Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(5)

“No, I remember.” Jenou snaps her fingers. “I was going to ask you if there is a single square foot of this town that you don’t know by heart.”

The waitress appears at that point, and Jenou says, “I’ll have a cheeseburger.”

“Not today you won’t,” the waitress said. “No cheese.”

“No cheese?”

“Dontcha know there’s a war on?” the waitress asks wearily. “Deliveries are all fouled up.” She’s in a faded pink uniform and a food-stained apron and the kind of white shoes that nurses wear.

Jenou, exasperated, smacks the table with her palm. “That does it, now the war is getting serious.” Then she winces and says, “Oh, honey. Sorry. Sometimes my mouth . . .” She shrugs.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Rio says.

The waitress looks quizzical, and Jenou explains, “Her sister.”

“Oh, I heard about that,” the waitress says, losing the wise-guy attitude. “Condolences, sweetie. She’s in a better place. Dirty Japs.”

I’m that girl now. The one everyone has to pity, Rio thinks. It’s been weeks since Rachel’s death, but the Richlin home is still the only one with a gold star hanging in the window. Life goes on for 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 milk shakes,” 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.