: wise W. E. B. Cm R I F 1P “Well,” Ann said, “I finally got a byline on page one. It took war to do it.”
She handed Sarah a copy of the Advocate, the ink still slick, and pointed out a box on the front page: “Last-Minute War News Fro, Our Wire Services. Compiled by Ann Chambers, Daily Advocate staff writer.”
“Ed could be dead right now, you know that?” Sarah said, “Oh, I don’t think so,” Ann replied. “They attacked Hawaii, not Bun-na.”
“I’ve been listening to the radio,” Sarah said, turning to Ann to t argue with her. “There’s fighting all over, over there.”
Ann shrugged.
“I want a father for my baby!” Sarah said, close to tears.
Tears weren’t going to help anything, Ann thought. A fight would be better.
“Then maybe you should have written and told him,” she said sarcastically.
“I couldn’t do that,” Sarah said illogically, but rising to the bait.
“And when he comes back? Do you plan to tell him then?”
“If he comes back, you mean,” Sarah said.
“He’ll be back,” Ann said, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt. She had spent the day reading the wire-service yellows: the Japanese had struck all over the Orient. She hadn’t seen any specific story about an attack on Rangoon, but that didn’t mean anything. And if the Japanese had struck Rangoon, Ed and Dick would have been in it. They were fighter pilots. Fighter pilots, by definition, fought.
God, Ann prayed silently, protect those two bastards.
“It’s not really fair, is it?” Sarah asked.
“You should have thought about that before you took your pants off,” Ann said, and immediately regretted it.
“Ann!” Sarah replied, shocked and hurt.
“I’m sorry’ ” Ann said. “I’m really sorry.” Sarah looked at her, Ann thought, like a kicked dog.
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“I had an interesting thought today,” Ann said. Sarah didn’t seem at all interested in her interesting thought. “I thought that you were one up on me.”
6)”at,s that supposed to mean?” ,If mine doesn’t come back, I don’t have anything.” ,What do you mean, i yours’?”
,I thought you’d figured that out,” Ann said. “Did you really think I’ve been writing him as my ‘patriotic duty’? The only reason he didn’t get in my pants is because he didn’t ask.” ,Ann,” Sarah said, disapproving but unable to keep from smil-ing. “You’re outrageous.” 111 almost-but not quite- “I really wish he had,” Ann said. wish I was in your condition.”
“Oh, AMP9
,Well, knowing those two, we have nothing to worry about Ann said. “Unless you want to worry about them being picked off by some exotic foreign female, while we sit here and wait.” ,I thought,” Sarah said, ignoring Ann’s last remark, “that you’d… never done it.”
“I never have,” Ann said. “That’s what I meant when I decided you were one up on me.”
“Thanks a lot,” Sarah said.
“If you knew then what you know now, would you have?” Ann asked.
Sarah thought that over a moment.
“Yes,” she said.
“See what I mean?” Ann said. ,pity you can’t drink,” she said. “I could use some company.”
She picked up the telephone and told the bell captain to send up a quart of bourbon.
“I worked it out,” Sarah said. “At this moment, it’s half past nine tomorrow morning in Rangoon. If he’s still alive, he’s already had his breakfast.”
Bargoon, Burma 0930 9 December 1941
If there had been any tea at Wing Commander Hepple’s house, six blocks away, Bitter hadn’t seen it. But there had been a good deal of gin and whiskey, and even a bottle of bourbon. A redheaded Scottish woman had also been there. She was private secretary to a Briton high in the colonial bureaucracy, and she and Stephanie Walker, the woman with whom she shared an apartment, found the newly arrived young American fliers a welcome addition to the British officers and civil servants.
Stephanie Walker was small and pale, and in some ways reminded Ed Bitter of Sarah Child. It was Ed Bitter told himself when he woke up in Stephanie Walker’s bed, partly that, plus the excitement of the war starting, plus all the liquor they had put away at Wing Commander Hepple’s tea, that had brought him to her bed.