Still June 1956
"Huh," says BJ when she's finally exhausted her explanation. "No wonder you wanted a divorce."
"What does that mean?" They're all sitting on the table now; BJ's legs kicked up on a chair, Hawkeye lounging in the middle and reclining on his elbows, Margaret with her ankles neatly crossed.
"It means Donald was dissatisfactory in more ways than we thought, that's all. It doesn't matter, though; we love you anyway, Margaret," says Hawkeye and pats her arm.
She pulls back and looks at him, not sure if he's joking. She doesn't know what she'll do if he is. "You're not… I don't know."
"Are you nuts? Why would I have a problem with you being in love with someone? Well, I guess you could have said you were in love with BJ— then we'd have a problem. I sit corrected."
She relaxes a little, but only a little."That's disgusting."
BJ jumps in. "I'm not disgusting! I'll have you know I shower every other day. Or three. Or was it four?"
"I'm not talking to you, Hunnicutt. And anyway, Hawkeye, you know what I meant, so don't be difficult."
"Okay, okay, Jesus. I know what you meant; I won't be difficult. From here on out, I swear to be easy, and nothing but easy," he says with one hand raised. He squeezes her shoulder with his other hand, and then Margaret really does relax. She's about to smile at him, but he ruins the moment by grinning like he's about to make a dirty joke, so she silences him pre-emptively with a nasty look and a "Think before you speak, Pierce."
BJ speaks suddenly. "Margaret?"
"Yeah."
"About Helen. Is she…" BJ trails off and looks at her meaningfully.
"No. Well, probably not. No. I don't know."
"No or you don't know?"
"Both! I don't know. Why are you asking me stupid questions?"
BJ shrugs. "We could find out."
"Wh— You are not hiring a private investigator to spy on Helen! I won't allow it!"
"I never said I was hiring anyone. I meant that we—" he gestures between Hawkeye and himself. "—could find out. Discreetly."
"You?" She snorts. "You clowns wouldn't know discreet if it bit you on the nose!"
Hawkeye draws himself up indignantly. "We would too. Besides, I have an excellent instinct for this sort of thing. Him—" he waves a hand at BJ. "He's okay at it, but me? I'm reigning champion of Manhattan."
"You're from Maine."
"Yeah, but there's nobody with secrets from me in Crabapple Cove. I learned most of what I knew in college."
It's too much already, all this talk of things she's been hiding her whole life, and her stomach twists in anxiety."Can we talk about something else?"
Hawkeye looks like he's going to protest, but BJ cuts him off. "Sure," he says amiably. "How's this: once upon a few weeks ago, a woman announced that she was intending to leave her very rich husband."
"Aw, I hate this one," Hawkeye groans.
Margaret ignores him. "Simple enough. Isn't that your job?"
"Don't interrupt," says Hawkeye, "and this is probably, definitely, not part of our job." It turns out that the woman, whose name is Amelia, is making a case for divorce by getting her husband convicted of manslaughter. The rich man, whose name is Brian Sullivan, killed a woman in a car accident a few months previously. There were no witnesses except Amelia, who was in the passenger seat at the time. She has asked Pierce and Hunnicutt, Attorneys at Law, to help her out in getting to him to confess. Sullivan is extremely superstitious, so Hawkeye and BJ have decided to try and scare him into confessing using a ghost.
"Well, not a real ghost," says BJ, who has gotten up to pace during the explanation. "A fake one."
"Someone has to dress up in the dead woman's clothing— or clothing that looks like what the dead woman wore— and tell him to repent," Hawkeye explains, as though this is all very sensible.
"This— well, first of all, this is blackmail. Second of all, this is the stupidest plan I've ever heard."
BJ shrugs. "We're hoping the latent Catholic guilt will kick in."
Margaret puts her head into her hands and wonders if they were dropped on their heads as children. "How are you even going to get someone to look like a ghost?"
"My friend Leo Bardonaro is in the special-effects business. We were part of the same fraternity at Stanford. He used to be in charge of making sure we had the best Halloween parties on campus. Now he makes all these weird props for the movies— flying saucers, tiny cities, fake bodies, that kind of thing. Damn good at it, too."
Hawkeye rolls his eyes at this for some reason, and interrupts before BJ can say anything more about Leo: "Anyway, we have everything but the ghost for Friday night."
"So get into a dress and do it yourself."
"Can't. The ghost has to yell and wail, and we both aged out of singing soprano parts years ago."
"Then get Peg to do it."
BJ sighs. "I tried. She said dead doesn't go with her eyes."
"Well, don't you know any other women to be ghosts?" she says impatiently.
They're quiet for a minute, thinking about this. "Oho." BJ giggles to himself.
"What, what?"
BJ looks at Margaret, then back at Hawkeye. He's grinning now. Margaret has a bad feeling about this. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Hawkeye starts to grin too. "I believe I am, oh partner in slime." Together they turn to face her. "Margaret, what are you doing on Friday night?"
*******
Three days later, she's in a tiny bathroom wearing a dress stained with fake blood, staring directly into a lightbulb as tall, skinny Leo applies heavy stage makeup to her face. Hawkeye has been looming in the doorway and trying to micromanage Leo for the last thirty minutes; Leo has been cheerfully ignoring him in favor of discussing Stanford politics with BJ, who is sitting on the counter behind him.
At last, Leo steps away and gives her a critical once-over. "Not bad for a rush job. Take a look at yourself, tell me what you think." He lights a cigar and passes her a hand mirror.
Margaret stares at herself. BJ was right: Leo Bardonaro is good at his job. She does look dead, sort of. At least, she looks like what dead people look like in the movies, which should be more than enough to fool Sullivan. She highly doubts he's seen quite as much death as her, but swipes a little of the dark makeup under her eyes away to make it look more realistic.
She tunes back into the conversation just as Leo says, "How long is this chick supposed to have been dead for?"
"A few months," says BJ. "But I don't think he knows what the states of decomposition are."
"What's he do?" Leo asks around his cigar.
"Banker."
"Aw, those guys don't know shit about shit. This'll hold, as long as you don't get too close. Not that he'd want to get close to someone he killed." The room is starting to fill with smoke; Hawkeye scowls and waves it out of his face. "Hang on, did he even murder this woman?"
"Manslaughter," Hawkeye corrects. "And yes. Well, probably. He never confessed to it, but we know." Margaret decides that the brewing argument is a good opportunity to shove them out of the bathroom so she can finish getting ready.
As soon as they're in the car heading towards the Financial District, Hawkeye starts grumbling. "Thank God. The cigar smoke was getting into my clothes." Margaret rolls her eyes, although neither of them can see her expression in the backseat.
BJ sighs noisily. "I don't know why you don't like Leo."
"Why I don't—! He got you court-martialed! Remember that?"
"You were always more upset about that than I was."
"Maybe you should have been more upset, then!"
"Hawk, I won the case in twenty minutes, I was home in time to skip dinner."
"Well, I just think—"
"Can you two shut up! I'm supposed to be dead! What am I supposed to say to this guy?"
"I don't know. How do ghosts get a guy to confess to manslaughter, Beej?"
BJ rubs his chin thoughtfully. "I guess they have to be pretty direct about what they want. There's no time for small talk when you're only visible for a little bit."
"Could you be any more vague?" BJ opens his mouth to respond, but she cuts him off: "Don't answer that."
Hawkeye twists around in his seat to address her. "Okay, look, you've got to tell him to confess his sins. Or whatever Catholics say. Don't talk too much— silence is scarier than just talking sometimes."
She twists her fingers into the fabric of her stained dress. "Hawkeye, I don't know if I can do this."
"Margaret, the most important part is looking furious and intimidating," says BJ. "You can definitely do that. If it helps, just pretend he's your worst enemy. Anyone who's ever did you wrong." She thinks about it— then smiles. Any man who's ever shoved her around, anyone who's ever gotten between her and her work… This is going to be very, very easy.
"Let's go over the plan one more time."
"You have it memorized," says BJ.
"Can it, Hunnicutt. Now, I'm going to climb up the fire escape and onto the roof, where I'll crouch until Sullivan comes out of the building and into the parking lot. And I'll know this because?
"I'm going to whistle."
"Correct. Thank you. Then I'll stand up. Hawkeye, you throw a pebble in my general direction to make him look up. Do you have the pebbles?"
"Yessir," he says and gives her a left-handed salute.
"Don't give me attitude. Where are they? Show me you have them."
"In my left back pocket," he says promptly. "You can feel them if you want. They're right next to the matches." BJ starts laughing but stops when Margaret shoots him a quelling look.
"Hawkeye, why are you sitting on the— never mind, I'm getting a headache. Anyway, Sullivan will look up, I'll say my bit about repenting and confessing as you light the fireworks, and then—"
"He'll piss his pants in fear just as the fireworks go off with a bang, He'll be distracted by the noise, and by the time he looks back, BJ will be chauffeuring us to safety as you and I make wild, passionate love in the backseat," Hawkeye finishes.
Margaret smiles sweetly and gets out of the car, but leans back in to address him: "Not in your wildest dreams."
*******
"What the FUCK was that?!" Margaret screams as they pull away from the curb with an earsplitting screech of rubber. "Why did the light go out? That was not in the script! Or the plan!"
Hawkeye grins— she realizes belatedly that he's the driver, which also isn't in the plan. "Well, it was sort of an accident, but you have to admit it was pretty effecti—"
"WATCH THE ROAD!" BJ yells beside her, clutching the dashboard as Hawkeye swerves and narrowly avoids a group of pedestrians.
"How the hell did you have an accident? What does that even mean? Do you even know how difficult it was to get down that fire escape in total darkness?"
"The fireworks were positioned a little too close to the streetlight; they went off and busted the glass," BJ explains, still maintaining a white-knuckle grip on the door handle. "But it certainly did the job of scaring the poor bastard."
"I told you to check the position while you were waiting!"
"Well, we were a little preoccupied," says Hawkeye, making a sharp right and sending Margaret crashing into BJ's shoulder.
"Busy? Doing—" She looks at BJ and notices that the collar of his shirt is slightly rumpled, and the back of his hair is mussed. He clears his throat and looks straight ahead.
"For Christ's sake! You sent me out there to pretend to be a ghost to extort a confession from a murder suspect while you two were necking?"
BJ shrugs. "We got bored waiting for him to show up."
"That— That is UNPROFESSIONAL! I can't believe the auda—" She's about to really go off on him, but then Hawkeye nearly gets them rear-ended and then they're all shrieking in terror. After that, BJ makes them pull over so he can drive. They go about two blocks in total silence, staring straight ahead, until one of them snorts and they're all laughing like maniacs.
"You were terrific!" Hawkeye leans over and punctuates the statement with a kiss to her cheek. Her heart is still thrumming in her ears. She is still, unbelievably, alive and not arrested. Alive and not alone.
"I think he wet his pants," BJ gasps on her other side, tinged green in the traffic light's glow. "When you told him to repent and confess, I thought I was going to die of laughter!"
"I thought I was going to die of fright!" They all crack up again.
Hawkeye wipes tears from his face. "Hey, listen, how would you like to quit your cushy job as a nurse and become a struggling actor? I'll be your agent!"
This sends her back into laughter. "No thank you, I think I've had enough excitement for a lifetime!"
"Margaret, forget him. I'll be your agent." Margaret laughs and turns the radio on— it's a Dizzy Gillespie song, one of Helen's favorites.
"Hey, what are we listening to?" says BJ.
She has to think a minute about the title, but smiles when she gets it. "Long, Long Summer. Helen loves this so—" She freezes. "Oh my god."
"What, what?" Hawkeye tugs at her sleeve the way he does BJ's. It's weirdly comforting, but she's already starting to panic.
"Helen!"
"What about her?"
"I was supposed to meet her for dinner tonight! Oh my god, what time is it?"
BJ checks his watch. "Eight-ten." Her stomach twists.
"Fuck! She's been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes! Oh, how could I—"
"Margaret, don't burst a vein, I just got the car cleaned," says BJ, who is annoyingly unruffled by the whole situation.
"Where does Helen live?" says Hawkeye. She gives him the address and they speed on, music blaring all the while.
Margaret jumps out of the car almost before it stops, and runs towards Helen, waiting on the sidewalk, looking left and right, wearing her favorite blue striped sweater. As soon as Helen sees her, she starts running towards her too; they crash into each other just in front of Helen's apartment building.
"Margaret—"
"Helen, I'm so sorry—" They clutch at each other frantically. Helen's face is cast half into shadow by the glow of a streetlight.
"MaryMotherofGod, are you hurt? What happened to you?"
Margaret looks at her blankly. "Hurt?"
"Margaret, you're covered in blood!"
She looks down at herself in confusion: in the excitement, she'd completely forgotten her costume. "Oh. Right, it's fake. But listen, I really am sorry about making you wait, I was—"
"Oh Lord, your face! What on earth happened out there?"
"I was pretending to be a ghost to scare someone into confessing to murder, I mean manslaughter technically, because these two cretins didn't have anyone else to ask, but we had to wait until it was starting to get dark to scare the guy and then we were driving away and that's why I'm late. I'm sorry you had to wait."
Helen stares at her. After a long moment, she starts to laugh, albeit a little hysterically. "Houlihan, what the hell are you talking about?"
BJ switches the engine off and strides towards them. "I'm sorry, Miss Whitfield, I don't think we've been introduced," he says smoothly, coming into the cone of the streetlight and extending his hand towards Helen. "I'm Cretin Number One, also known as BJ Hunnicutt. It's nice to meet you."
"Oh, you're the maniac lawyer Margaret complains about! I've heard a lot about you. Call me Helen."
Hawkeye hops out of the car and into the light. "Actually, I'm probably the source of the complaints. Call me Cretin Number T—" Hawkeye cuts off. He stares at Helen. Eyes wide and no longer joking. Helen stares back at him. Slowly, she starts to grin.
"Well, well. Small world, B.F. Pierce." It might be her imagination, but Hawkeye appears to flush. He looks down at his shoes and slouches even more than usual. Margaret glances over at BJ and finds that he looks as confused as she feels.
"Helen Whitfield," Hawkeye says, shaking his head. "Of all the streets in San Francisco."
"How on earth didn't I put it together sooner?"
"I'm asking myself the same thing."
"If I'd known you were the famous Hawkeye Pierce, attorney at law, I would have insisted on meeting you again sooner."
"That certainly makes one of us." Helen just throws her head back and laughs at that, the line of her throat perfectly smooth in the yellow light.
Jealousy sweeps through Margaret's body in a nauseating wave. It's a miracle that her voice is steady when she says, "You two know each other?"
"Oh, yeah," says Hawkeye. Some of his bravado is back, because he's starting to smirk. "We met in Korea."
BJ and Margaret exchange a look."Korea?" Margaret repeats.
Helen nods. "Uh-huh. It's quite the story, really, we were—"
"Can we move inside?" Hawkeye crosses his arms. "I have a reputation to maintain." BJ and Margaret look at each other again.
"Of course, where are my manners?" Helen says it lightly, almost like she's going to drop it, but Margaret knows that tone from years of stupid stunts and late-night parties and practical jokes, so she knows that Helen is going to tell the story no matter what. "Let's get that makeup off you," she says, turning to Margaret and taking her arm as they go up the stairs, Hawkeye and BJ trailing behind. "And that awful dress, too."
She tries to pull back, saying, "Helen, I'm really sorry—"
Helen shakes her head and smiles, but it's not quite happy; there's something else she can't read. "Oh, Margaret, it doesn't matter. I'm just glad the blood is fake."
Upstairs, Helen runs a towel under the kitchen tap and starts rubbing the stage makeup off Margaret's face. "So, I met him in the mess tent." Hawkeye mumbles something that sounds like Christ, here we go. "He started hitting on me— not very well, but it was endearing."
"Sounds about right," BJ says, leaning in the doorframe.
Hawkeye raises a hand to his chest as though swooning. "Hey, I could take you to court for slander. Would you like to know how many people I've seduced with those lines?"
"No," they all say at the same time.
"Go on, Helen. I'm enjoying this so far," says BJ innocently, looking like he's trying to bite down a laugh. Hawkeye looks incredibly uncomfortable and is doing a terrible job of hiding it.
"Thank you. Well, we didn't tell each other first names, for some reason."
Hawkeye interrupts again: "I just called her 'Captain' because that's what everyone else called her. I didn't know her name was Helen for a couple of days." Maybe it's the rhythm of Helen scrubbing at her face, the warm yellow light bouncing off the green tiles, the cooling air filled with possibility, Hawkeye's storytelling voice, the relief of getting away with something stupid, the nearness of Helen and her callused fingertips holding Margaret's forehead in place; maybe it's just the adrenaline wearing off, but Margaret feels suddenly tired enough to close her eyes.
"Right. Well, he asked me on a date. He was funny, you know? I figured what the hell, he was passing through with a wounded friend, it wasn't going to go past a night or two. So I said yes, but when we got to the O Club, I realized I didn't know his name, and I tried to guess off his dog tags. BF, they said."
"She guessed for an hour before she got it."
"I wasn't even guessing seriously, I just said it as a joke. I laughed so hard I sneezed when he told me I was right. But by then I'd been calling him BFPierce— all one word— and I decided Benjamin Franklin didn't suit him, so I kept calling him BFPierce."
"I told you my nickname!"
"It was loud in there! I thought you said your name was Hot Guy." BJ unsuccessfully disguises his explosive snort of laughter as a cough when Hawkeye glares at him. Margaret doesn't bother to hide hers.
"Why would my nickname be Hot Guy?"
"Makes as much sense as Hawkeye! Anyway, the night progresses. We're sitting on the floor of the supply closet, and things are starting to heat up, and all of a sudden he pulls away from me—"
Hawkeye moans. "Aw, do you have to tell this part?"
"Yes! It's the whole point of the story! Anyway, he pulls away from me, and he puts his head on my shoulder— and bursts into tears."
"What?" Margaret says incredulously.
"Yes! I'm sitting there wound tighter than a ten-day-clock, my shirt's open down to my navel, and here's this guy just weeping into my shoulder. Snot and everything! I asked him what the matter was and he says— well, really he sniffles— he's very sorry about ruining my night, but he just can't do it, because he was in love with somebody else. I said, 'Well, that's fine, so am I. We can pretend for tonight.' But he said, 'I'm in love with someone with blond hair and blue eyes, it just really wouldn't be the same.' And I said—"
"You said, 'Well, that's fine. So am I. Except they're really more green than blue,'" Hawkeye finishes.He's looking at her with— fondness? Nostalgia? Sadness? Maybe all three.
Helen huffs a little laugh and wrings the towel out in the sink. "That's right. We spent the rest of the night just sitting on the supply room floor and talking— home, family, love, all the food we missed from home. Sat there until my ass went numb and he fell asleep. A couple days later he was gone, but boy, did I get a laugh when I told the other nurses what happened." She looks back at Hawkeye. "So tell me, Hot Guy. What happened to your blond, blue-eyed flame?"
Hawkeye smiles. "Turns out he had a thing for skinny, neurotic brunettes." BJ is still leaning in the doorway behind him, watching Hawkeye with a big, dopey smile, like he's the only thing in the room. "He still beats me at chess every time, though. I was hoping love might cure him of that nasty habit."
Margaret holds her breath. Sets her jaw. Waits for Helen to frown, to recoil, to say what do you mean, he? The floor is about to open under her feet and the roof about to cave in; there is no city outside the windows, no ocean, no war, only this kitchen with its green tiles in between her and the end of the world—
Helen turns away from Margaret to look between them. And then she smiles. "Good for you," she says, sounding genuinely pleased. Margaret feels her muscles unclench and her hand uncurl from its loose fist at her side. Helen's voice has neither shock nor disgust at the thought of two men together. Like she knew about them. Or like she understood.
She's so caught up in the dizzying idea of Helen maybe, possibly being like her that she almost misses BJ's response: "What about yours?" He meets Helen's eyes. Something happens then that Margaret can't quite see— she thinks Helen's eyes flicker away, then back to BJ, before she turns back to the sink.
"Yeah, what happened?" says Margaret, praying that her voice isn't giving anything away.
Helen smiles again, almost sad. Runs the towel under the tap again. When she turns back to Margaret, the sadness — if that's what it was— is gone. "The person I fell in love with was married. It couldn't go anywhere." She leans back in. "Close your eyes." Margaret can't see Helen's expression when she says, after a beat: "I'm holding out, though."
Helen ushers her into the bedroom and immediately starts hunting for clothes that will fit. Margaret sits on the bed as Helen combs through her closet, discarding skirts and dresses in a heap almost as fast as she can pull them off their hangers, all the while talking about measurements and weather-appropriate clothing and the quality of fabric these days.
Helen holds a white blouse up and presents it to Margaret. "What do you think?"
I'll take anything you give me. I don't care as long as it's yours.
"That looks like it ought to work. Do you have pants that go with it?"
Helen nods but doesn't say anything more, just turns back into the semidarkness to her dresser. The sudden silence feels stifling. Margaret shifts to sit on her hands, feeling oddly nervous, as though she's said the wrong thing.
"Helen?"
"Yeah." She doesn't turn around, still going through the dresser.
"Are you alright?"
Helen sets the blouse down and crosses the room to stand between Margaret's legs. Studies her. Still doesn't speak. Margaret can feel her heart in her throat. At last Helen whispers something that sounds like Jesus Christ and yanks Margaret to her chest. Margaret's face is suddenly full of silk blouse and L'Heure Bleue.
"Helen?" She can feel Helen breathing under her cheek.
There's a long moment in which Helen doesn't respond, just wraps her arms around Margaret's shoulders and squeezes. When she speaks, her voice shakes almost imperceptibly. "You scared the shit out of me. All that blood." Helen's hands flit from scapula to spine and back again, almost like she doesn't know what to do with herself.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." Belatedly, she realizes she should reciprocate; her hands slowly lift themselves to Helen's back.
"I know you didn't. It scared me anyway." Helen pulls back. Looks down at her. Reaches up and brushes stray hair from her forehead. Margaret feels the magnetic pull again, something's happening something's about to happen— and Helen says, "I guess I just don't know what I would do if something happened to you."
The moment is supposed to pass when someone speaks. And yet Margaret still feels dizzy, and Helen is still looking at her, gray eyes shining in the light leaking in from the hallway. She swallows hard. The words are on the tip of her tongue. She wouldn't even have to speak. Her fingers are still wound into the back of Helen's blouse; she could just pull her down and lean in and kiss her. It would be so easy.
A noise from the hallway. From the sound of it, Hawkeye's knocked something over. They're not alone.
A small comfort— it's impossible to tell who lets go first.
Margaret sighs and rises from the bed. "I'd better go change."
"I'll attend to the guests." They both smile at this. Margaret wonders if there's another world in which they entertain guests together. She wonders if Helen has had the same thought. "Should we invite them?"
"Might as well. They did give me a lovely evening."
Helen raises an eyebrow and hands her a pair of dark pants. "I think your standards for a lovely evening are slipping in your old age."
"I know you are, but what am I, Captain?" She shuts the bathroom door before Helen can get the last word in.
*******
It's a little awkward at first; they order at the Chinese restaurant near Helen's apartment in near-silence. But Helen seems to relax when nobody orders alcohol, and BJ must have picked up on it because he makes a joke about not drinking, which makes Helen laugh a little and makes Hawkeye roll his eyes. Things are still a little stiff, but then Hawkeye asks to hear the story of how Margaret and Helen met, and any discomfort Margaret felt vanishes. This is one they know by heart, one told between themselves so many times that all its rough edges and original fear and awkwardness have been worn down and replaced by affection and laughter, like stone made smooth by the sea. They don't tell it to everyone they meet— after all, they have to command respect somehow— but yes, this is a story she knows how to tell.
When Margaret gets to the part where the jackass major spits pickle juice all over the table, Helen stops her: "No, no, it wasn't like that."
"Then how was it?"
"He looked more like—" She pulls a face that makes Margaret laugh so hard she nearly spits her own drink out, which makes Hawkeye do his funny honking laugh that sounds like a goose being sawed in half.
All evening, the four of them tell stories and talk shit and laugh at things that probably aren't funny to anyone else, laugh until Margaret is lightheaded and her stomach hurts and she can't remember the last time she was this happy for this long, and just as she thinks maybe she ought to calm down, Hawkeye will launch into a new story and they'll all crack up again, or BJ will interrupt and say no no you've got it backwards and start arguing with whoever's talking, or Helen will turn to her and touch her arm to get her attention (as though her attention could have been anywhere else) and say low and confidential Margaret tell them about… because they have something between them that nobody else can touch.
As they eat, she can almost pretend that they're two couples on a double date at a Chinese restaurant, Hawkeye putting little bits of duck onto BJ's plate with his chopsticks, Helen sampling Margaret's eggplant and saying it's good, you'll like it, but it's spicy. She watches BJ lean back in his seat, sipping his water, leaning into Hawkeye's shoulder. She feels Helen's elbow bump gently against her own, feels their knees brushing under the table. She doesn't apologize for the accidental contact, and neither does Helen.
Margaret imagines a world in which this is true. She looks around, a little guiltily, to see if anyone is staring— and finds that nobody is. With a little start, she realizes that to the rest of the world, they are on a double date: wives on one side of the booth, husbands on the other. Hawkeye across from Margaret, BJ across from Helen.
She thinks that if she could pick one moment to live in forever, it might be this one: surrounded by love, a plate full of hot food, Helen beautiful and at ease with total strangers but for some reason laughing at all Margaret's jokes and touching her shoulder through her borrowed blouse.
"And then— POW! The engine explodes!" Margaret whoops with laughter and clutches Helen's shoulder for stability. "So the general comes rushing down, clutching the banana in his hand, madder than all hell. And he looks down into the foxhole and there's Hawkeye— ankle-deep in bilge water and mud— singing into a banana!"
Hawkeye nods proudly. "La Vie en Rose."
"Oh God, that's right. And the general starts screaming and screaming, waving his banana around…"
"C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie, il me l'a dit…" Hawkeye sings a little too loudly, and Margaret shushes him though her giggles as Helen claps.
Hawkeye sketches a little half-bow. "Thank you, thank you, I'll sign your napkin but I don't do body parts."
"Excuse me," says their waitress, who has appeared from nowhere. They all attempt to sober up and look like adults. "Would you all mind keeping it down a little? My manager says he's gonna have to start watering down the booze if you don't."
They all look at each other very seriously for about two seconds before Helen snorts, and then they're all laughing like lunatics.
"I'm sorry, it's not you," says BJ through his booming laughter. "It's just that the universe has a terrific sense of dramatic irony."
Their waitress looks extremely confused. "Um," she says. "Okay. Would you all like the check now?"
*******
Helen hops out of the car and thanks them all for the dinner and the ride. Margaret leans out of the car and grabs at her sleeve.
"Helen—" She has no idea what to say, she only wants Helen not to go just yet.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry that you had to wait," she stammers.
Helen smiles— then tilts her chin upward and says in her best Katharine Hepburn voice: "Darling, if I were married to you, I wouldn't mind waiting. I'd wait all night." She reaches out, touches Margaret's hair lightly, and is up the stairs and through the door of her building before Margaret can even think of a suitable response.
As BJ puts the car in gear, Hawkeye swivels around, wearing a grin that takes up most of his face. "Darling, huh?"
"She's quoting Bringing Up Baby. It's a joke— we saw that movie about a hundred times during the war," she says absently, looking out the window. She fiddles with the hem of her blouse and wonders how long she can wait before giving it back.
"Yeah, but Katharine's in love with Cary Grant when she says that line. How could she not be? What a jawline." He pauses, either waiting for a laugh or lost in dreams of chiseled jaws. "Anyway, she likes you."
"Hawkeye, it was a stupid joke. It's not enough to go on." She has no idea why she's trying to talk Hawkeye out of the idea, couldn't explain it to herself if she tried.
He continues, undeterred: "Okay, then how about the way you kept leaning on each other at the restaurant? Or how she kept touching your arm? She said goodbye to you by touching your hair; is that enough to go on?"
"Have you been cataloguing our interactions all evening?"
"That's a stupid question, Margaret. I'm a lawyer and your friend."
"That answer doesn't make any sense. Anyway, that's normal for her. She's touchy."
"Well, you didn't see the way she looked at you in the kitchen."
"What way? When?" Now he has her attention; she catches a flash of his smile in the rearview mirror when he responds.
"When she said she was holding out and conspicuously did not elaborate."
"She could have been talking about anyone."
"No," says BJ. He's been quiet the whole time. "Before that. When Hawkeye asked what happened to her person. She glanced at you and then turned away."
"At me?" she repeats numbly.
Hawkeye looks back at her. "Now that you mention it, your eyes are more green than blue."
******
She meets Hawkeye again on Wednesday, allegedly for lunch, but they both know that they're just meeting to talk. They walk around the city, choosing their paths without speaking. It's strangely peaceful to walk with Hawkeye; he seems calmest when he's in motion. They discuss her case and Donald, Erin starting kindergarten in the fall, BJ being summoned to his estranged parents' house. It takes fifteen minutes of walking before either of them speak of what she's really come for.
"You need to confess. She's not going to wait forever," Hawkeye says after a few minutes of walking in silence. Cars rumble past them; the wind kicks up dust and little bits of paper.
"What if you're wrong?"
"Then I'm wrong. But I don't think I am."
"But if you are," she presses.
"Then you can come over to our house and get really drunk in front of the TV. Well, obviously I don't drink, but we can get special brownies from Peg, which are just as good. We'll eat them with imported ice cream from Maine. My dad's got this dinky little machine— you wouldn't believe the flavors he's cooked up in that thing— candied pecan, can you believe that?"
"Hawkeye, please."
"Okay, okay. Look. If she does love you, then you can tip me generously on your next check. If she doesn't love you— which she does, by the way— then you'll be sad for a while. Maybe you two will still talk, maybe you won't anymore. You'll mope around, and get drunk at our house a couple times. Eventually you'll get better, and it won't hurt so bad. You'll go out again and beautiful women will chase you around…" She laughs a little in spite of herself. He gives her a little smile, pleased that his joke worked. "They'll probably all be crazy about you; how could they not be?" At first Margaret thinks he's still joking, but his face is very serious. "You'll have options. Maybe you'll want one of them back, maybe you won't. But you'll know. Isn't it better to know?"
"I don't think I want anyone else."
"Then it's better to know." They look at each other.
"So what the hell am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know. But I have some ideas," he says casually, bumping her shoulder as they walk on.
"Do you now." She looks at him, hair whipped into disarray by the wind, still oddly sincere.
"Would you like to hear them?"
Margaret allows herself to smile. "I thought you'd never ask."