Of course life didn't work the way they wanted.
Charlie did go away to college and so did Mindy. He never forgot about her but also allowed himself to enjoy the experience of being a college coed in the 60s. Tall, dark and handsome he never had a shortage of pretty girls who were eager to join him on a weekend night but he kept them all at arm's length, his heart still infatuated by the girl back home. Still he had to admit that she had been right, college was a great time and he probably would have not had half the experiences he did if he had left every weekend to spend time with Mindy.
He had begun making his post graduation plans but before he could make good on his intentions to move to New York he received his draft card.
He never once considered evading his obligation and instead of waiting for his number to be called he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and enlist in the Marines. He spent his last week at home before leaving for basic. Michael had already left for the air force but Mindy was home on Spring Break.
They spent every waking moment of the week together, her fear of never seeing him again overrode her insistence that they limit their relationship to platonic friendship. After they spent the night together he asked her for her picture and she agreed providing him with a color shot of the group from high school hanging together one day at the lot.
The night before he left he cropped the picture down until it just showed him and her leaning on the hood of his Buick.
Like many Marines his tour was shorter than most of the armed forces but what it lacked in length it made up for with brutality. He stopped writing home a short while after being in the country, not knowing how to put into words the horrors he was seeing. When he arrived home the following May it was as a shattered man.
He had been stateside for two weeks when his mother broke the news that Michael Roberts' plane had been shot down and he had been declared KIA. Attending Michael's funeral was the first time he left the house since he had returned home. Mindy came up to him at the reception to thank him for coming and tell him she was thankful he had made it home safely. Guilt crowded his thoughts and he was unable to do anything but nod mutely, fearing that opening his mouth would just invite the tears and marines didn't cry, especially in front of their high school crushes.
Home for the summer and unsure what to do with the overwhelming grief for her brother Mindy grasped at the mission to try and fix the broken soul of Charlie Skinner. She began showing up at his house with baked goods. At first they didn't talk, they would just sit and watch the evening news together. He got the message that she wasn't pressuring him, but she was there for him.
He startled her the first day he broke the silence of their evening ritual. "Bullshit!" He exclaimed in response to something Nixon was saying about the war. She turned her attention to him, hoping for an elaboration, but he remained quiet after the outburst.
Seeming to sense this could be a starting ground she began making comments about the stories that came on the screen, trying to illicit a response from her quiet to companion. After awhile Charlie began responding and engaged her in conversations or arguments. A month after Michael's funeral Charlie finally gave up resisting when she encouraged him to join her at the drive-in or for a milkshake.
Thanks to Mindy's insistent efforts normal life no longer felt so unattainable or wrong to Charlie. At her insistence he began looking for positions with newspapers on the East Coast; some place progressive enough that they would be amenable to letting him report on what he knew to really be occurring a hemisphere away. She knew he was a talented story teller and theorized that reporting would great outlet for him to reconnect with the world and help him work through the demons that still haunted him.
He agreed, having always found a comfort in the news, first through the radio as a child and most recently the evening television broadcasts. The idea of being part of the process that brought the stories of the world into the living rooms across America was something that was inordinately attractive to him and for the first time since before the war he found himself excited about the future.
Despite the fact he was ready to start making plans for the future again he quietly decided he wasn't going to do anything until Mindy returned to school in September. After their summer he found himself unable to consider distancing himself from Mindy's supportive presence. Although he did not tell her, he limited his applications to papers within a commutable distance to where Mindy would be during the school year at Johns Hopkins.
So it was with great excitement that he finally accepted a position with UPI out of DC. It all seemed to be falling into place when he showed up on campus, surprising Mindy after his first week at work. He was unsure how she might react but when she shrieked gleefully and wrapped her arms around his neck he had hope again that life could end up the way he wanted.
