CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Commander Bancroft opened the door to the exam room, and smiled warmly. "Mrs. Calavicci!" he said. "I thought our little biology class was set for tomorrow. I hope it's nothing serious?"
"It's not me at all," Maxine admitted. "It's Al."
"Captain Calavicci?" Bancroft closed the door, drew up his stool, and sat.
Max nodded. "I'm scared that he's sick," she confessed. "I don't know what to do."
"Well, ordinarily I'd say have him come to see me," commented the Naval physician; "but since he's not here, I assume you think that that would be a problem."
Maxine sighed. The challenge made her feel vaguely ill. Only her familiarity with her tutor had allowed her to work up the courage to raise this concern in the first place. She had plenty of qualms of her own, without Bancroft throwing others in for her.
"I don't think he'd come," she admitted. "He doesn't like to talk about it. He won't even admit when he feels sick, but lately I've noticed… things."
"What kind of things?" Bancroft asked.
"Well… he's always tired. I mean, I know he works hard, and that is part of it, but he has trouble sleeping, too," she went on. "And he wakes up in the middle of the night to shower."
"Shower?" the doctor echoed.
Max nodded. "Long, cold showers. He spends so much time in the bathroom. It's the first place he goes when he gets back from his office."
"Bowels? Bladder? Vomiting?"
She shook her head helplessly. "I don't know," she said. "He won't tell me. Then there's his hands."
"What about them?" asked Bancroft.
"They shake. Not always, but there are times when he can't even hold a glass because he's shaking so bad. He isn't eating properly, either, and sometimes his eyes get so red…" Max hugged herself with one long arm. "I don't know what's wrong," she breathed. "It's scaring me."
"I imagine it must," Bancroft soothed. "I don't think you need to worry, ma'am. The captain isn't sick."
"But some days he can hardly walk!" Maxine protested. "And he has trouble organizing his thoughts—Al's never had that problem before! He's distracted and he gets confused, and—"
"Maxine." The physician laid a reassuring hand on her arm. "He's not sick. It's the booze. Get him to cut back on the alcohol, and he'll start to get better."
She stared at him. "Alcohol?" she echoed. "But Al doesn't drink!"
Bancroft blinked at her. "You'll forgive me, Mrs. Calavicci, but the captain most certainly—"
"He doesn't, he really doesn't!" she told him. "He did when we met. He was drinking quite a lot then, but after we got married he stopped."
Bancroft shook his head. "He hasn't stopped," he argued. "But he should. There are programs to help—"
"But he doesn't drink!" Maxine repeated emphatically. "He hasn't bought liquor in months! The only alcohol in the house is a bottle of red wine that we use for cooking. I've heard those rumors, too, you know, and they're wrong! I live with him. Wouldn't I know if he was a drinker?"
Commander Bancroft closed his eyes and drew in several slow breaths. When he looked up again, Maxine thought that there was something like regret in his expression.
"I know it seems that way," he said gently, "but in cases of severe dependence the drinker is often secretive about his alcohol consumption. If the captain has started to lie to you about—"
"He's not lying," Max said adamantly. "He doesn't drink. Al wouldn't lie to me."
As soon as those words were out of her moth, Maxine remembered the grotesque telephone conversation with Sharon, Al's ex-wife and her predecessor. She had said something similar, hadn't she? "You've never caught him in a lie? Fibbing about what he ate, or how much he drank?" A troubling thought crossed Max's mind. If it had been like that then, when Al had been married to Sharon, who was she to say that it was any different now?
Except that it was different. She wasn't Sharon, and Al wasn't drinking anymore.
"Al wouldn't lie to me," she reiterated with the conviction of a child whose faith in her parents' veracity had not yet been dealt the crippling blow of discovering the true nature of Santa Claus. "He's not drinking. It's something else."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't agree with you," Bancroft said. "I've seen him—"
"No." Maxine shook her head with such force that her hair slapped against her shoulders. "Al wouldn't lie. He's sick. If it's cancer or something…"
The doctor's dark eyes softened. "I don't think he has cancer."
"But if he did… isn't there some kind of checkup that they need every year in the Navy?" she pressed.
"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "We're all required to have a full physical every year."
"Then you can make Al come in for his!" Maxine said, seeing light at the end of the tunnel. She couldn't imagine that a man who often forgot to eat lunch would be very diligent about keeping his medical records up-to-date.
"I'm afraid not. He's not due again until April, and even then he doesn't come to me."
"But I thought…"
"I'm the Chief Medical Officer here, yes," Bancroft said; "and most of the boys at Starbright come to me. Captain Calavicci is a special case. He has to undergo a rather more thorough workup than most of us."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because he's a vet. All the men who came back out of those camps go in for special assessment. Everyone in three states goes to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego."
"But surely you get his results," Maxine said. "I mean, aren't you his regular doctor?"
"I see everything but his psych profiles," Bancroft confirmed.
"Well, on his last checkup, was anything—"
He held up a hand to stop her, shaking his head regretfully. "I can't discuss it with you, ma'am. He's entitled to confidentiality." He looked at her solemnly. "this is something that you really need to discuss with your husband, Maxine. But I'll tell you this much: I don't think there's anything wrong with Captain Calavicci that he isn't doing to himself."
She rose angrily. "You're wrong!" she cried. "He's sick and he needs help!"
"The only way he's going to get help is by admitting that he needs it. Whether he's drinking or not. We can't just sedate him and drag him down here for blood work, now can we?"
Max flushed a little. "I guess not," she whispered.
She left the sickbay and wandered off topside. She smiled absently at the handsome young Marine guarding the door—Carter, she thought. Out by the firing range, all was quiet. Maxine perched on a wooden barrier, swinging one slender foot and thinking things over as best she could.
Al wasn't a drinker, so then what was wrong with him?
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThere were bad days. They always started the same way: brutal awakenings in the wee, small hours of the morning, night terrors infused with brutal realism that neither copious quantities of alcohol nor Maxine's willingness to meet his desperate need for nocturnal distraction could banish entirely. Sleep would usually return in the end, but it was a byproduct of inebriation and exhaustion, and no symptom of inner peace. After too few hours the squall of the alarm clock would yank him from the tangible darkness of unconsciousness to the ineffable gloom of the waking world. Fighting a hangover, Al would force himself to shower and shave, baptize his eyes with Visine drops, and ease his aching head with two aspirin and a whiskey chaser. He would have to put on a show of cheerful sobriety for Maxine, who would nag him about his health and beg him to let Bancroft poke, prod and x-ray him. Then there would be an encore performance for Eulalie, and Al could bury himself in paperwork until it was time to return to his room so that the cycle could begin again in the morning.
On the bad days, sounds and smells and sensations would sent him straight back to the hell near Cham Hoi. He would resent the need to ration the one thing that allowed him to function. He would hate his work, and the people around him, and himself most of all.
There were good days, too, though. Days when his mind was fully in the present, and when reality was clearly defined and his hip flask was a friend, not a savior. On the good days, he could shave without cutting himself. Food had flavor. Work had meaning. He could look at himself in the mirror, and smile. He could dress in fun, colorful clothes, and actually feel handsome and dapper, instead of using the bright cloth as a mask to hide his inner misery. On the good days, he could take a little joy in things.
It was true that the bad days came far more often than the good, but it was the good days that gave him the strength to keep on living. The strength to survive just a little longer.
Today was going to be a good day, he promised himself as he ran his hand up and down Maxine's slender back. He nuzzled her hair, and she sighed happily, cuddling closer to him.
"That was great," she whispered.
"Happy birthday," Al told her.
She looked up with a laugh of delight. "You remembered!" she cried.
"Rule number one of a happy marriage: never forget your wife's birthday," Al fibbed. In fact, he had forgotten. It was Eulalie who had reminded him yesterday, with her well-timed question regarding his plans for celebrating Maxine's twenty-third.
"That's why you're not hurrying to work?" Max asked.
Al nodded. "I'm taking a day off. I thought we could head into Phoenix if you wanted to."
"Really?" she said eagerly.
"Whatever you want, birthday girl."
Maxine wriggled seductively. "Do we have to go right away?" she queried.
"We could wait a couple hours if you want," Al murmured obligingly. He kissed her mint-flavored fingertip.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe arena was only about two-thirds full, but the crowd was rowdy and enthusiastic. Maxine craned her neck, hoping for a glimpse of the players before they lined up for the jam.
"Hey, watch it!" Al chuckled, leaning out of her way as she moved into his airspace. "You'll spill the popcorn!"
Maxine laughed, too happy to care. "It's bad for my figure!" she said.
"Hon, there's nothing in the world that could hurt this figure," Al told her, curling his arm around her waist.
Below, a double whistle sounded, and the crowd hooted in anticipation as the two teams started to do a lap of the track.
"So which one should I be cheering for?" Al asked.
"The ones in purple are the Eastside Eagles," Maxine said. "Their jammer's name is Wanda Dance. The one wearing the number 2 is their best beater. She's Carrie Meback. Then there's Killa Whale and Dee Plomacy—"
"Those aren't their real names!" protested Al. "No one in their right mind would name their kid Killa Whale!"
"Of course those aren't their real names!" Maxine told him. "But they sound great!"
"That's a matter of opinion," he commented dryly. "What about the team in green?"
"Those are the Jam Tarts," Maxine told him. She didn't get any further into the introduction, because Al began to laugh so hard that he started gagging on his soda. Much chuckling and backslapping later, the Calavicci's had completely missed the first twenty seconds of the round. By the time Maxine had her eyes back on the track, there was nothing to do but start into the screaming and cheering.
The Eastside Eagles won, of course. They were the second-best team in the Arizona league. As Maxine joined the raucous cheering that followed the victory, dimly conscious of Al good-naturedly joining in beside her, she felt stirrings of almost-forgotten enthusiasm. Caught up as she had been in her determination to earn her high school diploma, she had almost forgotten the way she felt about this sport. The rush of watching girls just like her careening around the track at superhuman speeds, the magic of that moment of uncertainty before one jammer took the lead, was something that sang to her soul.
She was going to do it, she decided. She was going to learn to roller-skate, and she was going to qualify for the derby!
She hugged her husband enthusiastically. "Thank you!" she cried, raising her voice over the din around them. "Thank you!"
"Hey, Happy Birthday!" Al shouted back, pecking her cheek.
"Thank you," Maxine whispered. She was thanking him for giving her back her childhood dream, but of course he didn't know that.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe stars were brilliant over the desert as Al carefully downshifted, mindful of Maxine. She had fallen asleep about twenty minutes out of Phoenix, and was leaning against him, her tawny head resting on his shoulder. She had had a good day, and so had he.
Al sighed, content with the moment and yet wistful. If only they could be this happy all the time. He knew that was a ridiculous wish. Nobody could be happy all the time. The good and the bad came to each man in some measure. He had heard that somewhere, or something like it, but he couldn't remember where.
The searchlights on the Starbright walls now illuminated their passage through the night, and Al carefully slid his flask, now almost empty, into his left back pocket. Maxine stirred a little, then exhaled with a soft, cooing sound. Before returning his hand to the wheel, Al reached out to stroke her velvety cheek. His girl, Maxine. Twenty-three today. How time flew.
He thought back to his own twenty-third birthday. Chip had organized one hell of a bush party on a beach ten miles east of Pensacola. Stacker and Plumber and all the guys had been there, and there had been plenty of beer and gorgeous women, but of course young Bingo Calavicci had had eyes for one alone. The beautiful Lieutenant Lisa Sherman, her long and elegant legs displayed to perfection by her black swimsuit, her dark hair glistening in the firelight, her blue eyes dancing…
Al withdrew his hand from Maxine's head. Eight days later, Ensign Calavicci had been detained on murder charges, and Lisa, having offered an alibi for the night of Marcie Riker's murder, had been caught in a head-on collision with a semi. They had identified her by her dog tags: the body was marred beyond recognition.
'All good things must come to an end!" the voice taunted. "One way or another, you lose 'em all! Bye-bye, Lisa. Bye-bye, Beth. Bye-bye, Ruthie. Bye-bye Sharon. Bye-bye, Maxine!'
"Stop it!" Al hissed under his breath, wondering if he dared to steal another sip of vodka before pulling up to the gate. But no, the barrier was open, and the Marine inside would see him. He didn't have anything to hide, he told himself, but he didn't like to advertise the fact that he liked his liquor, either. Al leaned over and kissed Maxine's sweet-smelling hair, hoping that that would give him enough of an anchor to make it inside.
He pulled up next to the young corporal. "At ease," he chuckled as the boy snapped into a rigid salute. "Good evening…" He caught sight of the name-badge. "Carter."
"Good evening, Captain!" the young man said. "Did you have a good day, sir?"
"A wonderful day, thank you." The spelunking finally had the desired effect, and Carter's first name came to Al. "And yourself, Nick?"
Carter flushed with gratified pride. "Sir, yes, sir," he said.
"Except for sentry duty, of course," volunteered Al with a knowing grin.
"Oh, I wouldn't—"
"I know you wouldn't," Al said. "And it does you credit that you won't complain, but this isn't the most exciting job you could be doing."
"I don't mind," Carter said. "Sir," he added hastily.
"You don't need to be so formal," Al told him. "Do you want to see my ID?"
"Oh, no, no, sir, certainly not," Nick stammered. His eyes flitted to Maxine. "I—I heard it was Mrs. Calavicci's birthday today, sir."
"That's right," Al said, a little amused by the attempt at small talk.
"I'd like to wish her… many happy returns," the corporal said.
Al nodded. "Thank you. I'll tell her. You take care, Nick. You're a credit to the service."
The boy saluted again. "Sir, thank you, sir," he said.
Al grinned and taxied carefully through the second gate. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at him with that kind of bizarre, unbridled admiration. It was a little disconcerting… but gratifying as well.
Yes, he thought. If only more days could be good days.