Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(116)

Harder has lectured her on the internalization of anti-Negro feeling. She had daydreamed through most of that, like most of his lectures, but bits and pieces of what he’s said have stuck. She can’t deny that she’s doing just what he said: unconsciously collaborating in our own oppression. But at the same time, there’s a question of fairness—she knows little of what Rainy has endured, but suffering is all over the Jewish girl’s face. Her eyes, which Frangie recalls being alert with a questing intelligence, are still intense, but now there’s something hard in them as well. Something very hard that frightens Frangie a little. In any event, Rainy Schulterman looks like she needs a decent bed and a good sleep.

As for Rio Richlin? The freckle-faced farm girl Frangie first met back in basic training is still there, somewhere beneath the leathery hide of the tough soldier she’s become. And she’s seen Rio since then, so the change seems less sudden. Frangie’s not even put off by the fact that even now, with the three of them in fresh-pressed class-A uniforms, Rio has her curved knife strapped to her thigh.

Rio has changed, but Rainy is almost a different person.

Something happened to that girl.

Rio returns from the bathroom and grins. “It flushes,” she says with great satisfaction. “Civilization.”

They repair to the pub proper, finding a table in a corner. It’s early for drinking or eating, so the room is empty but for a foursome of British Marines chain-smoking and nursing pints of ale and two old men playing chess.

The room is warm, both in temperature and style, with dark wood beams contrasting with whitewashed plaster walls. The bar boasts three taps and a few sparse bottles of harder stuff. Rio appoints herself to provide the first round and comes to the table carrying three pints of golden-colored ale.

“I think I’ll just have tea,” Frangie says.

“Tea.” Rio snorts. “Come on, Marr, don’t be a party pooper.”

“Is this a party?” Frangie wonders aloud.

Rio raises her glass to her lips, takes a drink, smacks her lips, and says, “It is now.”

Frangie relents and tastes the ale, which is cool rather than cold, and very bitter, but somehow pleasant despite that.

Rainy drains half her glass and says nothing.

“So, here we are,” Rio says. “Three heroes.” The tone of irony is unmistakable. She clinks her glass against both of theirs and says, “To warm rooms and cold beer.”

“Yes. I mean, cheers,” Frangie says.

“We should eat,” Rio says. She’s trying to inject some life into the glum group—Frangie awkward and skittish, Rainy just . . . in another world. “Barkeep! What’s for chow?”

The barman has dealt with enough GIs to know that “chow” is food. He comes from behind the bar, a middle-aged man with a wooden leg, and stands beside their table. “We’ve got shepherd’s pie with very little mutton, steak and kidney pie with more crust than meat, and fish and chips.”

“Is the fish real fish?” Rio asks.

“That it is, miss. Jerry isn’t sinking fishing boats at least, and we still get the occasional potato from the north.”

“That’s it then, fish and chips.” Then, frowning, she adds, “Please,” a word she obviously knows but which now seems strange, a relic of ancient times.

The barman stumps away, and Rio follows him with her eyes. “Probably lost that leg in the last war,” she says in a low voice.

“Below the knee,” Frangie says, her experienced eye taking in the bend of his knee. “That’s best. I mean, if you have to lose a leg.”

They sit in awkward silence for a while until both Rio and Rainy are well into their second pint and Frangie is a quarter of the way through her first. Even Rainy makes an effort to be slightly more conversational.

“So,” Rainy says. “Zero eight hundred tomorrow.”

Rio nods. “Yep.”

“Aren’t you nervous?” Frangie asks.

Rio sighs, sits back in her chair, and says, “Nah. Not about the ceremony. Just about what comes after.”

“And what’s that?” Frangie asks.

“You must have gotten the same talk we did,” Rio says. “You know, tour the country playing hero and getting folks to buy war bonds.”

“Not the whole country,” Rainy says acidly. “College towns, parts of New England, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. New York, of course. The parts of the country where women soldiers are more . . . acceptable.”

Frangie shakes her head, eyes down to conceal her amazement at their lack of understanding. “No, I didn’t get that offer.”

“Well, they probably just haven’t gotten around . . .” Rio lets it trail off as the truth begins to dawn. “Because you’re a Negro?”

Frangie shrugs, wondering if there’s even any point. But she likes Rio. She admires Rio’s courage, and her refusal to pretend to be something other than what she is. And, too, she likes the fact that she can be the tough warrior and yet completely naive at the same time. There is still something girlish about Rio, notwithstanding what Frangie knows about her.

A fallen woman.

Well . . . judge not that ye be not judged.

“Well, Rio,” Frangie begins, “I guess if you take all those places where maybe folks can stand the idea of women soldiers, you’d have to subtract at least half because as much as folks don’t like women soldiers, they like colored women soldiers even less.”