Blue Stars (19 page)

Her father had died of a heart attack when she was nineteen. He was a thick-waisted, red-faced man with a deceptively mild expression. He’d worked for Con Ed as a lineman for twenty years before getting laid off, and then took a series of lesser-paying jobs in electrical support. The drinking increased during those years, as did the ugly fights with Lacey’s mother, who had to go back to work as a secretary and made no secret of her bitter disappointment. Mostly, her dad went after her brother, Bob—police got called to their house several times—in epic screaming and shoving matches over the car, the late nights, grades, any excuse either could find. One night when she was fourteen Lacey dodged a jar of pickles one of them hurled at the other, yanked her head to the side one millisecond in time, so that the weight and heft of the glass jar blew by her ear, brushing it with coolness before exploding against the kitchen wall. With Lacey, her dad was less physical and restricted himself to heated diatribes about her slutty clothes and friends. That was when he was sober. When he was drunk he slurred weepy expressions of regret about how little she’d accomplish in her life, due to his mistakes.

Lacey and Bob took every job they could find, and ate out every meal they were invited to, not to mention some they weren’t. And they had a tacit pact to keep their mouths shut when well-meaning teachers, parents of friends, or other adults asked about how things were at home. After she left, Lacey used to wonder why she hadn’t confided in anyone and let that old bastard reap the consequences. But it occurred to her that many, if not all, of the kids they knew were in similar situations. The bad shit in their house wasn’t so unique, and everyone seemed to accept that growing up and getting out were the only solutions.

That, and making out with boys. Lacey loved it. She knew it wasn’t something a girl was supposed to admit, and she only rarely went all the way, but those long kissing sessions meant everything to her. With someone’s clothed body mashed against hers, in a thick fug of cheap cologne and cigarette smoke, she could shut her eyes and let go. Escape.

*   *   *

“
Buona sera!
” Felicia tried again, when the weary but tolerant waiter brought them another bottle of red. “Am I getting it now?”

“
Buona sera, signora bella,
” he said. The three of them applauded and he smiled tiredly to himself and pulled out the cork.

The restaurant—Buona Sera Ristorante
,
a newish place on Gramatan up in Fleetwood—had been chosen to convince Felicia to come out. It was closest to her place, where her mom was with the kids. Lacey had picked up Martine, and girls’ night out was in full effect, Italian-style: fried calamari and tri-colore salad first, now chicken caprese and seafood risotto. As soon as Eddie’s October check cleared, Lacey withdrew more cash than she should have for tonight, including a sitter and a blowout at that cheap place near the gym, but she wasn’t going to worry about money tonight. She needed this.

No kid talk, no war talk, was the original rule. Only fun stuff. But it was impossible to stick to: Martine’s fight with a snotty mom at the preschool led to how she wrote a late-night three-screen e-mail about it to her husband, only to delete it at the last moment thank God. Felicia had taken on two bathroom rehabs that were cratering, and John better not pull an early homecoming because their place was a wreck. Lacey told Lolo stories, amping up her Latina accent (“Why hasn’t anyone called me back? I left that message an hour ago. What happened. Did something happen?”) until they were laughing to the point of tears.

“It even got Ed to crack a smile,” Lacey said, helping herself to some of Martine’s potatoes. “He said I’m the one taking a bullet, dealing with her so much.”

“Did you get him on iChat? No luck for me in weeks.”

“It was a quick video call. They were about to go out.” Lacey didn’t say that Eddie essentially confirmed what she asked him about—a rise in suicide bombings around his area. As usual, he kept it low-key, brushing off most of her questions and treating the subject as slightly off topic, nothing that important. Was this how he spoke to the younger men under his command? Did it work for them, did they think the danger wasn’t increased at all? They didn’t have Lacey’s knowledge: the way Eddie had of dropping eye contact when he was tense, his gaze roving up and around, as if searching for assistance or a distraction. She’d seen it when he wasn’t happy with her—for being too loud, too haphazard—the effect was casual, tricking her into thinking not much was at stake. But then his eyes would be one step ahead of hers, all around the room, and she’d know.

“So he shaved,” she said. “The whole thing”—Lacey swiped a finger across her upper lip—“totally gone. Clean-faced as a baby now.”

“Good idea, Eddie.” Martine, who never made a secret of her preferences in the mustache department.

“Oh, wow,” Felicia said. “I bet you didn’t recognize him at first. Why’d he do that, I wonder.”

“’Cause the early eighties called and wanted their look back.”

“He didn’t want to be mistaken for an Iraqi, with that Saddam Hussein look. Worried he’ll get strung up by mistake.” Lacey tried to join in.

Felicia made a disapproving
tch
sound, so they dropped it. In truth, it rattled her, Eddie’s shaving. When she yelped at the sight he pretended at first not to know why. Then he shrugged it off, saying it saved time and he was sick of dealing with it. But his face looked so bare, so much smaller, paler. What if it was some kind of omen? What if it was a way to punish her for cheating, make her more afraid for him, more aware of his vulnerability?

Lacey took a long drink of wine.
Stop it
. Tonight was supposed to be fun.

“You want to tell her about what happened?” Martine said, pointing her fork first at Lacey, then Felicia. “In your little support group? Not-so-support group, that is.”

“Uh-oh.”

Lacey sighed. She still wasn’t happy with the way she’d handled things. “Well, last week this one girl comes in, she doesn’t come every week so I was—”

“Tell her about—she was wearing a T-shirt that says
WAR IS BAD FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS.
I mean, fuck you,” Martine said, more tipsy than they’d noticed.

“—So I was glad,” Lacey went on. “At first. I don’t care about the shirt. But then she blurts out she’s leaving the group because her parents are convinced that what we do is brainwash her with right-wing propaganda.”

“Say
what
? How old is this girl? She can’t think for herself?”

“Well, that’s what everyone jumped in saying. And that if she’s doing whatever her parents say on the issue then
they’re
the ones doing the brainwashing.”

“Right?”

“I tried to get her to talk more but I guess she felt like we were all jumping down her throat so she got all, you know, crossing her arms like they do and not saying anything.” Lacey mimed the young woman leaning way back in her chair, chin tucked. “I was freaking out, thinking I’d done something wrong, I mean—I’m not a shrink or anything, maybe she’d complained to Anne Mackay or whatever. Also, right-wing what? We hardly talk politics! They spend the whole hour bitching about the pay grade. God, if anything that group bashes on the army more than the liberal media does!”

“Now tell her the worst part,” Martine said, rattling her empty water glass. “Did they turn off the air? Why’s it so hot in here?”

“Do I want to know?” Felicia said.

“Well, she goes on to say that her parents are in MFSO, and that they’ve been bringing her to some of their meetings, and she’s starting to see the light.” Lacey sighed. Their prix fixe dessert course arrived, but she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“MFSO.” Felicia spelled it out slowly, thinking. “Military something something—”

“Military Families Speak Out,” Lacey said.

“Military Families So Fucking Cowardly,” Martine spat. “The enemy among us.”

“Mart,” Lacey said. “They’re a legit organization. I looked it up after. It’s an antiwar group,” she told Felicia. “Support our troops by bringing them home now, et cetera. You know.”

“And for every wife they get on board, they get a spike in traffic I’m sure. I mean, it’s no big deal to get some parents out there holding up signs and talking shit about Bush. They don’t care, they’re old now and used to pissing off their kids. But a soldier’s pretty all-American wife turning Benedict Arnold? Oh, that’s good.”

“What did she say about all of it? Is she against the war now, or what?” Felicia was working her way around the three desserts methodically, one bite from each. “And what does her guy say?”

“Well, yeah, that’s what everyone was asking her. I don’t know if she’s told him or what. No one would let her speak much, really.” The wine had lulled Lacey into a tired spaciness. They needed to switch to beer soon. Or something harder. The women in the group had been merciless:
All you’re gonna do is put him in more danger, and our men too. Get right and shut up, nobody asked for your opinions on politics and shit. How do you think this is going to make him feel, out there, knowing you’ve given up on him, humiliated in front of his brothers.

“I can imagine. What did—”

“Anyone like that is dead to me.” Martine waved for the check. “It’s hard to be alone, and the news can look really bad, but … come on, girls. Do what you gotta do on the down low but for God’s sake don’t make our misery into a weapon against our own troops. You know?”

Felicia was shaking her head. “If John ever
pictured
me holding up some kind of
NOT IN MY NAME
sign, or whatever … I just can’t even.”

“I’m not sure I handled it all that well,” Lacey said. “I feel like I’m supposed to let everyone have their say in there. As a safe space. But on the other hand—”

“You don’t want to let traitors get away with shit! What if she caught some of those other ditsy young wives at a bad moment?”

“What did you say, Lace?”

“I kind of … I let them all freak out for a while, and then I—well I told her that the politics part of being in Iraq or Afghanistan didn’t matter. That it was separate from what our guys were doing, and so she should keep it separate.”

“Sounds right to me. They don’t get to choose which battles they fight.” Felicia nodded.

Lacey counted out bills for her part of the tab. She didn’t disagree, but there was a moment at the end of the meeting that kept coming back to her.
What would you do?
This girl had asked Lacey directly as she was leaving, probably for the last time.
If you came to believe, with your heart and your head, that it was all a mistake, us being there. Would you speak up, or not?

What had happened was that her immediate answer, deep inside, was
yes.
Lacey had never once backed down from a fight. She suddenly saw the flip side of her own convictions about the rightness of this war—cultivated through pride, close attachment, and lots of Internet research—and got it, in a flash, how she would be acting if what she thought was the exact opposite. She’d go at it with the same energy now poured into this FRG group and all their other activities.
Bet your ass I’d speak up. No matter what Eddie thought.

So who was she to tell this person otherwise?

“Let’s get out of here,” Martine said, sliding herself out of the banquette. “Too. Much. Food.”

“
Buona sera
!” Felicia sang out, to their waiter, to the room at large.

*   *   *

An hour later, Lacey and Martine were cruising around, not ready to go home after Felicia left. They got Big Gulps from a 7-Eleven and took the Cross County Parkway, singing Christina Aguilera with the windows down. They took the Bronx River up through Westchester, going past the darkened golf courses and wooded pockets. On the way back south, Martine announced it was time for another drink. Also, she had to pee. Lacey’s buzz had worn off by then but she was game, so when Martine stuck a hand out into the night and said,
So turn off here already,
it struck her as fate that the next exit happened to be Pelham, and her car seemed to take them, of its own accord, to Wolf’s Lane and Chap’s Bar and Grill, where Jim just happened to be on as manager that night.

Martine barely noticed the venue when they parked outside. She ran in ahead to get to the ladies’ room. Lacey followed slowly, glad for the cover of a late-night crowd standing at the bar, noisy music, some game on the TVs. She kept her head down and took an occupied table by the window.

“Hey. I know you.” He was there, before she was ready, before she’d figured out what it was that she was doing. Jim smiled down at her, puzzled, touched her hair. “‘Of all the bars in all the…’ something something.”

“Yeah, well,” Lacey said. She couldn’t look directly at him. The warmth coming off his body was almost too much. “My friend needed to pee.”

“Of course she did. No better place to pee in the tristate area.”

“Can I take this chair?” someone asked, reaching for the other one.

“It’s taken,” Jim said, a firm hand on its back. “You look good,” he said, bending low to her ear. “You’re killing me right now, but you look good.”

“Is it crazy that maybe I could eat something?” Martine said, arriving. “What should we drink, Lace? And can I get a glass of water first,” she said to Jim, who held out her chair.

“Maybe a couple shots,” Lacey mumbled. “We can always cab home from here.”

“I’ll send a waitress over,” Jim said. Behind Martine, he held Lacey’s gaze.

They had two Jägermeisters, on the house, then an order of mozzarella sticks. Then two beers, and another round of shots. Martine commandeered the jukebox with a stack of quarters Jim fed her, the two of them arguing the merits of Journey and Chicago. Lacey’s babysitter texted back to say she could stay late. The crowd thinned, a couple people were dancing, Lacey took off her jacket to bare her arms in a tight tanktop. She watched Martine dance, sweaty and oblivious to the two guys checking her out. She watched Jim at the end of the bar, directing the waitstaff and conferring with the bartender. He never seemed to look over, but once when he came by to fiddle with the TV above her he stood close behind and she could feel him waiting. They didn’t speak. Lacey hooked an elbow over her chair and dangled her hand into the space between them. His hand met hers, rubbing her palm with his thumb, and Lacey felt a deep recognition, like hearing a song she’d loved long ago.