Chapter Nine
As they stepped away from the dorm, Brian asked, "How far away is this McGurdy's?"
"It's about ten blocks down, turn left and six blocks on the right hand side. You can't miss it. And from their dining room window you have a great view of the park. The big trees, the fountain, children's play area and the outdoor amphitheater," Marci answered. She looked at him with a wistful smile and continued, "Kinda reminds me of Elmhurst."
"Wait a minute," Brian said as he stopped in his tracks. He fished his phone out, selected an app and pressed a button. "I'm not about to walk sixteen blocks. Hello, I need a taxi at the corner of Second Avenue and Elizabeth Street. Thanks."
"Wuss," Marci accused with a smile.
"Your point is?” Brian replied with a high-browed look and an arching voice inflection.
"You're ashamed to be seen with me out in public?" she jabbed.
He raised one eyebrow and countered, "My Darling, I just can't wait to get you into the back seat of a car. So, I figured that a taxi would be the best way. Have you fallen madly in love with me yet?"
"You know the two words in that last sentence that describe you best are 'fallen' and 'madly'."
"You're just saying that because it's true. And besides," he looked up at the windows on the third floor. "Roberta and Sheila might be watching."
"Nope, the window doesn't face the street."
"Drat."
"They're standing in the lobby of the dorm, pressed up against a wall thinking they can't be seen."
Brian turned to look at his watch to check on the time. He purposely faced the dorm. As he looked up through the tops of his eyebrows, he spotted them. He chuckled as he turned away to keep his face from being seen by them. "How long have you known those two?" he asked.
"We had a lot of classes together last year. This year we got to be roomies. Fortune smiles on us lovely people."
Brian could not let that one pass. "The word in that last sentence that best describes you is 'lovely'. My word for you is 'very.' I heard that somewhere."
"Uh-huh."
The cab pulled up and Brian opened the door for her. Before she got in she picked at him again, "What happened to your........focus?” She stepped in and slid to the opposite side as she flashed a 'gotcha' smile.
He stepped in and shot back as he closed the door, "I guess I've had a change of scenery, that...uh....caused me to see a bigger picture.”
With the same smile she slapped her pocketbook in between them as a statement and shook her head ever so slightly.
Brian said to the driver, "Sir, could you take us to McGurdy's?"
"Sure thing," he answered.
It was all quiet in the back seat for the ride to the little cafe. The closest they got to conversation was a few quaint little smiles that broke into snickers and wound up being laughter the last four blocks of their journey. Brian paid the cabbie and they walked into the cafe.
"Hey, Marci," the waitress called out from the kitchen. "I'll be with you in a minute."
"That's fine, Louisa. We're going to take a table in the back corner."
Brian said, "I thought you liked to look out the picture window."
"I do, but I thought you wanted to talk."
"We can do that in the park. Let's sit by the window and make fun of the people that go by."
Marci called to Louisa, "We changed our mind. We're going to the window."
"Same spot?" called the voice.
"Yes, Ma'am."
They slid into the booth by the window. The bus boy brought them some silverware and two menus. "What would you care to drink?" he asked.
"I'll take sweetened tea," answered Marci.
"I'll have the same, please."
"Two teas coming right up," the busboy repeated as he walked toward the kitchen.
"Now tell me about this Tom Danfield that you've been imitating," Brian opened up.
Marci smiled real big and corrected him, "It's Dandridge and he's Arthur's great-grandfather. He was my great-granny's school chum and the greatest practical joker you have ever seen. He was an absolute rascal. He would plan a stunt for weeks and then pull it off without anybody ever guessing what was going on."
Louisa came with their teas and asked Brian, "Are you ready to order or would you like for me to come back?” She nodded towards Marci and said with a sarcastic smile, "I already know what she wants. I can't even PAY her to try anything else."
Marci shrugged her shoulders and explained, "When you've found something that you like and enjoy, you just stick with it."
Brian looked up from the menu, turned his head to the side and said with a smile, "You know, I was thinking the same thing myself."
Marci plopped her open palm down on the table and said, "Don't go there.” But, then she chuckled at him and sat back against the seat, crossed her arms and just shook her head.
Louisa looked from one to another and began to fan herself with Marci's menu as she said, "You know, I'm knocking 50 and maybe I'm having a hot flash. Does it seem kinda warm in here to you guys?"
Brian sighed as he smiled at Marci and said, "I don't know. I think the temperature just dropped about ten degrees myself."
Without blinking or changing her facial expression, Marci corrected him, "Twen-ty."
"By the way, what is she having?"
"She's having a BLT with pepper jack cheese and a bowl of tomato soup."
"I'll have the same then, but may I have cheddar cheese instead?"
"Comin' right up."
Brian started in again, "OK. So what is Arthur doing in the Philippines?"
Marci could tell by the look on his face and the tone of his voice, that he was truly interested. Maybe he knew something. "It goes way back to WWII when Tom enlisted in the Army. His outfit eventually became known as the 6th Ranger Battalion."
His face brightened as he interjected, "Then he originally enlisted as a mule skinner, correct?"
"Yes," Marci replied in surprise.
"And, they went on to be part of the spearhead that liberated the Philippines?"
"You must know your history real well."
"I was in the Rangers myself and you'd better believe that the creation of those first battalions was drilled into us again and again and again."
Marci's face softened a bit, "Two things. Tom never got tired of telling us some of those stories.” She chuckled and shook her head as she stared down at the table, "And, we never got tired of hearing them, either."
Brian got the message, "How long ago?"
Without looking up or changing her expression she answered, "We had his home going two days before I left to come here. Arthur left for the Philippines the same day I left. The day before we left, the Army sent around a patrol car to whisk Ramon and Taylor off to sniper school and possibly to Afghanistan."
"You've had quite a rough couple of weeks then haven't you?” Brian said.
Without looking up, Marci answered, "Yeah, you might say that. And as the rush and adrenaline wears off," she looked up with a straight face and said, "I wonder if I can take it when I hit the bottom. Reality will eventually set in and Arthur's not here to be my stabilizer. I guess it's time to grow up and be on my own."
"As much as you'll let me be, I'll be here for you. There's Bert and Sheila and you've mentioned the girls across the hall.” He waited for a moment before he asked, "You never did say how Arthur got to the Philippines."
Louisa came with their soup and sandwiches, re-filled their tea glasses, asked if there was anything else right then and returned to the kitchen. She could tell by their expressions that it was not the right time for idle chit-chat.
"It's a long and involved story," she started as she mindlessly stirred her tomato soup. "I'll hit the highlights and let you ask any questions that you want filled in."
"OK," he answered as he bit into his sandwich.
"You probably know about the raid on Cabanatuan," she started. "Tom and two others volunteered to blow
up an ammo shed. Things went wrong; the ammo shed blew up with Tom in it. Some of the guerrillas got him to the safety of the mountains because they weren't sure how the fight was going. When he woke up, he had amnesia and didn't want to be taken to the Americans. He wanted to stay with the pastor of the village. His legs were really messed up. He started dealing with the orphaned children of the village and became close friends with Pedro and his sister Tala.
"Eight years passed and the pastor died. The trauma made his memory come back. Because he couldn't walk very well, Pedro and a couple of other guys made the forty mile trip to bring the Army to him. When he got back to the states, he found out that his wife had remarried and her new husband was good man and just wonderful with his son. He was still crippled from the many operations that he felt it would be wrong to try to come back into their lives.
"The Army, of course, had to give him a new identity. He spent his years being a friend to troubled teens until they came into a loving relationship with Jesus. Then, at the age of eighty, he felt he needed to go back to his home town to see what's what. He met his great-grandson, Arthur who, at the age of eleven, decided he wanted to be a Ninja.
"Pedro, meanwhile had entered the Marine Corps and, supposedly had retired. His son, Diego had a martial arts studio in Manila. When he heard that Tom had been reunited with his family and that Arthur wanted to be a Ninja, he brought them to his home in the Philippines every summer. Arthur took lessons for free, and fell in love with Pedro, Diego and his family. They always made trips back into the mountains. And, that's the short version. Now it's your turn to talk while I eat," she said as she finished rather unceremoniously.
Brian had finished his BLT and had started on his soup. "That is some story, alright," he said. It was his turn to fiddle with his soup and he thought carefully how to progress. Finally, he started out by saying, "I do have some friends who have their.......fingers in the goings on in the Philippines. It is possible that I could find out something. Uh.....but tell me if you can, is Arthur in any secret group or anything?"
Marci chuckled, "Not him. I think Pedro and his son Diego are. The last time I saw him, all he told me was that the terrorists could be moving in the direction of Pedro's old mountain village and that they would probably go up there to try to bring some of the folks out. And, it's possible that the village might come under some kind of attack. He was going to take a lot of pictures before leaving to go to the mountains so that they could possibly fool anyone monitoring his e-mails. He told me how he would pose when he left to go up and how he would pose to let me know when he got back safely. And, that's all I know."
"I take it that the village is somewhere near Cabanatuan?"
"Yes, it's not too far from Aurora National Park, something or other."
"I know where that's at," Brian replied. He noticed the faraway look that seemed to envelop her at the moment and suggested in as upbeat a voice as he could, "Well, if you're finished, then why don't we go for that stroll in the park?"
Marci realized that she had been staring and apologized as she stood up to leave, "I'm sorry that I haven't been good company. It's just that he's my prayer partner as well as the best friend I have ever had. Nothing like this has ever come up before and I am at a bit of a loss as to how to handle it."
Brian paid the cashier and walked her out the door. "Isn't that what life is all about? Facing stuff we've never been through before? I know that I need to be closer to the Lord, and maybe meeting you made me realize how much I should depend on Him. Depend on Him? What am I saying? You know how much I've looked to God for guidance? Zero. Zip. Nada. It's a wonder that when I do talk to Him he doesn't interrupt me by saying, 'Brian who?"
Marci chuckled at him as she led him to one of her favorite spots in front of the fountain. "This is where I like to sit. Sometimes, I just close my eyes and listen to the water splash. It seems to help," she explained. As they got comfortable on the park bench, she asked, "Now, what was it that you needed to know about Debbie?"
Brian didn't answer immediately. He was wrestling with something. He looked at his shoes and then the fountain. He watched the people coming from one direction and then his shoes again. He thought about the text he had gotten that morning. He wondered if he would be able to get Marci to come one board.
After two agonizing minutes, he finally turned to Marci and said, "Marci, I'm not here to talk to you just on behalf of the Air Force. I'm here to talk to you because I'm with the
DOJ. I'm working on a case that involves human trafficking."
They talked, they walked, Marci cried, Brian consoled, they ate supper, went for another walk, they went to Brighton's Ice Cream Parlor and then got home by 10 p.m. Marci was grateful that she came into an empty dorm room. She went to her room, got ready for bed, opened her Bible to a scripture she had been meditating on for a couple of weeks and cried some more.
Brian went to Washington D.C. on DOJ business, made a few contacts for Marci and came back on Friday. Marci found herself anxiously waiting to see him again. She felt like God had given her an answer. Tom had always taught them that when God answered your question you would be at peace. If you continue to struggle with something then you don't have an answer, yet. This morning was the first time in several weeks that she woke up and faced the day with peace. All the statistics weren't worked out, but she knew she had God's direction.
Later on that day-----
"She does," Roberta said firmly.
"She does not," Sheila replied in an almost pleading voice. "What makes you so sure?"
"Sheila, I've watched her," answered Roberta.
"But, Roberta, I've been around her almost as much as you have and I haven't noticed anything," declared Sheila.
"How can you not see it?"
"See what?"
"Her smiles?"
"Smiles? Everybody smiles. We even smile when we're talking to her. Your reasoning is totally bogus. Totally, totally bogus, Bert," Sheila protested.
"Totally?"
"Totally!"
"The totality that it is...is...it's totally scientific," Roberta stated firmly.
"Scientific?” Sheila argued. "There's not a scientific bone in your body. If I hadn't helped you cram the week before entrance exams, which, by the way, I NEVER got paid for...."
"You'll get your pistachio and butterscotch double dip, don't worry."
"...you would have never made it in to nursing school," Sheila finished. She paused and thought real hard before she asked, "Wait a minute. Just what kind of scientific experiment....uh, test, whatever, Ok. What did you do to form your hypothesis?"
"Hypothesis," Roberta objected. "It's NOT a hypothesis. It's a statement of fact."
"Wha-a-a-a-t fact?” Sheila demanded.
Roberta looked at Sheila with an I-can't-believe-you're-asking- me-that look and declared emphatically, "She-e-e-ila, Marci loves Arthur more than she does Brian or any other guy."
Sheila dropped her head into her hands for a few seconds before she looked up at Roberta and stressed each word of her question, "What.. facts do...you... have...for... making... that... statement?
Roberta sat up straight, turned her head to the right and while looking at Sheila from the left corner of her eyes, said resolutely, "Her smiles."
Sheila's mouth dropped open for a few seconds before she slowly started laughing, "How in the blue perfect world can her smiles tell you anything about her heart?"
Bert shrugged her shoulders, "It's easy. She smiles more and longer when she talks about Arthur than when she talks about Brian."
"Get outa here, Bert," Sheila snorted. Then she began mocking her by saying, "Whadja do? Break out a stop watch and say, 'Hey, Marci, talk about Arthur for a while. Click. Ok. Click. Now talk about Brian for a while. Click. OK. Click. There we go. Study done. Marci, you scientifically love Arthur more. Case closed."
"Oh, yuckitty, yuck, yuck, to you Miss Know-it-all," Roberta slammed back. "For your information, I DID do a scientific st
udy. Give me a break and an open mind for just a moment and I’ll explain it all to you."
Sheila leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and then her arms and demanded, "Alrighty, then. I'll listen. But, don't expect me to take notes."
Roberta started, "Now keep an open mind and understand that I had to develop a way of testing that I could do to keep her from thinking that I was testing her.” She stopped as if waiting for an answer from Sheila.
Sheila obliged by only opening her eyes real wide and shaking her head 'yes' as if the say 'Go on.'
"Well, when we would be together just chit-chatting, I would break out my laptop as if I were going to e-mail or something," she began. "That way she doesn't suspect anything. I would open up a blank page. Then, I would type the letter 'B' and put my finger over the letter ‘s’. I would ask her something about Brian. If she smiled, I would hold down the letter 's' on the keyboard and let it type 's' as long as she smiled. Then, I would type the letter 'A', hold my finger over the letter 's' and ask her a question about Arthur. AND, if at any time, she broke out into a bigger smile than normal, I would switch on the Caps key."
Sheila just stared at her.
"What?" asked Bert.
Sheila leaned forward with a concerned look on her face and asked, "That's a scientific test? Where did you get that cockamamie idea from?"
Bert defended herself, "It's the best I could come up with at the time. But, Sheila, I did it three different times and it came out the same way. Arthur twice as long as Brian and Brian got no caps. Sheila, Brian got NO caps."
"Bert, you gotta be kidding me."
Bert reached for her laptop and argued, "No, I'm not. I saved them in My Documents file and everything."
"I don’t want to see them...."
They both stopped and listened to the sound of Marci's footsteps coming down the hall. Bert pointed at Sheila's laptop and whispered, "Hey, you do the A's and I'll do the B's."
Sheila leaned over and whispered back, "What? Do you think I'm crazy?"
Bert frowned at her and as Marci opened the door she mouthed the words, 'Two double dips'.
Sheila answered out loud as if Marci were coming in right in the middle of a conversation, "Tomorrow and Sunday will be fine with me.” She nonchalantly reached for her laptop and flipped it on.
"Agreed," Bert answered. "Hi Marci, how was your afternoon with Brian?” As she waited for Marci to answer, she raised her pointy finger of her right hand and in a downward, swirling motion, put it on the 's' key ready for her answer. She looked over at Sheila and grinned.
Marci turned around and was about to answer when Sheila stood up abruptly and shouted, "Oh, my gosh...Marci," and then pointed in Marci's direction.
Marci's first reaction was that some kind of bug must have been on her somewhere. "What? Where?" she asked as she frantically looked over her blouse and brushed her shoulders.
Sheila stood up and sent her laptop skidding across the floor and almost screamed one of those girly screams, "O-o-o-o-o-o-o, Marci! You got your ears pierced."
Ear piercing? That's what I would have called the screams that those gawking young ladies started doing. You would have thought that Santa Claus had just come down the chimney and had brought the two of them every high-priced piece of merchandise he could find. It was so loud that one of the girls from the next room came over to see what the commotion was all about.
Small town girl, Marci found herself surrounded by three screaming, hand clapping, jumping up and down females all jostling for a look and a touch. I would say that it was almost reminiscent of when the Beatles came to America but I would be telling my age. So, I won't.
As the ladies began to settle down, the next door roomie picked Bert's laptop off the floor and returned it to the coffee table. She looked at the screen for a minute and then glanced at Sheila's before she asked, "So, Bert, how's the testing going?"
Bert opened her eyes real wide as she tried to pretend she didn't understand the question. "Uh-h-h-h, what test would that be, Fred?"
"Fred?” Marci wondered. "Is that short for....."
"Nope, it's just Fred," she answered. "My momma wanted a boy so bad that she named me Fred, and my daddy knew better than to argue."
"I like your dad, already," Sheila said.
"Thanks. How 'bout it Bert?” Fred asked again with a big grin. Fred was a no-nonsense, get right to the point and cut them off at the knees kind of lady. She could say things in such a way that people just couldn't get made at her, no matter how it nailed their hide to the wall.
Marci looked at Bert with a sly smile and continued the quiz, "You know, Bert, the 'which one does Marci love most' test."
Bert's mouth dropped open, "But how did you know?"
"You left the page open the other day when you went to Wal-Mart with Sheila. And, since when does my love life become the center of everybody's conversation?" she asked as she rubbed on her ear.
Fred came over and knelt down by Marci and said, "Here let me see if I can get them to be more comfortable.” She reached up and loosened them a little. "Well, no wonder. These things are heavy."
"Onyx and 14k gold."
"Just loosen them every now and then when you twist them. If you've never had earrings before, they'll just bother the daylights out of you until you get used to them," Fred said. She got up and walked to the rocker by the front door and asked Bert, "So, Bert, are going to tell Marci why her love life is so important?"
"Not if I don't have to," started Bert. "But, it just doesn't seem fair that you have two fellas and we don't have any. In algebra it would be plus two equals minus six."
Sheila looked at her in amazement and asked, "Say, what?"
Bert explained, "Well she has two fellas and we each have two less than she does so that makes it plus two equals minus six."
It was Fred's turn to look at her in amazement, "Jiminy Christmas, Bert, how did you ever pass you entrance exam?"
She raised her hands, shrugged her shoulders and confessed, "I cheated, how else?"
Fred stated, "Now that makes sense. But, the real reason your love life is our main interest is the two hour conversation we had about which one of us was going to get the one you dumped."
Marci sat up in the recliner and asked, "What? Two hours?"
Sheila said with a big grin, "Well, it took us that long because we took turns telling what we would do to heal the wounded heart and make him irrevocably ours. Bert had a good idea."
Bert was quick to add with a big smile, "Which we don't need to get into right now."
Marci announced, "Well ladies, I might have solved your problems about an hour ago. Beside pretty women and free beer, what attracts men the most?"
Sheila answered first, "Food."
"Exactly," stated Marci. "Mrs. Piatrowski stopped me in the hallway after class and asked me if I was interested in opening up the grill down the street. She also asked me if I knew of three other ladies that would volunteer to help. The pay? Not only the meal you would, of course, eat, but free room and keep all the tips."
"I'll agree to do all the cooking as long as we can go to your hometown and glean some ideas from that crazy chef," declared Fred. "I love to cook."
"Good," said Bert, "that will leave me and Sheila to.........uh take a few orders from the guys, huh?"
You don't want to hear the rest of the conversation.