“Hey there,” Savannah said. She’d donned her bikini again, though she was wearing shorts over the bottoms. “I see you’re back to normal.”
“How can you tell?”
“Your eyes aren’t bulging because your collar’s too tight.”
I smiled. “Tim made some sandwiches.”
“Great. I’m starved,” she said, moving around the kitchen. “Did you grab one?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Well, dig in. I hate to eat alone.”
We stood in the kitchen as we ate. The girls lying on the deck hadn’t realized we were there, and I could hear one of them talking about what she did with one of the guys last night, and none of it sounded as though she were in town on a goodwill mission for the poor. Savannah wrinkled her nose as if to say, Way too much information, then turned to the fridge. “I need a drink. Do you want something?”
“Water’s fine.”
She bent over to grab a couple of bottles. I tried not to stare but did so anyway and, frankly, enjoyed it. I wondered whether she knew I was staring and assumed she did, for when she stood up and turned around, she had that amused look again. She set the bottles on the counter. “After this, you want to go surfing again?”
How could I resist?
We spent the afternoon in the water. As much as I enjoyed the up-close-Savannah-lying-on-the-board view I was treated to, I enjoyed the sight of her surfing even more. To make things even better, she asked to watch me while she warmed up on the beach, and I was treated to my own private viewing while enjoying the waves.
By midafternoon we were lying on towels near, but not too near, the rest of the group behind the house. A few curious glances drifted in our direction, but for the most part, no one seemed to care that I was there, except for Randy and Susan. Susan frowned pointedly at Savannah; Randy, meanwhile, was content to hang out with Brad and Susan as the third wheel, licking his wounds. Tim was nowhere to be seen.
Savannah was lying on her stomach, a tempting sight. I was on my back beside her, trying to doze in the lazy heat but too distracted by her presence to fully relax.
“Hey,” she murmured. “Tell me about your tattoos.”
I rolled my head in the sand. “What about them?”
“I don’t know. Why you got them, what they mean.”
I propped myself on one elbow. I pointed to my left arm, which had an eagle and banner. “Okay, this is the infantry insignia, and this”—I pointed to the words and letters—“is how we’re identified: company, battalion, regiment. Everyone in my squad has one. We got it just after basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia when we were celebrating.”
“Why does it say ‘Jump-start’ underneath it?”
“That’s my nickname. I got it during basic training, courtesy of our beloved drill sergeant. I wasn’t putting my gun together fast enough, and he basically said that he was going to jump-start a certain body part if I didn’t get my act in gear. The nickname stuck.”
“He sounds pleasant,” she joked.
“Oh yeah. We called him Lucifer behind his back.”
She smiled. “What’s the barbed wire above it for?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I had that one done before I joined.”
“And the other arm?”
A Chinese character. I didn’t want to go into it, so I shook my head. “It’s from back in my ‘I’m lost and don’t give a damn’ stage. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Isn’t it a Chinese character?”
“Yes.”
“Then what does it mean? It’s got to mean something. Like bravery or honor or something?”
“It’s a profanity.”
“Oh,” she said with a blink.
“Like I said, it doesn’t mean anything to me now.”
“Except that maybe you shouldn’t flash it if you ever go to China.”
I laughed. “Yeah, except that,” I agreed.
She was quiet for a moment. “You were a rebel, huh?”
I nodded. “A long time ago. Well, not really that long ago. But it seems like it.”
“That’s what you meant when you said the army was something you needed at the time?”
“It’s been good for me.”
She thought about it. “Tell me—would you have jumped for my bag back then?”
“No. I probably would have laughed at what happened.”
She evaluated my answer, as if wondering whether to believe me. Finally, she drew a long breath. “I’m glad you joined, then. I really needed that bag.”
“Good.”
“What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else can you tell me about yourself?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to know?”
“Tell me something no one else knows about you.”
I considered the question. “I can tell you how many ten-dollar Indians with a rolled edge were minted in 1907.”
“How many?”
“Forty-two. They were never intended for the public. Some men at the mint made them for themselves and some friends.”
“You like coins?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
I hesitated while Savannah reached for her bag. “Hold on,” she said, rummaging through it. She pulled out a tube of Coppertone. “You can tell me after you put some lotion on my back. I feel like I’m getting burned.”
“Oh, I can, huh?”
She winked. “It’s part of the deal.”
I applied the lotion to her back and shoulders and probably went a bit overboard, but I convinced myself that she was turning pink and that having a sunburn of any sort would make her work the next day miserable. After that, I spent the next few minutes telling her about my grandfather and dad, about the coin shows and good old Eliasberg. What I didn’t do was specifically answer her question, for the simple reason that I wasn’t quite sure what the answer was. When I finished she turned to me.
“And your father still collects coins?”
“All the time. At least, I think so. We don’t talk about coins anymore.”
“Why not?”
I told her that story, too. Don’t ask me why. I knew I should have been putting my best foot forward and tossing out crap to impress her, but with Savannah that wasn’t possible. For whatever reason, she made me want to tell the truth, even though I barely knew her. When I finished she was wearing a curious expression.
“Yeah, I was a jerk,” I offered, knowing there were other, probably more accurate words to describe me back then, all of which were profane enough to offend her.
“It sounds like it,” she said, “but that’s not what I was thinking. I was trying to imagine you back then, because you seem nothing like that person now.”
What could I say that wouldn’t sound bogus, even if it was true? Unsure, I opted for Dad’s approach and said nothing.
“What’s your dad like?”
I gave her a quick recap. As I spoke, she scooped sand and let it trail through her fingers, as if concentrating on my choice of words. In the end, surprising myself again, I admitted that we were almost strangers.
“You are,” she said, using that nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact tone. “You’ve been gone for a couple of years,
