Friday 21 September 2007
Just before eight o'clock, at the close of a damp autumn Friday, a small car entered Ocean Beach, on the I-5, and pulled up outside a house just off Abbott Street. It was an older model Ford Escort, driven by a young woman, but under a light coating of road dust was much evidence of wax and a polishing cloth and there was nothing in the appearance of the driver to suggest that a newer model would have been beyond the depth of her purse. She was alone, and as she got out of the car revealed that she was dressed in a lightweight russet sweater and tan slacks. The outfit had been selected for comfort while driving rather than being designed to draw attention, but still subtly emphasised a figure that attracted an admiring glance from a middle-aged man walking his dog on the opposite side of the street. Her hair, worn loose, hung to the middle of her shoulder-blades and was held clear of her face by a pair of simple clips worn at her temples, and by a pair of sunglasses which had been pushed up to the top of her forehead.
Petty Officer First Class Jennifer Coates' face, framed by the hair, was that of a young woman in her mid-to-late twenties, and while, if judged by contemporary Hollywood standards, was not that of an outstanding beauty, was more than sufficiently attractive to rate a second, or even third look. The attraction was centred in a pair of fine brown eyes, in which lurked a incipient laughter and a great deal of intelligence, but her other features, taken individually, were not remarkable, her mouth being too large, her nose too far removed from the classical and her chin and jaw line a little too firm and resolute. But her smile not only lit up her face, it revealed a hidden but enchanting dimple on her right cheek. That she smiled often was clearly indicated by the laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was neither brunette nor blonde, but a mid-brown with a hint of red highlights when caught by the sun; at work she wore it caught up in a French Plait, but in her free time she preferred to wear it loose, 'to let it breathe!' Her young friend - almost sister - Mattie, with her glorious red hair, which fell in riotous curls down her own back detested the plait and said it made her look old, and protested vigorously when she answered, "Well, I am old!"
It was apparent that her arrival had been anticipated, for she had hardly opened the car's trunk when the door of the house, which had been converted into apartments, was flung open and a young woman came hurtling down the steps, long blonde hair flying out behind her like a flag, to greet her with an enthusiastic hug, saying "Oh, Jen, you're back! I'm so happy to see you again!"
"Not as happy as I am to be back Fran! That was the longest and toughest course I've ever been on! It's great to be home again! How is everyone? How's that Marine of yours? You must tell me everything!"
"Oh, most things have gone well enough - here give me that sea-bag - Mr Rabb's still in DC - I told you about the Federal Grand Jury, didn't I? Mattie's OK, but she's been having a pretty tough time the last couple of weeks, she's back in her wheelchair. We've got new neighbours in the apartment downstairs - he's a doctor, and I think she's a cop, or maybe another lawyer!" Jen let Fran bubble away with all the local news while the two, shouldering sea-bag, suit carrier and holdall climbed the steps to the house and took the elevator to their third-floor loft conversion.
A mere three years, and one step in rank, separated the two young women in age and experience, but sometimes Jen felt as if she belonged to an entirely different generation. Fran had been brought up as the second child - and the only daughter - of four children born to Mom and Pop Neumann of Milwaukee, where they owned a street-corner deli, specialising in products from the old country, and which arrived irregularly in parcels at the house on Cape May Avenue. Mom and Pop Neumann, although worried about Fran's career choice, had supported her wish to enlist and were unreservedly proud of their daughter's desire to serve her country.
Jen's life had been different; she had been a reluctant enlistee. Given the choice by a civilian judge of serving her country or six months' jail at hard labour, she had chosen the navy. She had been raised in Maryland, the only child of a rigidly unforgiving, hell-fire preaching minister of the church, who reserved all his love for God and had none to spare for his family. He seemed to have even less love for his daughter after his wife died when Jen was barely ten years old. Jen's mother's death was officially classified as being due to natural causes, but Jen had come to the firm belief that her father's neglect was a major factor in her mother's death. Jen lived a misersable life for the next four years, trying to win some sign of affection from her father, but as her father became more morose and bitter, life became unbearable; she grew to hate her father, and at fourteen ran away from home and dropped out of school to live on the streets where she drifted into a world of petty theft, fraud and biker gangs. Enlisted solely as a means to escape jail, at first her one desire had been to return to life on the streets, her foray into Unauthorised Absence, as a step back towards her former life, had seen her tracked down by Marine Corps Masters at Arms, arrested and facing a court martial.
Ironically, it was during this period that she at last met, for the first time, someone who took an interest in her, and in her life, without expecting anything in return. Her appointed naval defence attorney, Commander Harmon Rabb of the Navy JAG Corps and a former F-14 pilot, had broken, or at least severely bent, several navy regulations to keep her out of the Navy Brig over the Christmas and New Year holidays, and even to discount an additional charge of unauthorised absence when she again took unauthorised absence after she was falsely accused of the theft of a valuable bracelet belong to one of the Commander's female colleagues. Despite Commander Rabb's best efforts, Jen was convicted and underwent a short period of confinement. Upon her return to duty, and as a result of the treatment she had received at Rabb's hands, she, in her own words, "Changed her attitude", obtained her GED and applied for re-training as a navy Legalman. Assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Seahawk, she worked for another friend of Rabb's, Lieutenant Bud Roberts, and when he lost a leg to a land-mine in Afghanistan her prompt action in slowing the bleeding and getting him to surgery as quickly as she could were instrumental in saving his life .
An unforeseen consequence of her actions was to bring her to the notice of Admiral Chegwidden, the navy's Judge Advocate General, who had her re-assigned to JAG Headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia, where rising to the post of Admiral's Yeoman, or administrative assistant, Jen quickly became accepted as a member of an unorthodox, but highly effective legal team, whom in turn she looked upon as a surrogate family.
The closeness between Jen and Rabb was enhanced when Rabb took legal guardianship of the teenage Matilda Grace Johnson, or as she preferred to be known, Mattie Grace. Mattie had not only been living alone since her mother had been killed in a car wreck and her alcoholic father, whom she blamed for the accident through driving while drunk, had disappeared, but she had also been running the family crop-dusting business out of Blacksburg airport, where Rabb kept his beloved Stearman bi-plane. On becoming Mattie's guardian, Rabb promised that never again would she be left alone. Rabb's one bedroom apartment was unsuitable for sharing with a teenage girl, and he intended to look for a suitable house in the suburbs. Mattie, however dedlared that she was tired of living in the country, and said she'd like to try city life for a while. Fortunately a neighbouring apartment became available and Rabb, unwilling to allow Mattie to live on her own, persuaded Jen to agree to share the apartment with Mattie, just down the hall from his own. The arrangement worked well, the two finding a common bond in the loss of their mothers, and the fifteen year-old Mattie coming to look upon Jen almost as her older sister. The three of them forming a somewhat unconventional family until Mattie's father had completed a spell in rehabilitation, and becoming reconciled with his daughter, the two of them reunited and returned to Blacksburg. Rabb and Jen were happy that Mattie and her father were returning to a normal family life but both of them missed the lively teenager who had come to mean so much to them.
Mattie, fired by Rabb's example, decided to emulate him and become a navy fighter pilot, and as a first step in achieving her goal she took a series of flying lessons. Unfortunately during the course of one such lesson the aircraft in which she was flying was overtaken by a sudden snowstorm, and while the instructor was attempting to land in reduced visibility collided with another airplane. The instructor was killed in the crash, and Mattie was severely injured, suffering trauma to the cervical section of her spinal cord and a head injury that left her in a coma; . Mattie's recovery from the coma was fairly rapid, but the spinal cord injury left her temporarily paralysed. Mattie's injuries led to a distraught Rabb staying by her hospital bedside for days, and as was his invariable habit in times of crisis, erecting emotional walls and refusing all offers of help from his friends. Mattie's father however was unable to cope with her injuries, and abandoned her for the second time in her life and returned to his one comfort - the bottle. angered and frustrated with this second abdication of his paternal responsibilities, Rabb filed an application to resume his guardianship of Mattie.
Just at this time, at the instigation of Major General Cresswell USMC, the new navy JAG, both Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie of the US Marines, a fellow JAG Officer and Rabb's long-term partner were re-assigned. Rabb to London, to become the Naval Force JAG for Europe on promotion to Captain, and MacKenzie to command a new Joint Service Legal Team based at San Diego. Jen, in common with most of the Falls Church team, was aware of the long-standing on-again-off-again attraction between Rabb and MacKenzie, and had become increasingly frustrated with the inability of the two of them to recognise that they were soul-mates. With six thousand miles between them Jen was sure that their physical separation would also mark the end of their emotional attachment, remarking to the General, that if they couldn't talk to each other when their offices were twenty feet apart, then they would have no chance of communicating when they were so far distant from each other. However, a surprise outcome of the re-assignments had been the decision of Rabb and MacKenzie to finally acknowledge their mutual love and to marry. Sometimes, in thinking about the rapidly moving chain of events that culminated in their engagement, Jen wondered if the shrewd General Cresswell hadn't foreseen just such a result!
Navy regulations bar married officers from serving in the same chain of command, so the only way for the marriage to work was for either Rabb or MacKenzie to resign. As they were unable to decide which of them was to take this step, the outcome was decided on the flip of a coin. Abiding by the result, Rabb resigned his commission and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie USMC became Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie-Rabb USMC and assumed her new duties in San Diego.
The now-Mr Rabb was compelled to stay on in DC until Mattie was well enough to travel to the west coast, where she formed part of Rabb's 'instant family' - his perhaps unconscious desire for which had been shrewdly identified earlier by a CIA Lawyer, Catherine Gale. Once the turmoil of moving to California had subsided, Rabb joined the prestigious San Diego law firm of Wheeler, Bayliss, Escobar, specialising in criminal defence.
Jen, at first unsure of what she should do, and reluctant to leave her comfort zone eventually summoned up the courage to ask if she might accompany Colonel MacKenzie to San Diego, an offer which the Colonel gladly accepted, in part because of Jen's association with Mattie, but mainly because Jen was exceptionally good at her job.
Jen's nomination to attend the navy's Chief Petty Officer School just two short years after assuming her new duties was ample evidence of her capabilities, although she would need to wait for her next year's fitness report before she could receive her promotion.
That was in the future though, and for the present, as she entered the apartment, all she really wanted was a hot soak, a chilled glass of wine and then bed - unpacking and the squaring away of her gear could wait until tomorrow - but her brow creased in tired concentration as something in Fran's stream of chatter caught her attention. Plumping on to the couch she said, "Hold 'em up there just a second, will you? Did you say that Mattie's not doing too good?"
"Oh, Jen, I'm sorry," Fran, moving to an armchair, was instantly contrite, "I swore that I wouldn't say anything until tomorrow at least."
Jen looked at Fran's conscience-stricken countenance and sighed, "Well, you've rubbed the lamp now, you can't shove the genie back inside. What's happened?"
"Well," her room-mate replied, "it's complicated."
Jen mustered a tired half-smile, "With Mattie, it generally is; go on."
"You do know that Mr Rabb's away in DC, right?" Fran enquired.
"Yes, I know that, go on."
"Well, Mattie's dumped her sticks and gone back to her wheelchair. The Colonel's been bogged down in a huge court martial case, so she asked me to help with Mattie while both of you were away."
"How do you mean, 'help'?"
"Oh, nothing too complicated, just picking Mattie up from school and taking her to physical therapy when the Colonel couldn't make it."
"Ok, so where's the problem there?"
"Oh, that wasn't a problem; it's just the Colonel had gotten tickets for the SD Symphony. Mattie was really looking forward to it, so when the Colonel had to cancel, she asked me if I'd take Mattie instead..."
The woebegone look on Fran's face was too much for Jen and a broad grin creased her face, "Damn, I'd have paid good money to see that!"
"What?" exclaimed Fran in surprise, "paid to see the symphony?"
"No," chuckled Jen, "I'd have paid to see you at the symphony! Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't really mean to laugh at you! Was it all too awful?"
"Nooo..." the answer, accompanied by a reluctant grin, was slowly drawn out, "no, it wasn't all that bad, but here's the thing," Fran paused, and blushing slightly, gently bit her bottom lip before continuing, "we met a guy there."
"Yes, go on," encouraged Jen, determined to wring the last drop of enjoyment out of her friend's evident embarrassment.
"Well, he was very interested in Mattie, and she's interested in him."
"And...," prompted Jen.
"Well, it's understandable. He's cute, he's got style, he's polite. He called her when he said he would, and they've been on a couple of dates. She swears up and down that his behaviour is irreproachable, so I don't see what the problem is."
"There's a problem?" Jen was surprised.
"Yes, the Colonel's taken against him, and she's told Mattie that she's not to see him again. And you know how Mattie is, tell her not to do something, and she'll straight off go ahead and..."
"Do it!" Jen interrupted. Finishing off others' sentences was Jen's persistent fault, and one that had from time to time brought the wrath of her superiors down upon her head. "So now," she continued, "Mattie and the Colonel are fighting about this boy?"
"Well, it's not quite fighting... they're just a bit off with each other. Mattie's sulking - you know how good she is at that - that's why she's gone back to using the chair - and the Colonel's mad at her for not using her sticks, as well as about this boy, 'cept he's not exactly a boy, either."
"Just how old is he, then?" Jen enquired, concern for Mattie stifling any last inclination towards amusement.
"I'm not sure... twenty-five, or maybe twenty-six, I guess."
"Fran! What were you thinking!" was Jen's shocked answer. "That's nearly ten years older than Mattie!"
"What's that to do with me, Jen? Asked Fran, defensively. "It's none of my never-mind who Mattie dates. Besides, he seems like a decent guy. Like I say, he's cute, he's well-dressed, he's got style, he's kind, generous, reliable and attentive. He's obviously got money; he's staying at the Del Coronado, and his family own a whole parcel of land up in Sonoma - something to do with wine-making."
Jen cast a shrewd glance at her room-mate, "Fran," she asked gently, "are you quite sure it's Mattie who's got the crush on this guy - what is his name anyway - and not you ... and what about your Marine, Tim isn't it?"
Fran's face flooded with colour, her bright blue eyes evading Jen's level stare, "I'm not saying I don't find him attractive, but he's dating Mattie, so what's it matter how I feel? Anyway, I wouldn't try to cut Mattie out, no matter how I feel. That wouldn't be right, and it would make a bad situation worse. And at least I've got a boyfriend!"
"Bad - worse?" Said a puzzled Jen, carefully ignoring the dig at her own single status, "What do you mean?"
"Well, the Colonel's usually better at reading people than she has been with Mattie just recently. Like we said, tell Mattie not to do something..."
"Yes."
"So, Mattie's got her mule-head on, and she's bent on seeing this guy - Stacy's his name, Stacy Caldwell - whenever she wants. Of course the Colonel won't take her to meet him, and won't allow him to see Mattie, or even call her at home..."
"Yeah, turning her into a modern Juliet! Of all the dumb-ass things! But you're right; it's not like the Colonel."
Fran then burst her bombshell. "Yeah, and then Mattie telling the Colonel that she wasn't her guardian, she wasn't in her army and she couldn't to tell her what to do or who to see.."
"Fran! No! She didn't?" Jen gasped in shock.
"Yeah, 'fraid, so. Least, that what she told me."
"What did you say to that?"
"What could I say? The way Mattie was just then, if I had sided with the Colonel we would have had a huge bust-up right in the middle of the USD cafeteria, and I couldn't side with Mattie, could I?"
"What's Harm - Mr Rabb - saying about all this?"
"I don't know, Jen. I'm not family, remember? And if he's spoken to Mattie or the Colonel, neither of them have told me about it. I know it's wrong for Mattie to disrespect the Colonel like that, but it would be too bad if she had to suffer like you did."
"Fran! Have you gone crazy?" Interrupted Jen, looking at her with astonishment. "When did I ever suffer?"
"Jen, you can't have forgotten that you told us - me and Mattie - about that boyfriend you had back in Virginia - the one that other friend of yours shot."
"Fran, you can forget all about him! I promise you, I have! Didn't I tell you that he made me steal for him, and that he forced Pia - the girl who shot him - to turn tricks for him? And she's not my friend - I guess she never was really - she tried to frame me for his murder, and then tried to kill me! He was a real slime-bucket, and OK, I might have thought I had a broken heart when I had to enlist and go to boot camp, but I hadn't. I got over him quick enough, and thank God I did! And Mattie will get over this guy. Besides, with what she's got going on her life, with physical therapy and starting college next year, she's got no time for a serious boyfriend right now."
"Well, if you are over him, how come you blew off that Steve guy? He adored you; flowers and little presents all the time, cute text messages, clean, attractive - in a sort of goofy way - and..."
"Totally boring!" replied Jen, with a hint of laughter back in her voice, and her eyes were brimming with amusement. "Oh, Fran, have you been thinking of me with a broken heart all this time. I'm sorry, but I'm not the tragic heroine out of one of your dippy romantic novels! Hey, how did this suddenly become about me? I thought we were talking about Mattie!"
"We are! You side-tracked me!" protested Fran.
"I did not!"
"Did, too!"
Both young women looked at each other and burst out laughing, "Hell, Jen, we sound just like Mattie!" Fran gasped out between giggles.
"Oh, I know, I know... Look, Fran, I'm too whacked to think about this right now, and anyway it's not really our problem; I'm going to catch a bath and then I'm hitting my rack."
"Hah! You may not think it's not your problem... but wanna bet Mattie thinks different?"
Jen gave her friend a steady look and said in a firm voice, "Goodnight, Fran!"
"Hey! Before you go, do you want to eat? Or can I get you a drink?"
Jen hesitated and looked back over her shoulder, "H'mmm... do we have any marshmallows, or have you eaten them all?"
"Yeah, we got some...hot chocolate?"
"Please! - in the bathroom!"
