Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(4)

“What was what like?” Rio repeats the question slowly. She has a wet sock laid over her eyes to afford some shade. There is a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola beside her. It was almost cold once and now is the temperature of hot tea. Jenou has a book held up to block the sun, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, in a paperback edition.

It is the summer of 1943 in Tunisia, and it is hot. Desert hot. Completely immobile—except when they swat at a fly—both young women are still sweating.

“You know,” Jenou insists. “The first time. I’m just trying to get an idea.”

“What are you, writing a book?” Rio says sharply. “Suddenly you’re reading books and now you’re trying to plumb the depths of my soul?”

“My usual appetite for fashion and Hollywood gossip isn’t being satisfied,” Jenou says, adopting a light, bantering lilt before restating her question in a more serious tone.

Rio sighs. “I don’t know, Jen.” She pronounces the name with a soft j, like zh. Jenou’s name is inspired by the word ingenue, a perfectly inappropriate reference point for Jenou, who is far from being the innocent the name suggests.

Jenou is blond, with hair cut short to just below the ear. General Patton has decreed that all female soldiers will have hair cut to above the bottom of their earlobe. The general is improvising—army regulations have not quite caught up with the realities of female soldiers. In addition to being blond, Jenou is quite pretty, just shy of beautiful, and has a pinup’s body.

Jenou remains silent, knowing the pressure will build on Rio to say something. And of course she’s right.

“It was . . .” Rio searches for a word picture, a metaphor, something that will convey enough meaning that Jenou will not feel the need to ask any more. Thinking about it takes her back to that moment. To the sound of Sergeant Cole’s voice yelling, Shoot!

Richlin! Suarez! Lay down some fugging fire!

Rio remembers it in detail. It had been as cold then as it is hot now. Her breathing had become irregular: a panicky burst followed by a leaden thud-thud-thud.

She remembers lining up the sights of her M1 Garand. She remembers the Italian soldier. And the pressure of her finger on the trigger. And the way she slowed her breathing, the way she shut out everything, every extraneous sound, every irrelevant emotion. The way she saw the target, a man in a tan uniform lined up perfectly on the sights.

The way her lungs and heart seemed to freeze along with time itself.

The moment when her right index finger applied the necessary seven-point-five pounds of pressure and the stock kicked back against her shoulder.

Bang.

The way she had first thought that he had just tripped. The way the Italian had seemed to be frozen in time, on his knees, maybe just tripped, maybe just caught his toe on a rock and . . . And then the way the man fell back.

Dead.

“Like it wasn’t me,” Rio says at last. “Like someone else was moving me. Like I was a puppet, Jen. Like I was a puppet.”

This is the third time, not the first, that Jenou has asked about that first killing. Rio is vaguely aware that it has become important to Jenou that Rio remain Rio. She understands that Jenou does not have the sort of home you get sentimental over, and that as a result Rio is home to Jenou. Sometimes she intercepts a look from Jenou, a passing betrayal of inner doubts. Jenou, who Rio would never have thought capable of any sort of reflection, has developed a sidelong, contemplative gaze. A judging gaze tinged with worry. And sometimes Rio looks for ways to reassure Jenou, but at this particular moment it is just too damned hot.

“Doing my job,” Rio says with a hint of wry humor. “Rio Richlin, Private, US Army, sir! Shootin’ Krauts, sir!” She executes a lazy salute.

A truck rattles by, and a dozen male GIs whistle and yell encouragement along the lines of “Hey, sweetheart!” and “Oh baby!” and “Bring those tatas here to papa!”

Rio and Jenou ignore the catcalls as just another bit of background noise, like the coughing engine of a Sherman tank lurching toward the motor pool, or the insect buzz of the army spotter plane overhead.

“Hey, I got a letter from Strand,” Rio says, wanting to change the subject and dispel her own lingering resentment.

A dozen soldiers, mostly men, march wearily past, coming in from a patrol. “Which of you broads want me between your legs?”

Jenou raises a middle finger without bothering to look and hears a chorus of shouts and laughs, some angry, most amused.

“Well, dish, sweetie. How is tall, dark, and handsome doing?” Jenou asks.

“He says he’s fine. And he’s looking for a way to get here.”

“From Algiers? Kind of a long walk.”

“I think he was hoping for a train. Or a truck. Or a plane.”

“He’d fly his own plane over here if he really loved you.”

Does he? Does he still? Am I still the girl he fell for?

Rio reaches blindly to give Jenou a shove. “I don’t think the army just lets you borrow a B-17 whenever you want one.”

“He could offer to pay for the gas.”

“Let’s roll over. This side’s parboiled.”

They roll over, Rio recoiling as bare flesh touches the metal skin of the vehicle.

Suddenly a siren begins its windup and both girls sit up fast, shield their eyes, and scan the horizon.