Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(12)

“You get to be a doctor and I’ll break my arm just to give you something to fix up.”

She doesn’t know how to answer that, so she just looks down and suddenly realizes how young she must look, a short girl with no shoes. Probably looks thirteen.

“You know, you can put in to be a medic,” Doon says, snapping his fingers. “Yeah, why not if you want to be a doctor?”

“They taking us for that?”

“Medics? Sure. What do you think, some white doctor is going to tend to a Nigra that gets shot?”

Frangie has already thought along the same lines, but she is glad to have the confirmation from Doon. A medic. Has to be better than cleaning toilets or cooking stew, although her stomach rumbles a bit at the thought of stew. Dinner was beans and corn bread and not too much of either.

They stand for a while, listening to the music. The band is blistering but still somehow cool and in control.

“That man can play,” Frangie says after a while.

“Don’t you know who that is? That’s Benny Goodman. I heard a couple of his own boys are down with the grippe and he had to cancel their own gig downtown with his big band, so he came down here to play with Diz.”

“A white man playing at the Regent?”

Doon smiles. “Jazzmen don’t care a damn—sorry—for what color you are, it’s just can you play or not. And that particular white man can play some clarinet.”

“Well, I guess I have to get back or my mother will fret,” Frangie says. “Take care of yourself, Doon.”

“Send my regards to your mom and pop. I don’t forget your dad speaking up for me that time, getting me that work. So if there’s anything I can do. You know?”

“I do.” Frangie starts to walk away, turns, now walking backward, and says, “Just don’t stick your head in the wrong end of any of those old cannons. I still remember you and that car muffler you thought you could spit into.”

Doon laughs. “I’d say I’m smarter now, but look at me.” He waves his hands elegantly to indicate his uniform. “How smart am I?”





4

RIO RICHLIN—GEDWELL FALLS, CALIFORNIA, USA

Rio Richlin sits far more stiffly than she intends, in the sixth row, center left at the Jubilee Movie House with a small bag of popcorn on her lap, a soda on the floor by her feet, and sweat on the palms of her hands.

There is something strangely rushed about this date. One minute she’d been idly glancing at Strand—a boy she’d more or less known all of her life, or at least known to nod politely to—and now they are at a movie together. A romantic movie at that.

Rio has heard people talking about how the war seems to accelerate the pace of daily life, how it seems to bring sudden change. As sudden as losing Rachel.

She is acutely conscious of Strand, which is strange in itself. Strand has always been there, a year ahead in one class or another, school or Sunday school, a presence, a boy among many possible boys she might see at a baseball game or wait behind in line at the grocery store. It would be wrong to compare him to a familiar lamppost or stop sign, but in some ways that’s what he’s been: a part of the landscape.

And suddenly, just a few days ago, she began to actually see him. And then to see him in detail. And then to see him to the exclusion of other boys.

He’s touching me!

His arm and hers share an armrest. There are four layers of fabric between them—her blouse, her sweater, Strand’s shirt, and Strand’s sports coat—and yet they are touching. It feels very awkward to Rio, but she definitely does not want to break off contact. She wonders what he is feeling—does he particularly enjoy the contact between their respective sleeves? Is he as aware, as she certainly is, of the body heat that crosses those fabric barriers? Is he feeling the muscle in her arm as she is his, and if so, is he thinking that she’s too muscular?

She does a lot of physical work, and she likes it mostly. Maybe it’s not how she would choose to spend her whole life, hauling hay bales and milking cows and stacking bags of fertilizer at her father’s store, but she has never disliked hard labor.

Well, if Strand thinks she’s unfeminine, well . . . Well, then that’s that. Maybe she isn’t Jenou, maybe she’s not the most girly girl, maybe her skin is too tan, but she is . . . well, again, she is what she is. Who she is.

Whatever that is.

Neither of them has spoken in a while, and Rio wonders if he feels as awkward as she does.

“That’s a great dress,” Strand says. He sounds as if he’s spent quite some time preparing the compliment.

“Thank you, Strand.”

“I . . .”

“Yes?”

“It’s starting,” he says with obvious relief.

The house lights go down, and the audience waits for the newsreel. First, though, comes the sales pitch for war bonds, followed by Daffy Duck taking on Adolf Hitler.

Rio wonders whether—or maybe when—Strand will try to take her hand. Assuming he’s not actually disgusted by her and regretting this date. And she wonders how many sets of prying eyes will mark the event. Then again, what if he never does take her hand? Those same ever-observant eyes will note that fact as well. The news bulletin around the school will be “Strand and Rio!” Or, alternately, whispered reports, accompanied by head-shaking, that Strand is not really interested in Rio. Poor Rio.