me often, not because I gave up my husband for you, as you say, but because I’m not that kind of romantic sap. But whatever kind of sap I am, I’ll not play second fiddle. When you didn’t tell me about her, that’s all I wanted to know. When it cost you something to choose me, when we have to fire Denny to be safe, so you can be sure of yourself and not have that ninny around the corner all the time — that’s the tip-off. Oh, Mr. Jack Dillon, I wasn’t quite sure when I came in here. I was hoping. I can be a fool too. But now I know. This is goodbye.”

“And... Seven-Star? Who’s going to run it?”

“Denny.”

She sat there crying a long time. After a while she got up, pulled on the coat she had taken off, then leaned against the wall while a perfect storm of tears came out of her. I tried to take her in my arms, but she shook me off. Then she whispered; “Goodbye, Jack,” and went.

I sat down again, poured myself more coffee. How long I sat I don’t know, if it was a day, a week, or a month.

1945 NOV 8 PM 8 19

MAJ. JOHN DILLON,

HOTEL TIMROD,

CHARLESTON, SC

YOUR FATHER’S CONDITION TOOK CRITICAL TURN TODAY IF YOU WISH TO SEE HIM PLEASE WIRE AND WE SHALL USE OUR BEST ENDEAVOR TO WIN HIM OVER AFTER WHICH YOU SHOULD START AT ONCE AS IT IS NOT GIVEN US TO KNOW HOW LONG HE MAY BE SPARED

To which, writing on one side of the paper and getting all words properly spelled, I wired back: WELL ISN’T THAT TOO UTTERLY NICE OF YOU BUT WIRING HIM AND USING BEST ENDEAVORS ON ME MIGHT WORK BETTER. Then I sat around the hotel to sulk. Deep in me, of course, providing they wired me anything that made sense, I knew I was going. But I wanted to think about it, and I meant to take my time, as all and sundry, in that household at least, had certainly taken theirs. For three years, more than three years as a matter of fact, I’d been in the Army, but little they did about it, and they could have. I had got my greetings early in 1942, while I was still sitting around Long Beach. But, in accordance with the military genius of our War Department, which built all the camps in the wrong place and sent all the guys to the wrong camps, I was enrolled in California and ordered to Fort Meade, Maryland, which is south of Baltimore and east of Washington. Naturally, when I bumped into reporters from the Sun, there were pieces about me in the papers, with pictures. It seemed to me, if they were worried about somebody being “spared,” either Sheila or Nancy or both of them might have come down there, maybe with a bag of cookies under one arm, and we could have had a little reunion. But nobody showed, so instead of taking my leaves in Baltimore, I slipped over to Washington, which I knew almost at well, from my student days. And when I went to boot camp and came out a lieutenant, it seemed to me they might have sent me a picture postcard or something, as that was in the papers too. But it drew a blank. And when I was ordered overseas, it seemed to me that might have stirred them up, as it had been hinted at in the paper too. But they slumbered on, my little gypsy sweethearts. So when I got to England, I quit worrying about them, my father, or anything that reminded me of Baltimore, the first time I ever really did. I can’t say I was exactly happy in the Army. It was one long fever dream, with mud, fog, and rifle range mixed up with a stupor they call sleep. I got upped to first lieutenant, to captain, to major, and I didn’t notice much difference, except the higher I got, the more hell I caught. Then came June 1944. My division, the 79th, went ashore, most of it, on the fourteenth, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth that we were due to shoot krauts. Along about six o’clock the evening of the eighteenth, I began to worry about four trucks that were supposed to have come up, and that hadn’t. They were bringing nothing but a load of K, just rations for my battalion, but by that time I’d got a little hipped on the subject of grub. In Washington, in the Library of Congress, I had done a little reading on the military thing. And the more I read, whether it was about Grant, and how nuts he was about water transportation, or Napoleon, and what he said about an army fighting on its belly, the more I saw that your outfit was as good as its supply. With K in their pockets, they could keep on going. With nothing in their pockets, they’d poop. So when the trucks didn’t come, I called 313th regimental headquarters to find out why. There was no why. They were on their way. All couriers were at their posts to guide them in, it was all under control, be sure to report any movement of my CP — command post. In the last war it had been PC — post of command. Some bright brass, no doubt, got decorated with palm for figuring that change, but you’ve got to admit it was constructive.

2100, no K.

At 2200, or ten o’clock, after three more calls to regimental, I ordered my jeep and started back. At first we just crawled, on account of new stone the engineers had cracked up and put on the road, but I had Hayden, my driver, take the shoulder, and it was a little slippery but we made better time. About a mile from a place called Golleville I picked up the first courier. He said he’d talked to the next man about ten minutes before, and the trucks were stuck, on account of engine trouble. A few hundred yards further on, the next courier said the same thing. In a half hour, maybe, fighting our way back through three lines of trucks, guns, tanks, half tracks, and what had been coming ashore for ten or twelve days, we found my K. All four trucks were jammed in a little side road, where they’d been trying to bull their way into the main parade, but couldn’t as the lead truck was stalled. When I got there the driver had eight GI’s, the whole detail aboard all four trucks, swinging on a crank, trying to get it going by hand. I asked him what the trouble was. “Starter, sir.”