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“Oh, here we go,” he says, playing along. “Now I have to listen to this from you. It’s not true our butlers bring us coffee in bed. That is a dirty lie, a regular army falsehood. Our butlers lay the silver and the china out on a very nice table on the veranda, and then they bring us our coffee.”
“It’s awfully good to see you, Strand.”
“You look swell,” he says.
“So do you,” she says. It takes her a moment to register that this is something she would never have said before. It’s forward and blunt. She doesn’t exactly regret it, but she does make a mental note to think about it later. “Speaking of coffee, will you come in and have a cup?”
“Oh, I don’t want to use up your ration.”
“Nonsense, we always have coffee for men in uniform,” Rio’s father says, coming down the stairs. He sticks a hand out, and Strand shakes it. “Am I to take it that you are here to court my daughter, young man?”
He pitches the tone perfectly between deadly serious and downright dangerous, so Strand swallows hard and shoots a panicky look at Rio.
“Father is having fun with you, Strand. Come in, come in.”
“How’s air corps life?” Tam asks Strand.
“It’s fine, sir, aside from the matter of getting enough planes, which is FUBAR.”
Rio, who has heard that term and knows what it means, sees horror in Strand’s eyes and is torn between two wildly different emotions: fear of what may come next, and delighted amusement at the predicament Strand has just walked into.
Just let it go, Mother . . .
“What is FUBAR?” Millie asks.
Strand looks helplessly at Rio, who stares guiltily and paralyzed at her mother’s innocent expression. It’s her father who comes to the rescue.
“It stands for ‘Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition,’” he says, casting a wry look at Strand, who rediscovers his ability to breathe. “It’s a common soldier’s term.”
Yes, Rio thinks, though the F is usually taken to be a word that is a bit less appropriate for a mother’s ears.
“I’m off to the store; I’m already late,” Rio’s father says. “Oh, by the way, remind me that I need to clean my shotgun later. My twelve-gauge shotgun.” He softens this with a manly hand on Strand’s shoulder.
“Very funny, Father.”
There. He seems like my dad again.
They take their coffee in the kitchen, seated around the comfortable old table where Rio’s mother has laid out her dairy accounts and is industriously recording gallons of milk and dollars earned.
“I was wondering, well . . . ,” Strand begins.
“Yes?”
“The thing is, my uncle’s plane is being seized by the War Department. It’s a tough break for him, although they’re paying him more than the plane is worth. Anyway, he has it for another few days, and I thought, well . . .”
Sooner or later, Rio tells herself, she is going to have to get Strand to stop letting half his sentences trail off. “I’d love to.”
But her mother isn’t so sure. “Is it a two-seater?”
“Ma’am, the Jenny is designed with two completely separate cockpits. Also, ma’am, you’ll be relieved to learn that it no longer has its machine guns from the last war.”
“No crazy flying tricks or loop-de-loops!”
Strand makes the cross over his heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he vows. “It’ll be more dangerous getting to the field than flying: we have to ride bikes. Those things are unstable.”
Mrs. Richlin insists on making some sandwiches, as well as a tight-sealed Mason jar of lemonade, all packed into a small basket along with a checkered tablecloth to put down for a picnic.
“I don’t have a blanket to spare,” she says, looking a bit prune faced as she does so. “Careful if you lie on the grass, Rio—I’ll have to get the grass stains out of your dress.”
