Sweet Talk by Stephanie Vaughn

the sunlight, two young women strolling along the walk separated in order to pass us—parted like river water moving around an island. They were laughing and did not notice what the student held in his hand. “So,” said one of the women, “my mother calls me back to say they had to put the poor dog to sleep, and you know what she says?” The student and I turnedto hear what the mother had said. “She says, ‘And you know, Anita, that dog’s mind was still good. He wasn’t even senile.’ ”
    When the student turned back to me, he was smiling. “What a world,” he said. He extended his hand.
    “Thank you,” I said. “But I do not want that present.”
    We had begun to move again. I was walking slowly, trying to show with my easy pace that I was not afraid. Perhaps he was angry with me for something I had said in class. Perhaps he was on drugs.
    “It’s okay,” he said, “I have lots more.”
    “Really,” I said. “No, but thank you.”
    “If you don’t want this one, I can give you a better one.” He reached into the bag again.
    “How can you tell which is which?” I said calmly, as if I were inquiring about fishing lures or nuts and bolts or types of flower seed.
    “I can tell,” he said. “I’ve got this one memorized. This one’s a girl.” The girl, he told me, was thirteen. At first, the men in his outfit had taken pity on her and given her food and cigarettes. Then they learned that she was the one who planted mines around their encampment in the night.
    It took us a long time to cross the campus and shake hands and say good-bye. Two days later, the student left a bottle of vodka on my desk while I was out. Apparently he had been sincere in wanting to give me a present. I never saw the student again. I did notsee another war souvenir of that kind until after my brother returned from Vietnam.
    The autumn we lived at Fort Sill, our family ate five hundred doves. There was a fifty-day dove season, a ten-dove limit each day. Every night, my mother brought the birds to the table in a different guise. They were baked and braised and broiled. They were basted and stuffed, olive-oiled and gravied. But there were too many of them, each tiny and heart-shaped, the breastbone prominent in outline even under a sauce. Finally, a platter of doves was set before us and MacArthur said, “I am now helping myself to a tuna casserole. There is cheese in this casserole, and some cracker crumbs.” He passed the platter to me. “And what are you having, Gemma?”
    “I am having jumbo shrimps,” I said. “And some lemon.”
    In this way, the platter moved around the table. My mother was having lamb. My grandmother was having pork chops. My father hesitated before he took the meat fork. All his life, he had been shooting game for the dinner table. He believed he was teaching his family a lesson in economy and his son a lesson in wilderness survival. No one had ever made a joke about these meals. He looked at MacArthur. Although my father had never said it, MacArthur was exactly the kind of son he had hoped to have—tall and good-natured,smart and obedient, a boy who could hit a bull’s-eye on a paper target with his .22 rifle. “All right,” my father said at last. “I’m having a steak.”
    However, after dinner he said, “If you want to play a game, let’s play a real game. Let’s play twenty questions.” He took a pen from his pocket and flattened a paper napkin to use as a scorecard. He looked at MacArthur. “I am thinking of something. What is it?” We were all going to play this game, but my father’s look implied that MacArthur was the principal opponent.
    MacArthur tried to assume the gamesman’s bland expression. “Is it animal?” he said.
    My father appeared to think for a while. He mused at the candles. He considered the ceiling. This was part of the game, trying to throw the opponents off the trail. “Yes, it is animal.”
    “Is it a toad?” my grandmother said.
    “No, no,”