Surviving the Fog (38 page)

He waited for her to say his name correctly.
 She returned to her oat cereal.  Steaming, he walked
away.

After that, Yuie called him, Linc, at every
opportunity.  No matter how many times he corrected her, she
always pretended to forget.

Then one morning, after she called him, Linc,
he replied, "Hey, Yu."

Yuie sputtered.  She looked around at
her friends, expecting them to be outraged on her behalf.  All
she saw were covered grins.  After that, the bickering only
got worse between them.  Everyone knew that things were coming
to a head.  Finally, he confronted her one morning after she
had finished her laps.  She watched him warily as he
approached.

"Tell me the truth.  Is it my race?" he
asked her, his face stony.

"What?" she asked with genuine surprise.

"You heard me.  Is that why you hate me?
 Is it the color of my skin?"

"You're crazy.  I don't hate you," she
replied.

"Oh, right," he replied bitterly.

"I don't hate you," she snapped, her anger
rising. "I just despise you, because you came in here with your
militaristic bullshit, and you took over.  Are you happy?
 You got control.  You military types always like to be
in control.  You get a kick out of it.  Control people,
and if they don't do what you want, then kill them.  Do you
get a kick out of that too?  Have you ever killed someone,
Linc?"

"Yes, I have killed," he responded hotly.
 "Are you happy now, Yuie?  Are you satisfied, now that
you know I'm a killer?"

"I knew it all along," she spat, as she moved
to within an inch of him.  "Did you get a charge out of
killing?  When you saw their dead bodies, did you get a
thrill?"

Her voice was shaking, and her face turned
red.  Kennedy grabbed Yuie's shoulders, and he pulled her
tightly against him onto her toes.

"What about you, Yuie?" he asked coldly.
 "Did you get a thrill when you killed that man?  When
you put an arrow into the man's belly, did you get a thrill?
 You're just as much of a killer as I am."

In an instant, Yuie's face went from red to
white.  Tears began flow down her cheeks.  She tore
herself out of his grasp and ran away, towards the narrow wooden
bridge.  Kennedy shuddered, feeling his heart pounding.
 As he waited for his body to calm down, he watched Yuie's
progress as she ran past the dining hall and past Chief’s
Headquarters.  Already, he knew that he would regret his harsh
words.  Yuie disappeared into the Lodge.

Yuie was trying desperately to hold back her
tears, as she knocked frantically on the door of John and Desi's
room.  When she was told to enter, she opened the door.
 She stood there, choking back sobs.  Desi was sitting on
the bed.  When she saw Yuie, she simply held out her arms.
 Yuie flung herself at her friend and started to cry, loudly.
 Desi just held her and stroked her hair.  After a while,
Yuie's tears tapered off.  Still, she clung to Desi and
sniffed.

"Lincoln?" Desi asked.  She felt Yuie
nod.  Desi sighed.

"Okay, Yuie, forget the fact that he is a
soldier.  What’s really the matter?"

"I don't know," Yuie confessed. "It's just
that everything is changing.  Mike's not going to be the
Chief.  We have to have elections now.  I just don't want
everything to change.  I was happy with the way things
were."

Desi smiled.  She took Yuie's hand and
placed it on her belly.  "Feel," she ordered.

Yuie felt, and after several moments her eyes
brightened.  "He kicked," she exclaimed in excitement.

"He's changing," said Desi.  "I'm
changing.  Do you really wish that we wouldn't?"

Yuie laid her head against Desi's stomach.
 "No," she mumbled.

Desi stroked Yuie's hair.  "If the fog
had never come, Yuie, we would still have to change.  We were
just kids.  We still are, actually.  Lincoln is like the
change guy with a big sign.  He's a stranger, new to us.
 We've been changing all together, so we haven’t noticed those
changes.  He comes in, and we can see changes happening.
 But it's not his fault."

"I know," Yuie said.  She winced
remembering.  "I said some really bad things to him."

"Hmm... I don't doubt it.  Sweetheart, I
have to say this.  Please don't be mad."

Yuie looked up at Desi.  "What?" she
asked.

"Time to grow up, Yuie.”

Yuie sighed.  "I know.  What should
I do, so he doesn't hate me?"

Desi laughed.  "Oh, I doubt that
Lieutenant Lincoln Kennedy could hate you if he tried," Desi
replied.  "But, Tomboy, it might be time to do the girly
thing."

Yuie grimaced.  "I'm terrible at
that."

"I know.  It's because you haven't
practiced.  Well, it's time to practice.  Just like
running.  You have to stay in shape.  How do you think I
keep that knucklehead of mine in line?"

"All right," Yuie replied gloomily. "What
should I do?"

"Guys like to be praised, and they like to be
touched.  Especially by girls they like," Desi told her.

"And I guess I should apologize," Yuie
said.

Desi shrugged.  "Not really.  At
least, not at first."

Yuie was surprised.  "Why not?" she
asked.

"Because, he won't believe you.  The two
of you have given each other so many fake apologies, that one more
won't be believed.  Wait until you’re sure that he trusts you.
 Wait until you’re sure that you believe him when he
apologizes."

Down at Chief’s Headquarters, Kennedy waited
patiently and sadly as Howard finished some work.  Eventually,
Howard looked up.

"Hey, pal, what's up?" he asked.

Lincoln sighed.  "I made Yuie cry," he
confessed. "Sorry."

Howard lifted his eyebrows.  "Shouldn't
you be telling this to Yuie?"

"She wouldn't believe me if I did," the
Lieutenant replied.

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"Actually, I came to see Mike.  I know
that he and Yuie are close.  I thought that if I flung myself
on his mercy, maybe he wouldn't hang me."

"Jeez, he hangs one guy, and no one ever lets
him forget it," Howard complained.

"Sorry.  Joking is better than crying,"
Lincoln responded.

"True.  Look, it's no use arguing with
Yuie.  She was born to argue.  If you want to have a
relationship with Yuie, you've got to change your strategy."

Lincoln looked up.  "Who said I wanted a
relationship?" he asked grumpily.

Howard just stared back at him.

Lincoln coughed.  "Well, just suppose,
hypothetically I mean, that I did want a special relationship with
Yuie.  What do you mean, ‘change your strategy’?"

"When Yuie pushes, don't push back.
 Change the subject.  And give her gifts.  Girls
like to get gifts," Howard said.

“Girls like to get gifts?”

"Yes," Howard said firmly.

"You're only nineteen.  How would you
know?"

"Which one of us has a woman in his bed every
night?" Howard asked, smirking.

"You got me there," Lincoln admitted.

"Believe me.  Keeping Jean happy would
make a man out of anyone," said Howard with feeling.  "But
anyway, I would say that the best thing you could do would be to
run with Yuie."

"How will that help?" Lincoln asked.

"Because, Yuie like’s to run.  Because
you’ll be with her, but neither of you will be talking.”

"Good point," Lincoln acknowledged.

Kennedy was not brave enough to approach Yuie
the next day or the next, but one morning when he saw her doing her
stretching exercises, he walked down to the track.  Yuie saw
him coming, and she thought about beginning her run, but she stayed
put.  The closer he got, the more nervous she became.  He
sat down to exchange his boots for a pair of borrowed tennis shoes.
 Then he rose and stepped onto the track, close to her.

"Hi, Linc," she said in a subdued voice, and
then she added hastily, "I mean, Lincoln."

He hesitated and then said, "It’s okay if you
call me Linc, Yuie.  My grandma use to call me Linc when I was
a little kid.  When I got older, I wanted to feel like a
grownup, so I made everyone call me Lincoln.  It's silly, now
that I think about it.”

"Um... I don't mind, ‘Hey Yu,’ that much,"
said Yuie. "It's kind of funny."

Lincoln was silent for a moment, and then he
said, "Yuie, you were partly right about me.  One day, when I
was in Iraq, one of my people was killed in an ambush.  We
returned fire, and I killed two of the enemy.  But my man, a
father with two little kids back home, was dead.  When I went
and looked at the bodies of the enemy, I was glad that I had killed
them.  And I still am in a way.  But I'm also sad that it
changed me.  I wish I had never killed anyone."

Yuie could not speak.  There was
something lodged in her throat.  She turned away from him, so
that he would not see her moist eyes.

"Let's run," Lincoln suggested.

Together, he and Yuie ran two laps.  It
was a long way around the meadow.  There were twenty acres of
grain inside the track.  One side ran close to the river, and
Lincoln and Yuie passed some kids who were fishing.  No one
had ever caught anything, but people swore that they had seen fish
in the river.  Mary Brown had suggested creating a manmade
pond in a wide spot, and then stocking it with trout from her
pond.

Every day that week, Lincoln and Yuie ran the
track together.  They made a point of not talking much.
 After running, they would walk separately to the Lodge,
hoping that no one would be taking a shower at that time. Once,
Lincoln forgot to take in a change of clothing, and he had to come
out of the shower room wearing only a towel.  Yuie, standing
there waiting her turn, was moved by the beauty of the soldier’s
hard body.  But on his right side, she saw two puckered scars.
 They puzzled Yuie, until she realized that they were old
bullet wounds.

June moved along.  The residents of
Petersburg were anticipating the coming election.  Gabby did
mock polls, and announced that neither candidate was likely to win.
 Eric made a speech and promised that if he was elected the
shower would be converted into a mud bath.  No one believed
him, and Desi accused him of pandering to the boys.

"I thought about saying I would take down the
wall and convert it into a girls’ mud wrestling contest arena, but
I was afraid that I would get all the boys’ votes," Eric confided
to Hector.

Hector was in a state of uncertainty.
 Kathy seemed nervous around him all of a sudden, and he had
no idea why.  He gave her his usual nonchalant pat on her butt
one day, and she squeaked like a mouse.  He took some time to
think about it, and something dawned on him.  She was sixteen
now.  He thought about it some more, and when he finished
thinking, he had a wicked grin on his face.  The next
afternoon, he asked her to help him survey a site for the sawmill.
 He took her along the river, down to the end of the meadow,
where they were out of sight of the Lodge.  They found a dry
spot and sat on a patch of low grass.

They talked for a bit, and then Hector said
to Kathy, "You are sixteen now, aren't you, Kat?"

"Uh, yes," she said, surprised at the change
of subject.

"You're old enough now, aren't you, Kat?"
 Dropping his voice, he murmured the words.

"Um... I guess," she replied cautiously.

"The rules don't apply to you any longer, do
they, Chica?"  His voice became silky.   He placed
his hard hand firmly on the back of her neck.

"Um... well..."

"We’re free to do it now, aren't we, Chica?"
he murmured, his voice sensuous in her ear.

"Um..."

"We can make mad passionate love.
 Maybe, right here.  This would be a good spot for our
first time.  Right now," he said as his voice dropped to a
whisper.

"Now?" she squeaked.

Hector put his hands under her bottom and
lifted her.  She stared into his eyes.  Her heart was
pounding, and her palms were sweaty as their lips met.  Hector
kissed her long and deep, and then he set her down.

"But," he said while looking around, his
voice back to normal.  "It is cool today.  And I think
there are some mosquitoes buzzing around.  We could wait a
month or two, until it warms up and become dryer."

"Oh.  Yes," Kathy replied, catching her
breath.  "We could wait a month or two."

"It might be a cool summer.  In that
case, we could wait until next year.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then she
understood.  She flung herself into his arms, and he caught
her easily.

"Hector," was all she said, as she held him
close.

Then after a time, Hector said, "Kat, just
because you are now sixteen does not mean we must begin to be
intimate.  We have a lot of time, Kat.  A lot of time.
 Stop worrying about it."  He felt her nod against his
chest.

They stayed in the meadow
for a while longer, and then they walked back to the Lodge
together, hand in hand.  
Someday, I'll
look just like Desi does now, Hector,
Kathy
vowed silently.  On their way, they passed Yuie, who was
casting furtive glances toward Lieutenant Kennedy, and Kathy felt a
pang of pity for the other girl.

Yuie and Kennedy were
ignoring each other, except for the time that they spent running
together.  
Howard was right,
Kennedy thought.  
When we run together, we are comfortable together, and we
don't talk.  Talking just gets in our way.
 
The Lieutenant thought about some of
the other things Howard had told him, including the Admin’s comment
concerning gifts.  
I should give Yuie
a gift.  But what
?  He thought
about the traditional gifts that a man could give a
woman.

No florist shops
around,
he said to himself.
 
On the other hand, there are plenty
of wildflowers in the meadow.  But how do I give them to her.
 What if she gets embarrassed, or what if she thinks that
giving cheap wildflowers to a girl is stupid?  Better give
them to her in private
.