But it was not he; the sweet youngster had gone off duty. The person who showed up with my receipt was the older woman who had answered me on the terminal. I felt both relief and disappointment-and chagrin that I felt disappointed. Does convalescence make everybody irresponsibly horny? Do hospitals have a discipline problem? I have not been ill often enough to know.
The night clerk swapped my receipt for the book, then surprised me with: “Don’t I get a kiss, too?”
“Oh! Were you there?”
“Any warm body, dear; we were awfully short of effectives that night. I’m not the world’s greatest but I had basic training like anyone else. Yes, I was there. Wouldn’t have missed it.”
I said, “Thank you for rescuing me,” and kissed her. I tried to make this simply a symbol, but she took charge and controlled what sort of a buss it would be. Rough and rugged, namely. She was telling me clearer than words that anytime I wanted to work the other side of the street, she would be waiting.
What do you do? There seem to be human situations for which there are no established protocols. I had just acknowledged that she had risked her life to save mine-precisely that, as that rescue raid was not the piece of cake that Boss’s account made it appear to be. Boss’s habitual understatement is such that he would describe the total destruction of Seattle as “a seismic disturbance.” Having thanked her for my life how could I snub her?
I could not. I let my half of the kiss answer her wordless message-with my fingers crossed that I would never have to keep the implied promise.
Presently she broke the kiss but remained holding on to me. “Dearie,” she said, “want to know something? Do you remember how you told off that slob they called the Major?”
“I remember.”
“There is a bootleg piece of tape floating around of that one sequence. What you said to him and how you said it is highly admired by one and all. Especially me.”
“That’s interesting. Are you the little gremlin who copied that piece of tape?”
“Why, how could you think such a thing?” She grinned. “Do you mind?”
I thought it over for all of three milliseconds. “No. If the people who rescued me enjoy hearing what I told that bastard, I don’t mind their listening to it. But I don’t talk that way ordinarily.”
“Nobody thinks you do.” She gave me a quick peck. “But you did so when it was needed and you made every woman in the company proud of you. And our men, too.”
She didn’t seem disposed to let go of me but the night nurse showed up then and told me firmly to go to bed and she was going to give me a sleepytime shot-I made only the usual formal protest. The clerk said, “Hi, Goldie. Night. Night, dear.” She left.
Goldie (not her name-bottle blonde) said, “Want it in your arm? Or in your leg? Don’t mind Anna; she’s harmless.”
“She’s all right.” It occurred to me that Goldie probably could monitor both sight and sound. Probably? Certainly! “Were you there? At the farm? When the house was burned?”
“Not while the house was burning. I was in an APV, taking you here as fast as we could float it. You were a sad sight, Miss Friday.”
“I’ll bet I was. Thanks. Goldie? Will you kiss me good-night?”
Her kiss was warm and undemanding.
I found out later that she was one of the four who made the run upstairs to grab me back-one man carrying big bolt cutters, two armed and firing. . . and Goldie carrying unassisted a stretcher basket. But she never mentioned it, then or later.
I remember that convalescence as the first time in my life-except for vacations in Christchurch-when I was quietly, warmly happy, every day, every night. Why? Because I belonged!
Of course, as anyone could guess from this account, I had passed years earlier. I no longer carried an ID with a big “LA” (or even “AP”) printed across it. I could walk into a washroom and not be told to use the end stall. But a phony ID and a fake family tree do not keep you warm; they just keep you from being hassled and discriminated against. You are still aware that there isn’t any nation anywhere that considers your sort fit for citizenship and there are lots of places that would deport you or even kill you-or sell you-if your cover-up ever slipped.