(2)
—Originally publshed in The Roanoke Review, Fall 1996
Continued from page (1)
“We were petrified that you’d notice that the nap wasn’t
right,” Sam said. “We finally used white ink.”
Clarissa and Sam giggled.
Grace raised her eyebrows. “It’s all very well to laugh now. You
might have ruined the carpet.” She marched from the room. “Let’s get dinner.”
Sam grinned and tipped his head after her. “Tallulah Bankhead.” He
listened. Grace was in the kitchen. “So now comes the end of the We-of-Us and the time of endurance.”
Clarissa flushed. “This is not the end. Don’t say things like
that. We’ll always be hand-in-hand.” She turned away. “The time of endurance was supposed
to be while you were in those training places.” She looked at him steadily. “Now this.
Vietnam.”
A familiar chill ran up Sam’s spine. He didn’t want to think about
Vietnam yet.“History’s blind. We said a long time ago that it can stop you from progressing
and force you to endure.”
“It really threw a monkey wrench in the works this time. Oh, Sam, we’ve
been such enfants terribles. Now we have to grow up. Me a bride and you a soldier.”
“Love and war, right? Let’s not grow up yet. We still have tonight.”
She wrinkled her nose and winked—the yeah-let’s-do-it grin.
“God, we’re marvelous,” Sam said. “Both fault-free,
right?”
“You are. Other people, the detached ones, like Grace, pick out things
they don’t like, call them defects. I don’t see any defects. I just see Sam.”
“Sometimes we need the others to hold the mirror up to us. We don’t
do that for each other.”
Clarissa grunted. “Grace reflects enough flaws for three people.”
“She’s still haranguing?”
Clarissa nodded.
“She worries about us,” Sam said.
“She worries about me. She thinks you’ve done marvelously. I’m
the one who got kicked out.”
“It’s not fair,” Sam said. “You’re the smart one.”
“I could always see through the false mirrors to the other side. I’m
too smart for my own good.”
TOM'S TALES