really needs to get laid. Needless to say, I stay clear of everything Angie-related except for her double-chocolate brownies.
“Zacharie! I didn’t know you were here – Natalie never tells me anything – I’ve asked for your email address a dozen times – say, when you get back, can you see if there’s an officer named James David Ganderson in your camp? We’ve been corresponding, well mostly I send him letters and sexy photos and he replies via email, but he always has some excuse not to call or write,” she trails off hopelessly.
I want to tell her that there’s an epidemic of fake enlisted men pretending to be lonely soldiers. Unfortunately, these con artists get their patriotic victims to send money or information that can be used fraudulently. But, it goes both ways. I have a friend at base that met a hot super-model type girl online. They had a steamy affair back and forth and he naively sent her five-hundred dollars so she could visit her dying mother. After a month or so, it got really weird. He finally discovered that she was an old fat, married woman that spent his money on a television from Wal-Mart.
I reach out to hug Angie and her fucking little wiener bites my ankle. “Angie, great to see you! How about this – before I report back, let’s have some coffee and exchange information. I hate to run out, but my leave is short and I have ton of shit to do.”
“Yes! Great idea! Come over for coffee and dessert . . . and bring Natalie I suppose,” she says.
“Thank you. We’ll make plans for later this week,” I say, knowing I won’t be here later this week. I pat her shoulder and dart inside the waiting elevator.
1100 hours
“Do you remember our last train ride together?” Natalie snuggles in my arms as I stare out the window toward the frozen Connecticut landscape.
“I’d rather associate trains with the first time we met. Tell me, ma femme, what do you remember about that day?” I ask, trying to lighten the moment.
Natalie lifts her head to look into my eyes. We’ve barely known each other for three months and most of that time has been spent on different continents – but when I catch that tiny glimpse of sincerity in her playful eyes, I’m certain that she is the realest thing I will ever know.
“Don’t laugh,” she says.
“Ooh, I can’t make that promise,” I tease.
She snuggles back into my arms and strokes my leg. “I’m not really the girlfriend type. Shit, I’ll probably never even be the marrying type! And knowing this about myself, I tend to label men in order to deal with my own deficiencies, ya know?”
I play with a loose curl around her shoulder and she continues. “Like, I’ve been with dicks with big dicks, mama’s boys, narcissistic playboys and one bi-polar musician that stole my jeans. Great sex, but I guess at a certain point, I get scared that they will realize I’m not that special.”
She looks at me again with tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “Zach, that day we met, you changed all that – you made me a star.” She fondles the little gold necklace around her neck and sighs. God, if only she knew what she did for me . . .
“Ma femme, tu es une lumière dans mes ténèbres et le plaisir de mon désespoir. Tu pense que tu es une étoile, mais tu es ma balise.”
“A beacon? That’s beautiful, Zach.”
The train stops in the little depot of Greenwich and as I reach in to kiss Nat, she quickly jumps up and slaps the window. “Holy shit! I told them not to embarrass us! Goddamn it. C’mon, you better pray there’s no bugle corps.”
I follow her annoyed gaze out the window to the station platform. Judy and Dave LeGrange are waving tiny American flags and holding a banner that says Welcome Home Lt. Parker.
“Natalie, it’s very sweet. Really, I like it.” She rolls her eyes in disbelief and takes my hand. We exit the train into a blast of cold air so I take a step in front of her to shield her from the bitter
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