"I spent half an hour picking out what I’d wear..."

Another Country -11-
by Erin Halfelven

Mom went to the door to greet John and Cyndy, and I stayed in my room for a while longer. John was eight years older than me and had been in the Air Force for two years and married to Cyndy for over a year. His first overseas assignment would be coming up at the end of the month, but as a lowly sergeant E-4, he didn’t qualify to take Cyndy with him on the Air Force’s nickel.

Which made things complicated, hence the plan to bring down Uncle David’s camp trailer for Cyndy to stay in while John was gone.

I heard Mom squeal. John is a big guy, and he likes to pick people up in order to give better hugs. One of the reasons I was lingering in my bedroom.

I heard them troop through the house and realized they were all going out to the yard to see where we had cleaned things up for parking the trailer. Nothing for it, I decided, and left my room to trail along behind them.

But Cyndy had lingered at the door, and she turned to face me as I entered the hallway. “Oh, there you are, Bobby, and… and….” She trailed off, almost glaring at me.

She was wearing a turquoise shirt and white shorts. I glared back at her.

She made a motion with her hand. “Bobby…” she began.

But I responded before she could finish. “No,” I said firmly. “I’m not going to change. I spent half an hour picking out what I’d wear, and this is it.”

Cyndy rubbed her lips with a fingertip, then laughed. “At least you’re not wearing matching nail polish,” she said, holding up her hand to show her beautiful aqua-and-white manicure.

I relaxed a bit. “They look great, Cyndy.”

“I did them myself,” she said. “And I brought the colors along in case of chipping.” She held up her purse. Then grinned wider at me. “I could do yours before we leave for dinner.”

“Uh, no,” I declined. She’d made the offer to do my nails before. She had a state license and sometimes did manicures for guests at her mother’s bed-and-breakfast down in Solvang.

“I could just do clear coat,” she offered. “Matte finish so they wouldn’t be shiny. I’ve done John’s for him.”

I shook my head, and she giggled. She enjoyed teasing me.

John’s voice came through the door which was still open. “Honey?” he called. “Wanna come see?”

“Not really,” she whispered to me, but answered her husband in a louder voice. “Coming. There aren’t any bees or yellow jackets this time, are there?”

Oh yeah. I remembered that the first time she had visited, last summer, a yellow jacket had chased her back inside. I followed her out.

John was saying, “Your own fault for being so sweet,” he told her. He reached for her, but she dodged his hug, laughing at him.

“You can pick on Bobby,” she offered. “He looks so cute today!”

John looked from one of us to the other. Cyndy’s ginger-blonde hair was actually shorter than mine and neatly shaped like something Tinkerbell might wear. A tiny furrow appeared between John’s eyes. He pointed at me, then Cyndy. “Which one of you did I marry?”

Cyndy poked him in the ribs. “Doofus,” she accused.

Mom had obviously already noted that Cyndy and I were wearing the same colors, but just rolled her eyes.

John responded by picking Cyndy up, spinning around before putting her down, then giving the same treatment to me. I may have squealed louder than Cyndy. I staggered back from my brother, him laughing his ass off. I know I turned red, I could feel the heat in my face.

Because…in the whirlwind of John’s attack on decency, I found myself imagining Josh picking me up like that. He could do it, too. He had more than maybe an inch in height over my brother and gave away what was probably less than thirty pounds.

While Cyndy laughed and tried to poke John in the ribs in retaliation, I just gasped and found one of the ratty old lawn chairs to collapse into, mainly to hide whatever was happening to my face. Some of it must have shown on my face, because Mom came over to ask if I was all right.

“I’m fine,” I told her. “When I was younger, he used to hold me upside down before he let go.”

She laughed. Cyndy laughed a lot; she was easy to like, even if she did tease me.

The back side of our property was only an empty lot away from the road into town off the state highway. This end, near the turnoff toward the airbase, had several motels, mainly for families visiting their sons and husbands in the Air Force. It did mean a little more road noise than neighborhoods deeper in town. The hedge of palmettos and oleander bushes broke up the sound, and living here, I hardly noticed it.

But I saw Cyndy frowning in that direction when a particularly big truck passed a block away. “You get used to it,” I assured her.

She pointed her frown at me and admitted, “I guess I’ll have to if I’m going to live here for two years.”

A thought occurred to me. Why couldn’t Cyndy get a room or small apartment somewhere to live in while John was gone? Money, I suppose.

“This is where we’re going to park the trailer,” John was saying. “Cyndy, look…you’ll have your own space with a kitchen, bedroom and bath right here.”

“Huh,” she grunted, not sounding at all as enthused by this idea as John did. She turned back to me. “I know you all don’t have bears out in the desert here, but what about lions and coyotes?”

“Coyotes, yes,” I said. “But lions stay away from people. And the desert dogs aren’t interested in you, just your trash. They sometimes get into it with raccoons or possums over the best garbage, though.”

She shuddered, and I grinned.

“I hear your father’s truck pulling up out front,” Mom announced.

“Good,” said John. “I’m starved.”

“We can leave as soon as Karl cleans up and changes his shirt,” said Mom. Dad’s workshirts all have advertising on the back and the pocket. “Karl’s Equipco.” He rents out equipment, from small power saws to big road graders.

“It’s not even five p.m.” I protested weakly. Josh would be coming over at nine and I had begun to worry a bit about timing.

“If we get there early,” John advised, “we can get the good table beside the fish tank.”

Cyndy looked confused. “This is a fish place? I thought it was Mexican.”

“The fish are for looking at, not for eating,” I told her. “It’s called Las Fuentes, the Fountains, and, yeah, I guess they do have mariscos, which are Mexican seafood.”

“It’s good food,” John assured her. “You’ll like it. And they’ll like you.” He waggled his eyebrows, and she giggled, glancing at me for some reason.