everyone, almost as if there was no war, until they notice Rio. Then comes the mask of pity, the low voices of sympathy, the threats, the tough talk.
Rio wants to forget it too, the way they all do with such apparent ease. She wants to be normal for a while, to gossip and tease and laugh.
“Hamburger,” Rio says, trying to avoid the tears that have stalked her since the coming of the telegram, coming suddenly without warning, prompted by some familiar sight, some gold-hued memory. She wants to shoot the breeze with Jenou and flirt with Strand and not have death and tragedy and her father’s stony silence and her mother’s drawn and defeated face hanging over it all.
“Two hamburgers and two milkshakes,” Jenou says. “What flavors?”
“Well, we have vanilla, and then we have vanilla.”
“I see: no chocolate because there’s a war on.” Jenou reaches across the table and pats Rio’s hand.
They sit in comfortable silence until the hamburgers come. It doesn’t take long; the patties aren’t much thicker than a sheet of construction paper and cook up quickly on the long steel grill behind the counter.
They take a few bites, and Rio says, “I found a journal she kept. Rachel, I mean. Up in her room, hidden under her mattress. I was in there to . . .” She shakes her head to ward off the tears and takes a big bite of burger, swallowing it past the lump in her throat.
Breathe. Breathe. Okay.
“I was in there to snoop,” Rio admits. “Anyway, I found her old journal. I wondered if maybe she’d kept one like it on the ship.”
Jenou nods cautiously.
“If she was a soldier, maybe we’d get her things, you know? What they call her effects. But it’s all on the bottom of the Pacific, I guess, and we won’t ever know.”
“I guess not,” Jenou says. “What did she write about?”
Rio shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t had the . . . I haven’t read it. Her secret crushes, I guess. But if I read it . . . I mean, what if she just complains about her annoying little sister?” She tries to force a smile, and it doesn’t quite work.
“You know you don’t have to be funny and lighthearted with me.”
“It’s not for you, Jenou. I heard someone say, I don’t know who, some wise man, or some snake oil salesman, whoever, anyway . . . I heard somewhere that you make a choice in life between tragedy and comedy.”
“It’s a choice?”
“Well, you can’t choose what happens. You can’t even really choose how you’re going to feel about it, I guess. But you can choose how to cope with it.”
Jenou nods her head. “You’re becoming deep, Rio.”
“Am I?”
“Very deep.”
Rio raises a skeptical eyebrow. “It just seems that way because I’ve always been so shallow.”
“Nonsense. I’m the shallow one. I insist that I am more shallow than you.”
“Rachel was not shallow. She was always different, not like me. Rachel had ambition and goals and . . . ideas.” She shrugs again. “She was so definite. Do you know what I mean? I feel . . . I mean, I never had to think about—”
She’s interrupted by the loud crash of a dropped glass behind the counter. Strand looks up at the sound, sees Rio, and smiles.
“Never had to think about what?” Jenou prompts.
“Oh, I don’t know. About the future. Life. You know. I mean, who am I, anyway? I’m just some silly girl. I was Rachel’s little sister, and your less-pretty friend. But—”
“You are not less pretty,” Jenou says, reaching over to pat her hand. “You’re just less sexy.” She whispers the last word earning one of Rio’s slow-build grins, which in turn causes Jenou to giggle, which causes the boys to turn around, their eyes and bodies all eagerness and energy.
“See? That was a sexy giggle,” Jenou says. “Shall I teach it to you?”
Rio throws a small french fry at Jenou.
Thank God for Jenou.
“I guess if I was ever to enlist it would be in the army,” Jenou says. There’s a false note to her nonchalance that pricks Rio’s interest.
“You enlist? They’ll have to draft you, Jen, and then hunt you down with a net.”
Jenou does not immediately laugh. Rio sets down her burger and leans forward. “Jen?”
“Did I mention that this town is really boring?”
“Jenou Castain, what are you thinking?”
“Well, everyone knows sooner or later this war goes to France, which means Paris. Haven’t you always wanted to see Paris? City of Lights? City of love? City of lovers? City of my rich and handsome future husband? You know, I come from French stock.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned it a hundred times, but, Jen, are you serious?” Jenou has always craved travel, especially to romantic France. She has always—well, since age twelve anyway—insisted on the French pronunciation of her name. Not a solid American “j” sound like “jump,” but a soft “zh.” Zhenou. Or Zhen for short. Jenou.
Jenou looks up from her burger with the slyly defiant expression Rio has seen on many occasions, most often occasions that end with Jenou on the wrong end of a stern lecture from parents or from the pastor or even, on one occasion, from the chief of police.
“You haven’t thought of it?” Jenou asks.
“Me? I’ve got months before I’m of legal age and—”
“Oh, do you really think you couldn’t get around that?” Jenou puts on her most worldly-wise face. “Where there’s a will there’s an eraser and a typewriter. Easiest thing in the world.”
“My mother would lock me in the barn with her cows.” Rio makes a joke of it, forcing an unsteady laugh. But she doesn’t shut the conversation down. She feels like a trout must feel after realizing there’s a hook inside that tasty worm.
But then Strand looks over at her, and it’s more than an arguably accidental glance this time, it’s a look. Which Rio returns as boldly as she is able.
“I guess she would,” Jenou allows. “But your little cutie pie Strand?”
“He’s not my cutie pie!”
“He got his notice. He ships out next week.”
“What?”
“Drafted. As in, Greetings: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States.”
Strand suddenly looks different in light of this development. He’s a good-looking boy, a serious boy with serious dark hair and skin only lightly afflicted by adolescent pimples. Now he looks at once younger and older. Too young at barely eighteen, and yet old enough legally. Too old for school books, too young for a rifle and a helmet.
She pictures him in an olive drab or khaki uniform. She imagines polished brass buttons and a hat with the brim riding low over his eyes. Yes, he would look pretty sharp in that uniform. He has the shoulders for it, and the narrow waist. But Jenou is still talking, so Rio has to break off contemplation of just what else Strand would look good in.
“If you enlist, they say you get to choose what you do. You know, like are you a typist in an office somewhere, or are you getting shot at. If you wait to get drafted, it’s straight to the front with bang-bang and boom-boom. You know I can’t stand loud noises.”
Rio has heard this before, everyone has, it’s common knowledge,