Chapter 146
THAT NIGHT, I BARELY SLEPT. I was attuned to every sound in the house and began having these waking dreams that Paul was coming after me or, worse, that he’d gone looking for Teo.
I pictured Paul waiting for Teo outside the newspaper’s offices.
He’d say he wanted to talk, and then he’d beat the living shit out of him, and the whole thing would be my fault because I hadn’t even given Teo a heads-up that I had decided to tell Paul about us.
The next morning, I swung by the apartment, just in case Teo was there.
When no one answered, I went to Bar Sanna and tried calling first Teo’s apartment in Sassari, which got me nowhere, and then La Spedizione’s offices, where I spoke with a secretary who offered to take a message.
I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d broken things off with my husband, so I left my name and hoped that would be enough.
I think I had expected to feel some sense of relief, maybe even elation, after coming clean to Paul, but all I felt was dread.
Paul’s reaction had been uncharacteristically calm, which left me wondering if he hadn’t really heard what I’d said.
Or if he’d heard it but figured, with some time and distance, he could convince me that my feelings weren’t real.
That evening, I didn’t know whether to pick Paul up at the pier or not.
He had said he would sleep on the ship, but he had never clarified if that meant one night or several, so as the six o’clock hour approached, I figured I’d better drive down to the pier and see if he showed up on a liberty boat.
There were a lot of protesters in front of the Piazza Comando, and from the sound of things, they were really worked up, but I couldn’t figure out why.
Traffic was at a near standstill in front of the post office, and as I rolled past the crowd, a guy pointed at the Chevelle and I heard him shout, “Fucking Americans.”
It was hard to find parking on the pier, which was never the case, but I managed to make a space, then went to join some of the other wives, including Laura, who was doing her best to ignore me.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked, gesturing at the piazza.
“No clue,” said Laura.
We’d been milling around for a few minutes when Mary Lou pulled up. She got out of her car and waved a clipboard over her head, trying to get the attention of all the wives. “Ladies!” she called. “Circle up!”
We did as we were told, and when we were standing in a loose semicircle around her, she announced that it was a busy night on the tender and that if she read our husbands’ names off her list, they wouldn’t be coming home.
“Are they okay?” asked Annie.
“Perfectly fine,” said Mary Lou. “Everything’s fine. But no one wanted you to worry when they didn’t show up at home.”
The irony here was that I wasn’t sure if Paul was ever going to come home again.
“If and when you hear your husband’s name, say yes or aye or whatever, because I’ve got to keep track of who I’ve told.” She started reading names off the list in alphabetical order, and she made it all the way to the C’s before I realized she’d skipped Archer.
Bobby’s name got called. And Allen Fitzer’s. And Debbie’s husband, Luis. It didn’t take long for us to realize that she’d called the names of every guy in the Repair Division. Hull Repair, Electrical Repair, Mechanical Repair, Nuclear Repair, and, of course, Radiological Controls.
“Are they just gone the one night?” asked Annie.
“I don’t know,” said Mary Lou, and I got the impression that she really didn’t.
“But they’re safe?” said Laura.
“Yes, totally safe. Something’s just come up, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation.”
The group erupted in a series of side conversations, everyone trying to figure out what was going on, but Mary Lou had not dismissed us.
“I’m not finished,” she said in a stern tone. “I need some volunteers to pass this information along to the women who aren’t here.”
Within a couple of minutes, everyone had an assignment, or didn’t, and Mary Lou told us we were allowed to leave. “We’ll use the phone tree if we’ve got any updates, so stay close to home.”
“Hey, Mary Lou,” I said as she moved in the direction of her car.
“What’s up?”
“You didn’t call Paul’s name. But you called everyone else in Repair.”
She gave the clipboard another glance. “Does he have duty tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Anyone who was already on duty wouldn’t have been put on the list.”
It occurred to me then that maybe Paul had told whoever was compiling the list that I wouldn’t be waiting for him at the pier.
“You know,” I said quickly, “it’s possible he does and I got my dates confused.”
She gave me a funny look, then said, “It happens.”
But something told me it didn’t happen to her.