May 1956
"I'd better get going. You know how Donald will whine and moan that I never spend time with him. Honestly, he's really as bad as Frank Burns sometimes." Margaret turned to look at Helen, expecting her to laugh and make a joke about old Ferret Face. But Helen was watching her, not smiling, one eyebrow raised.
"Like Frank? Is that how you see him?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean that isn't the way you would talk about a husband you really loved and were happy with."
Something roiled in her stomach."And what would you know about it?"
She had hit a nerve: Helen's face went hurt, then angry, then totally blank. Her voice was dry, almost amused, when she said, "Do I need to have been married to know what it looks like from the outside?"
Margaret felt her anger crash over her like a wave. "For your information, Donald and I do love each other, even if it isn't exactly conventional, and either way my relationship with my husband is none of your damn business!" She was shouting now. "You've got no right to tell me how I do or don't feel, none at all. Sure, Donald and I fight now and again, but that doesn't mean we don't care about each other, that's just part of being married; it's sticking together even when your hours are long and you're always tired and things aren't as perfect as they used to be."
"Oh, you mean like it was during the war?" Silence.
"Goddamn you, Helen Whitfield." It came out as nearly a whisper.
Helen sighed. Stepped towards her, hands raised. "Look, Margaret, I'm not going to lie to you—"
"Then don't say anything at all!" Margaret grabbed her coat and ran out the door before she could do anything she might regret; ran out into the night and somehow back to the house that still felt empty; burning up with anger inside, because what did Helen mean, that she wasn't going to lie? What had she been lying about? Where the hell did she get off talking to her like that— as though Margaret hadn't been happy for Helen no matter who she ended up with, even if she always wished that it was her instead of the other person? And what was the matter with her, that Helen's opinion still mattered after all this time?
Then she'd walked in the house and Donald had said great news, honey, they're thinking of reassigning us to Fort Dix and there might be a promotion in it for me, with that tentative look on his face like maybe he was bracing himself for a fight, and she'd given it to him, but in the end she'd said fuck it let's try, let's try again. I want to try. Because what did Helen know about it anyway?
Three hours later in the bathtub, she'd been fantasizing about running back to Helen's apartment and saying, See? See? I love Donald enough that I would give up my job and move across the country.
The thought had come unbidden: And I loved you enough to put my career on the line too. I would do it again if I had to. I would still do it now. If I had to, I would—
*******
Helen knocks on the door. "Hey, Houlihan, you fall in or what?"
Margaret starts and turns the water off. "I'm coming! Hold your horses." She's been living in Helen's apartment for the last three weeks. They haven't talked about the fight. The closest they've come was the night Margaret showed up at Helen's door after two weeks of avoiding each other, and said, "Can I come inside?" Helen had taken one look at her (a single bulging suitcase, Oliver in tow behind her, still in her work clothes) and let her inside without asking for an explanation.
Helen had just hugged her quickly and said, "You're just in time. Drop your stuff in the guest room and come have something to eat."
It's been a month and Margaret is getting sick of the not-talking-about-it. Instead, she goes to work. Yells at the new residents with no sense of discipline. Takes care of people. Comes home and talks to Helen about literally anything other than the fight (lawyers, meetings, jobs, dog food, visiting colonels, whether or not it would be stupid to send a letter to Donald's mother detailing everything that's wrong with her). She takes Oliver on long walks through the city. Obsesses over what Donald might be doing. Overanalyzes everything that Helen does and says until she gets so antsy that she needs to walk the dog again.
She consults other lawyers, but doesn't like any of them. One's a jackass, one ogles her, another bears an unfortunate resemblance to a flounder in a bespoke suit. A fourth stammers and gets defensive when she questions his methods. If she has to pick one, she'll take the two lunatics.
"Margaret, you really had me worried there," says Hawkeye happily when she finally comes back to their office. "I thought maybe that dead fish Hallan had fooled you with his nice outfits."
"What's wrong with him?" she asks, more to see what Hawkeye will say than to defend him.
"What's wrong with him? Listen, if lawyers were animals, he'd be a naked mole rat."
BJ jumps in: "If lawyers were plants, he'd be poison oak."
"If lawyers were smells, he'd be unwashed army skivvies."
"If lawyers were inventive practical jokes, he'd be a joy buzz—"
"Alright, I get the picture."
The papers have been served and all there's left to do is wait for them to come up with a plan. All this waiting is making her crack. Living so close to Helen was hard enough even with the constant stresses of war and her marriage. Now, with nothing to distract her, everything seems to set her on fire. It's all little things: they eat breakfast together; Helen drinks tea on weekends and takes her toast almost burnt. They leave for work about ten minutes apart, and Margaret gets home half an hour later. Helen takes ten-minute showers when she gets home from work, and still has the same set of curlers she's owned since Margaret met her in Fort Benning. Sometimes they play cards after dinner, but even better is when they get home and eat in time to settle down and watch the news at seven, because Helen will make fun of the news anchors all through the commercial breaks, and her Virginia accent gets stronger when she's worked up about politics. On Saturdays they go for long, aimless walks through the city; at night they go out for dinner and dance without a drop of alcohol to make them brave, and return home alone but together. And every night, without fail, they wish each other goodnight. Every night, Margaret lays awake trying to sense Helen through the wall, wondering if she's thinking about her, if she notices all the little things that Margaret does too. If all this is making her crazy too.
She is close enough to the life she's been dreaming of for the last five years that she can touch it. So something's got to change before she can say anything stupid.
She decides to ask Hawkeye and BJ if they know of any apartments for rent, which might not be part of their job description, but then again, she's pretty sure the "coleslaw guy" actually supplies them with hard drugs to plant on cheating spouses, so they really can't make excuses. She's about to dial their number when the phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Margaret, is that you?"
"BJ! Hi! I was just about to call you and ask—"
"Listen, can you come down to the office? I think we've figured out how to get a clean case for abandonment, only we need another person to help us sort through all the paper."
"Paper? What— why do I even bother? Never mind. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Hawkeye opens the door, tie (bright blue, printed with little sailboats) loosened and sleeves rolled up. Behind him, BJ is carrying a second phone into the office but keeps tripping over the wires. "Margaret! My second-favorite woman!"
She doesn't dignify this with an eyeroll, just muscles past Hawkeye and picks up the cord before BJ can fall and break his jaw. "Tell me the plan, you germ." She won't admit it, but she's excited. She feels a part of something bigger than her little world for the first time in years.
Hawkeye sighs and follows them into the office. "Killjoy. Well, to make a long story short, we're going to try and get your soon-to-be-a-distant-memory husband reassigned to Fort Dix at the end of this week."
"But he's not due to ship out for another two months!" she cries.
He nods impatiently. "That's exactly why we need him out early. If he leaves now— and this is very important; if he leaves without telling you— we can get him on abandonment."
"Hawkeye, he'll never agree to that. He'll make a fuss and dig his heels in and make calls to his superiors so he can stay longer… It's not going to work."
"Unless he already agreed to it," BJ says smugly.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we've spoken to his lawyer, and it turns out that Donald is not one hundred percent scum—"
"Only about ninety-eight-point-seven," Hawkeye adds.
"—because he's agreed to go along early, without a fuss," BJ finishes.
"But isn't it illegal to get a divorce if the other party is guilty too?"
"Yeah, but the court doesn't need to know that he's in on the plan. As long as Donald doesn't tell you when he's leaving, and as long as everyone coordinates their stories, we can make this work."
Margaret instinctively balks at the idea. "I don't want to lie."
Hawkeye huffs. He plants his hands on the desk and snaps, "Look, do you want a divorce or not? I don't like making stuff up; that wasn't what I went to school for and it's not what I spent most of my life after school doing. It's downright stupid that we have to lie, when you think about it, I mean, people shouldn't have to cook up wild stories and arrange for adultery and bribe witnesses just because they aren't happy anymore. I mean, we might go out of business if the state ever became no-fault, but I think I could sell my car if it meant more happy people."
"You don't drive," BJ mumbles behind him.
Hawkeye scoffs. "You know what I mean."
BJ sighs and nods. "Yeah, I do. It's submoronic, but it's what we've got to work with. Listen, you've got to trust us, Margaret. This kind of thing happens in more divorce cases than you think. Besides, lying to official people is our bread and butter. We know what we're doing."
She looks at Hawkeye, who is easier to read, and folds her arms: I want this to work so badly that I don't think I can handle a failure. I've been waiting for this a long time. He stares back at her and spreads his hands: So what are you waiting for?
"Okay. Tell me your stupid plan."
Hawkeye gives her a little smile. She thinks he's being sincere. "It's simple, really. First, we need to know who Donald's boss is here at the Presidio."
"General Sam Ridgeway. But he doesn't take calls unless they're very important—"
"That's okay. We don't need to actually call him; we just need to pretend to be him." She's about to splutter something about impersonating a general probably being a felony, but BJ rolls on. "Next we need to get through to Fort Dix and speak to… whoever's in charge."
Her heart sinks. "General Art Fluger, but—"
"Terrific." Hawkeye scribbles something down on a piece of paper. "So then we call Fluger, pretend to be Ridgeway, and get Donald reassigned early."
"Would you two shut up and listen to me?! It won't work! Fluger and Ridgeway have known each other since the first World War! They're not going to be fooled by a couple of twerps in San Francisco!"
They're all silent for a second before Hawkeye frowns. "Hang on. How do you know this?"
Margaret sighs and rubs her temples. "My father's known them both for years. Ridgeway and his wife used to play bridge with my parents when we were stationed at Fort Dix— my father was better than Sam, but sometimes he lost on purpose. And I've known General Fluger since I was a little girl; he came to my second birthday party." She laughs, remembering. "He sounds like a foghorn… I think some of the guests went deaf when he sang Happy Birthday. He was always paranoid that my father was making eyes at his wife." She deepens her voice: "Watch your women like hawks, that's what I always say! My mother used to laugh at that, although it wasn't really funny."
The lawyers exchange a look. BJ raises an eyebrow. "Think that's enough to go on?"
"I don't see why not."
She throws her arms in the air, but she can feel that they've made up their minds. "You can't pretend to be a man you've never met!"
Hawkeye is already heading to the phone and kicking back in his chair. "Why not? I know he sounds like a foghorn, he's sort of a jackass, if you'll pardon my Français, he's paranoid about his wife, who's named, uh…"
"Anna, but it doesn't matter! They have each other's private numbers, they don't go through regular channels!"
Hawkeye appears totally unfazed by this news. "Hm. So all we have to do is get their private numbers. Beej! Break out the magic box!"
"What the hell is that?"
"It's where we keep all the names and numbers of anyone who owes us favors," BJ explains, fishing a little blue box out of the depths of Hawkeye's desk. It's filled with index cards, which don't appear to be in any particular order. "Lotta of army people in here. One of them has got to know how to get Ridgeway on the phone." He inverts the box and cards shower down onto the table. Margaret stares at him in mingled horror and fascination. He smiles, evidently oblivious to the inefficiency of this method. "Well, now you know why we asked you to come," he says cheerfully. "Let's get cracking. Hawk, you call first and I'll listen on the other line."
An hour and a half later, BJ is sitting on the carpet with his legs crossed, shelling pistachios and trying to catch them in his mouth. Next to him, Margaret has taken off her shoes and is alphabetizing the unused cards. Hawkeye has lost his tie and is lying face-up on his desk. The floor is covered with discarded index cards.
"Sorry I made you waste all those favors," she says quietly.
"Nah, don't worry about it," BJ says and pats her hand. "We don't count the favor as returned unless they can actually do something for us. One day we'll need a pallet of Spam, and that supply sergeant in Guam will be freed of his debt to us."
Hawkeye suddenly sits bolt upright. "Sam Kelsey," he mumbles, and dives back into his desk.
"Who's he?" Margaret looks at BJ, expecting him to give her a rundown on Sam Kelsey's case and whatever scheme they used to win, but he only frowns.
"Beats me. Hawk, who is this guy?"
"He's a doctor, army comma regular. He was at Fort Dix before the war, used to do house calls for all the big brass. When I knew him— goddammit, I need a new desk— he was a captain stationed near Seoul. Met him the— nope, wrong drawer— first time I went to Tokyo on R and R. Boy, was that a weekend to remember, if you know what I mea— aha! There you are, my sweet." He emerges with a dirty scrap of paper and waggles his eyebrows at them. "Let's see if I've still got the touch." He flops into his chair and kicks his feet up onto the desk as he dials.
"Hi-iiii. Is this Sam Kelsey? Hawkeye Pierce speaking." He has a gigantic grin on his face. "Oh, I'm in San Francisco these days in the divorce business. Yeah… Ha! No, not yet, but I'm holding out for one of my own… Now how about you? Uh-huh. New York! That's terrific! Best city— ah, you remember that! Yeah, well, what can I say…" He laughs. "Exactly!"
She turns to BJ and murmurs, "You think this guy will have the number?" BJ shrugs without looking away from Hawkeye, still happily making small talk.
"Guess we'll have to see. Hawkeye seems to have a good feeling about it, though." He keeps his voice neutral, but he looks like he could reach through the phone and cheerfully strangle Sam Kelsey without breaking a sweat.
Margaret tunes back in to what Hawkeye is saying. "…Listen, Sam, I called because I need a favor. One of my clients needs to reach General Fluger at Fort Dix. Yeah— no, no, I need his private number… It's kind of a long story. Look, I know it's kind of a long shot, but at this point I'll be over the moon if you could even give me the number of someone who knows the number." He pauses. When he speaks again, he's grinning even wider than before. "No kidding. Sam, you're a life-saver. Wait a minute, wait a minute, I need a pen— okay, shoot." He scribbles something on the inside of his arm instead of using one of the many pieces of paper on his desk. "Got it. Look, I'm really serious, I'll never forget you for this. Well, not that I had before…" He laughs again. "Right. Listen, thanks again. Okay. Bye now!"
BJ crosses the room to perch on the edge of the desk where Hawkeye is sitting. "Sam came through for you, huh?"
"Yeah, he really—" He must hear something that Margaret can't in BJ's voice, because Hawkeye cuts himself off abruptly and stares at BJ.
"Beej," he says very seriously.
"What?"
"You and your crazy complexes," he says, starting to laugh. "Listen, I knew him for all of two days, and I was the one who broke his heart. Besides—" he pats BJ's hand and smiles up at him. "—you know I only have eyes for you, darling." It's a joke, she thinks. And then BJ relaxes almost imperceptibly and smiles back, a little rueful, and she knows it isn't really a joke. Something about it is making her chest hurt, so she clears her throat as loudly as possible.
"Can we call the general now?"
Margaret and Hawkeye perch on the arms of the desk chair as BJ dials the number. She reaches around to grab at Hawkeye's arm for balance; it strikes her suddenly that this is maybe closer than she should be to two unmarried men she only met a month ago. But then she remembers their joke, and Helen, so maybe she has nothing to worry about. "Art!" BJ bellows into the phone. "Is that you? Whaddaya mean, who the hell is this? It's Sam!" There's a long, tense pause as they strain to hear Fluger's response. Margaret quadruple-crosses her fingers. Hawkeye shifts around next to her, probably trying to cross his toes.
At last, BJ relaxes and gives them a thumbs-up. She sighs in relief, but Hawkeye grabs her arm and whispers, "It's not over until the fat guy sings the national anthem."
"HA!" BJ roars and she nearly falls off her end of the chair. "That's what I always say, that's what I always say!" He hops up and paces the office.
"Listen, Fluger, I gotta request for you. I've got a Lieutenant Colonel here, a Donald Penobscot… yeah, that's the one. Uh-huh. He's got orders for six weeks, right? Yeah, well, I want that hairy earthworm out of my base before he tries to make eyes at my Anna again!… You know these goddamn West Point types! You give 'em a comfortable job in a damn good city, and before you know it, they're acting like they gave you the position!"
Margaret clamps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. She darts a look over at Hawkeye: he's grinning, proud at BJ's deviousness, or maybe just that his plan is working.
"HA! RIGHT!" BJ yells again. "Okay, Art. We'll see each other soon! Give your old lady my regards."
They whoop and cheer and dance around the room. BJ lifts her into the air and twirls her around, and then Hawkeye insists on trying to do the Lindy with her. Once they're sitting on the floor, wrung out with simple joy, Margaret remembers what she came for.
"Do either of you know any apartments for rent?"
*******
It turns out that BJ's ex-wife is a real estate agent with a lot of connections. Two weeks later, Margaret moves into a little apartment near the Art Institute in Russian Hill, with Helen's help. As soon as the furniture is hauled up the stairs and the movers have sped off, she insists on cleaning the floor before they can start moving things in. Helen doesn't seem surprised by this. Just sighs, "Okay, Major," and rolls her sleeves up past her elbows.
About halfway through the boxes, Margaret takes a break to crack the kitchen window. It takes a while for her to work it open— the sash sticks, but that's easy enough to fix— but she manages to make enough space to fit her head through. She looks out at a postage-stamp backyard. Beyond that, buildings; beyond that, the sky. Maybe if she stays here for a few minutes longer, she'll feel the breeze off San Francisco Bay. She hears Helen come in behind her.
"Anything good?"
"Not much of a view, but at least I don't have to share it." She turns. Helen is looking at her— almost sad. Margaret opens her mouth to ask her what's the matter. But the look vanishes and somehow Helen tucks it away so neatly and beautifully, it's as though the feeling was never there at all.
"I'll put this one in the bedroom," she says as she moves out of the kitchen. Margaret watches her go. Had it been sadness or pity? Does Helen pity her? The thought makes her want to scream. She walks back out into the hallway.
They move the next few boxes in silence as Margaret seethes. She doesn't want anyone's pity; she's better off on her own, and it's stupid because it isn't Helen's fault, but she's angry because stupid Helen just doesn't know, she never will. Not about any of it. And now Helen's probably thinking about their fight, and how Margaret is too much of a coward to talk about it, and how Helen was just trying to tell her the truth but then stupid, hot-headed, stubborn Margaret blew up at her. (She wonders if she's angrier at Helen or herself.) And she's angry because she wishes she could hide things away like Helen instead of blowing up, she wants to go back and do things differently, she wants to—
"You want help with that? Looks heavy."
Margaret doesn't know why. She's straining to keep the box in her arms from falling onto the kitchen floor. It's too heavy for one person. She knows that.
But she says, as if from very far away: "No, I can do it."
"Are you sure? Let me help."
Helen reaches out to take the box. Margaret jerks away. "No, I said I can do it." Her arms don't seem to be connected to her body anymore; her brain is screaming LET GO! and her fingers tighten on the cardboard saying we've got to do it alone and her legs twitch backwards saying we've got to get out of here.
Helen grabs it, and Margaret pulls back. The box slips from both their hands and explodes in a flurry of paper on the floor.
They stare. Margaret takes a step back. Her legs mean to take her out the door and down to the street, but her back hits the kitchen wall instead. And just like that, she sits down on the floor and starts to cry.
"Margaret, Margaret, what's the matter?" Helen slides down the wall to sit next to her. Puts an arm around her shoulder. Margaret can't feel it.
"What do you mean, what's the matter?" she sobs. "Everything just spilled all over the place!"
"Margaret, it's alright, we can fix it. We'll pick it all up."
"It's not alright!"
"It's only paper." Helen strokes her hair.
"No, it's not alright, I'm a mess and you're so neat."
"Me, neat? I think you've got the wrong Helen! I mean, compared to you, I'm practically a teenage boy."
"No, you're not, you've just got no idea, I mean you're neat and I'm— I'm leaking things all over the place, I can't hold it in, it's all just spilling out and I— I can't control it all anymore, it's all just—"
"Okay. Okay." Helen pulls her in. She stays there for a long time. Face pressed into Helen's collarbone. Gasping in mouthfuls of air and sweat and perfume. No desire, no aching want, no romance. Just the assurance that somebody loves her enough to sit on the kitchen floor and hold her until their arms cramp.
At last Margaret sits up, scrubs at her cheeks, sniffs. She doesn't allow herself to think about the little pang of loss she feels at dislodging Helen's cheek from where it's been resting on the top of her head."I hate crying." The late-May light has begun to shift. "Can we clean this shit up?"
She feels rather than sees Helen's answering half-smile. "Yeah. This place is a mess." They fall back into a familiar pattern as they pack diaries, recipes, account books, stationery; Margaret directing and Helen ignoring any orders she deems unnecessarily picky or inefficient. Finally all that's left is the mass of letters spilling their contents across the tile, and they fall into a comfortable silence as they clean.
"Margaret?"
"Yeah."
"Are these all from me?" She holds up a stack of envelopes, all with the same looping handwriting addressing them to Maj. Margaret Houlihan.
"Yes." She doesn't need to say it: I saved every single one you sent me.
"God, this is— what, six months worth, and I wrote you once a week… how are there so many?"
"Well, I didn't just keep the ones from the war. I have all the ones from after I left Fort Benning, too. That's a few years' worth. See? That one's from before I even became a major." Helen laughs a little, almost awed. Margaret tries hard to sound nonchalant, as though it's possible to be careless about saving everything someone's ever given you. She reaches over to grab another from the pile near Helen's feet. "And this one— February '54— that's the first one you sent me when you came to California.
"God, I didn't even have my own place, look—" Helen points at the return address. There's a small scar at the base of her right index finger. It's new. "You know, that's a special kind of punishment, moving out near your best friend, and then having to live for two weeks at your little brother's house instead." Best friend. Don't analyze. Change the subject.
"Besides, you wrote more than once a week when you first got back. See, these ones—" she lifts two more from the floor."These are both written around the end of November '52. Postmarked within a week of each other."
Helen takes the tattered envelopes. Turns them over and over in her hands. Margaret is inexplicably nervous."How come these ones are so beat-up?"
"That's because I carried the first few around folded up in my pocket, until they were nearly falling apart."
Helen is giving her a strange look: amusement? Confusion? Is that nervousness? "So what did you do with the later ones?" Her voice is rough and low.
"I had to stop carrying the letters around when I nearly lost one in OR. Klinger rescued it from falling into a puddle of blood. After that… after that I just read them in my tent." I read them until I had them memorized. "That's why the rest are in much better condition."
The pile's almost cleaned. Helen doesn't try to sort them— she knows that anyone who tries to help will only end up destroying Margaret's hyperspecific organization system. Margaret loves her for this, for how she knows this without having to be told.
Helen mumbles almost to herself. "There are so many… what did I say in all of them?" Margaret tries to find something that won't hurt too much to talk about. But her mind is suddenly blank, and she can only remember the things that Helen didn't say in her letters.
She'd spent the last seven months of the war trying to read between the lines of Helen's letters, wondering what she was leaving out. Sometimes Margaret heard her own voice in her ears: Don't you think I want to believe you? I can't afford to take a chance. She still didn't know how to help Helen. Wishing that she could was making her sick, although that could have just been the war finally beginning to take its toll on her body. She didn't think it really mattered— either way she stayed awake long into the night, wishing things were different.
So she made up her own story and gave it a happy ending. It started like this: Helen is safe. She doesn't have bad dreams every night anymore. I get to see her before I turn forty. At some point other people vanished from the story. It became: One of us gets a dog. Helen's hair starts to go gray at the temples. It ended like this: We aren't much for elaborate meals, being regular army, and sometimes we eat leftover pie for breakfast. Once a year we go camping and we don't board the dogs, we take them with us. It was just a story, but it was as real as any imagined future could be.
She almost says: Do you want to hear a story?
But that'll ruin the tentative peace they have going. So she just says quietly: "You had a lot to tell me."
"I don't think I want to know what I told you." Helen turns away. Hauls the box onto the counter. Fiddles with the papers inside. It sounds like a joke that isn't really a joke. Like an invitation. Like maybe Helen just doesn't know how to ask.
She speaks without thinking: "Dear Margaret, don't be mad, but you still owe me three dollars and nineteen cents." Helen spins around to look at her; Margaret feels her face heat. "I mean. That's what you said in the first letter."
"Oh, yeah?" She looks delighted. The expression makes something in Margaret's chest kick. "You got that memorized?"
"I— let me try." Margaret closes her eyes. "I was so strung out that I forgot to remind you when I left… and then you talked about your family for a little bit. Your mother cried… and then you said: 'It's not easy. Sometimes I have dreams that I don't think anyone but me would ever understand…"She opens her eyes. Helen is still looking at her. " 'But I've really made a lot of progress. I'm not afraid anymore. It's not so difficult to admit you're an alcoholic when there are many others here who are.' That's all I remember."
Helen grins. "That's all? Really? You don't remember the whole thing after three and a half years? What the hell did they teach you in the army anyway?"
Margaret tries hard not to smile, she really does. But it breaks through like it always does around Helen, and for a moment, she can feel something between them, like a magnet drawing them closer and closer until their edges snap together— she blinks, and the moment passes. Uncertainty creeps back in.
She clears her throat. There's still time to be brave. "Whitfield, you've got no ground to stand on. I'll bet five dollars you still have all my letters too." She hopes the teasing bravado will mask the real question: did you think of me as often as I thought of you?
Helen laughs a little. "That's no good, you know that I do." She sounds unbearably fond. It's almost too much honesty for us, Margaret thinks. Helen must be thinking the same thing, because her smile changes into something sharper and she says, "Now if you really wanted to bet, you'd put money on where I keep them."
"Alright, let me think." She follows Helen into the future living room where they've dropped their coats. "Okay. Five dollars on a shoebox… under your bed."
She grins and swings her jacket over her shoulders. Somehow she makes it look dashing. "Nope! I keep 'em in my vanity table with all my lotions and love potions."
"Damn!"
"That's okay, kiddo. You can buy me dinner and we'll call it even. I'm in the mood for pizza, if you were wondering."
Margaret rolls her eyes as they walk out of the apartment. "I'm still only a year younger than you," she returns, as she has every time since Helen first said this to her, a lifetime ago in Fort Benning, fresh out of nursing school; as she has every time since Helen hopped out of the Jeep in her Class A's into a puddle of Korean mud and said Houlihan! Did you miss me, kiddo?
As they stand in line at the pizza place, Helen hums along to the song on the jukebox: I used to lie awake and wonder if there could be a someone in this wide world… They're strangely quiet, an island of calm amid the shouting cooks and laughing families and giggling couples. It's as though they're alone together. Helen's hair shines in the light. Margaret pretends to study the overhead menu and watches her out of the corner of her eye. She imagines a world in which this is her real life, in which she is brave enough to confess her love in a crowded room on a Sunday night. Of course, she's too pragmatic for that even in her daydreams, so instead she imagines leaning into Helen's shoulder and saying:
I lied to him for you, did you know that? Of course you don't, how could you? I never said. Don't worry, he couldn't get me in court, because of course I didn't really lie. I just implied that you were sent home for a medical condition instead of alcohol, and that fucking moron never questioned me when he should have and always asked questions when there was nothing to say. So naturally he believed me. I'm not ashamed of you, Helen, I don't want you to think that I am. But if he knew you were an alcoholic, he would have said you were a bad influence, or you had loose morals, and he would have kept me from seeing you ever again. He would have said all kinds of terrible things and then I— well. I don't know what I would have done. I don't like to think about it. Probably something stupid. It's still a confession of love, now that she thinks about it.
They're still quiet on the walk back. But when they get back to the apartment, by some unspoken pact, they agree not to talk about the box of letters. Even best friends have their limits for how much serious discussion can be done in a day.
Instead, they eat pizza on the floor and Margaret tries to tell Helen that she'll spoil the dog by feeding him her crust, and Helen points out that she's a gigantic hypocrite because Oliver eats table scraps at every meal already. They argue about whether Katharine Hepburn was better in The Philadelphia Story or Bringing Up Baby. (After Korea, I must have seen it two hundred times. You can't have seen it two hundred times. Don't be pedantic. No, really, let's do the math, if you saw a movie once a week for three years… Oh, Helen, you know I got a B in calculus.) The argument quickly devolves into a contest to see who remembers Bringing Up Baby better, which means they re-enact the movie in the kitchen and lose one cent every time they mess up a line, until Helen insists on getting a fuzzy robe "as an homage to one of the greatest performances of our time," which is really just to make Margaret smile. It works, because she laughs so hard that she loses two dollars.
They switch to playing gin on top of the empty pizza box and gossiping about Helen's coworkers until they remember they have work the next day and Helen decides she'd better get going. For the first time in six weeks, Margaret falls asleep on the sofa and does not dream.
Margaret lasts a whole five days in her new apartment before it hits her. One minute she's home for lunch like always, fixing herself a sandwich and feeding stray bits of chicken to Oliver, and the next she's realizing that this is her life now, this little apartment that she owns by herself and shares with her dog. She sits at her new dining table and starts chewing her nails, all appetite gone. Maybe this has all been a gigantic mistake. Maybe she should go to the airport and find out when Donald's departing so she can run after him. She feels like maybe she's dead, or like she could kick herself in the teeth, or like she could punch a hole through the Presidio Wall. Before she can talk herself into a full-scale meltdown, she runs to the phone and dials the first number that her fingers remember.
He picks up on the third ring. "Maaaahhhgret! You've caught me at an opportune time. I've just finished taking the department of orthopedic surgery to the cleaners. Those mallet-wielding meatheads never saw my triple flush coming! You should have seen it, they were—"
"Charles, I didn't call to listen to you chortle. I have news."
"Oh?" His voice drops to nearly a whisper. "What sort of news?"
"I'm getting divorced."
"Oh." There's a pause. "I, ah— I'm sorry to hear that," he says at a normal volume, not sounding sorry at all."
"No, you aren't, and neither am I. I'll have you know that I was the one who left him. A whole month ago."
A tremendous sigh of relief. "Thank God. I never liked him. It seems to be an entrance requirement at West Point to have the cognitive function of industrial-grade rubber. That's why I've always been suspicious of West Point men."
She rolls her eyes. "Sure you are, Charles."
"I'm quite serious. And that unibrow was…" An explosive little snort. Margaret finds herself smiling. "Well, the less said about it the better. But what about you? Are you… alright?"
"More or less. I've found a lawyer— well, two lawyers, really. They're funny. I think you'd hate them." Charles splutters, but she cuts him off before he can make any snarky comments about her base sense of humor. "I was staying with Helen for a bit, but now I've got a place of my own. It's small, but it's close to a park, so at least I can take the dog on walks."
She expects him to make a comment about her tiny apartment, or recommend that she see a lawyer with a Harvard degree. But instead he says: "Helen Whitfield?" The line hisses faintly. "Are you sure that was prudent?"
"What do you mean, prudent? What's wrong with Helen? Are you insinuating that there's something wrong with her?"
"Maahgret, will you calm down? There's nothing wrong with Captain Whitfield. I was merely referring to the fact of… your history with her. And so soon after… the troglodyte." He doesn't elaborate— but then, he doesn't need to. They've spoken about their "inclinations" (Charles' word) only once, when they were both blind drunk at 2 AM in the O Club. Neither of them is anxious to repeat the experience without alcohol. He was the only person in camp who knew what she was (except Klinger, probably, who brought her two letters from Helen every week and always gave her a knowing look when she snatched them from his hands, although they both pretended that he didn't).
"It's fine, Charles. I'm not an idiot. Really. How's Nathan?"
Thankfully, Charles is all too happy to talk about himself (and his boyfriend). "Besides the incurable defect of teaching at Yale?" He pronounces the word in the same tone of voice that he would say Kansas or Roosevelt. "Nathan is doing quite well. The school of drama is thinking about putting him up for tenure, you know." He's in the middle of a blow-by-blow retelling of their latest argument over Foucault when he's cut off by his secretary.
"You'll have to excuse me," he says, sounding extremely put out. "One of my patients has ripped his own stitches out. Apparently he thought that he would be able to go home despite the fact that he is currently urinating through a catheter."
"Alright, go deal with your patient. We'll talk again soon."
"Alright. Maahgret?"
"Yes?"
He hesitates before saying, "You sound yourself again, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Just… happier."
A long pause. "Thanks, Charles," she says. Her voice sounds soft and— yes, happy. So she clears her throat loudly and snaps, "Isn't your patient dying? What are you doing on the phone?"
Heavy sigh, a crackle of static. "Good-bye, Maahgret." Click. Margaret smiles as she hangs up the phone.
She's rummaging around in search of something already cooked when she notices something white poking out from under the fridge. She crouches down to slide it out: an envelope addressed to Maj. Margaret Houlihan. She unfolds the letter inside (dated December 3, 1952) and finds herself mouthing the words as she reads:
Dear Margaret,
You asked me what I dream about in your last letter. Sometimes I dream of hellfire and damnation, but I guess that could just be the war, and not God after all. And sometimes I dream that you and I are getting dressed up to go out to the theater, but then we step outside and goddamn if the Koreans aren't shelling Broadway and you get ash on your green dress. You're still a knockout, though. I don't know why I'm telling you all this— but you're my best friend, and if I can't tell you, then who can I tell?
I guess I'm making this all sound pretty bad. It really isn't. I'm making steady steps, as my mother says. It's been wonderful to see my parents again, and do little stupid things like get up at 9 on Sundays and buy fruit that isn't canned. Do you remember my brother Andy? His company wants him to move out to California soon. If you and Donald end up there after the war, I'll come visit you both. (You and Andy, not you and Donald.) I'm going to miss him like hell. [An illegible scribble, something crossed out.] I miss you. I hope you're doing alright. Give my love to Potter and Klinger. Write back if you have time.
Yours always, Helen.
The sky is just beginning to fade from black to deep blue when Margaret takes the dog out the next morning. She's in a fugue, hasn't managed to shake last night's dream— if she closes her eyes, she thinks she could slip back into the dream-world, back to a universe that let her hang her feet off the side of a train car and peel an orange to share with Helen, bright and laughing in a green dress besides her. Thinking about it makes her feel lonely. Her body is running on automatic, so she lets Oliver drag her down the street.
She watches her own feet as they move her along, as they follow Oliver down the street, as they stop at a crosswalk. I'm doing alright, I'm moving along, she thinks. They stop under a tree. She looks around— when did everything get so green? Cars rumble around them. San Francisco is starting to wake up. Oliver raises his head as a bakery truck rolls by them.
This could be enough. I'm successful. I'm content. I don't need to sit on top of a train and peel oranges. Maybe it's just residue from the dream, but the thought doesn't seem as convincing as it once did. She looks up at the sky, starting to lighten to pale yellow at its edges. Takes a deep breath. Knows that there will be no going back once she allows herself to think about it, and thinks it anyway:
What if I want more?