Page 77 of Good Days Bad Days
TBB:It has to happen tonight. I can’t stress this enough.
Papers. My head spins. Divorce papers? Ian clearly wasn’t going to ask for a divorce tonight, but do these texts mean he was telling some girl he’s leaving me—just like those scummy cliché cheaters always do while trying to keep two women on the line?
I will not be one of those women.
I tap the reply box on the screen and quickly type out a message as Ian—giving the girl on the other end a dose of truth that might save her from falling for any further lies.
“Ian”: I’m on a date with my wife right now.
Ian walks across the dining room, rubbing his hands together like he always does after washing them. I hold my breath, waiting as bubbles appear, disappear, and reappear again. He’s only a few steps away when a sixtysomething woman with dyed brown hair and a sparkling top stops him and asks for a selfie. He smiles, always so gracious with fans. He urges me over to join as a line of text appears.
TBB: Good idea. Soften her up. Her dad too. Don’t get distracted, though. Crews will be there to start shooting on Wednesday. Don’t screw this up.
I read it twice quickly and then once slowly before grabbing my purse, wrap, and both phones, slapping his into the palm of his outstretched hand as I walk out of the restaurant without stopping for a picture or worrying about what anyone might think. The only thingrunning through my mind is the image of that last text, the one that stole any remaining hope I had for trusting my husband, any assurance that we could go back to the way things were.
I know who’s texting my husband and it’s worse than some floozie on social media.
TBB. The Big Boss. Our boss. The boss of all HFN—Alex McNamara.
Chapter 30
Greg
April 20, 1972
Caravelle Hotel
Saigon, Vietnam
The tile floors of the Caravelle Hotel, where nearly a hundred war correspondents are housed in Saigon, is wet from the afternoon humidity. It’s monsoon season and I’ve never felt damp in so many ways.
Reaching my hotel room, I peel off every centimeter of wet clothes until I get down to my socks, which strip away from my waterlogged feet with a sick slurping sound. My body is worn, and the landscape of my ribs is easy to see through my skin, which is tanned dark brown from the days in the sun. Yet, lying in my underwear inside the only air-conditioned building in Saigon, I find I can’t complain.
I’ve seen too many living and dying in worse places than this—both soldiers and the Vietnamese who are left homeless, starving, injured, and ragged. The young soldiers we interview tell us their honest perspective about the war. Some are here out of patriotic service or proud family military tradition, but many of these men didn’t choose to be here and wish nothing more than to go home. They are young men likemy brother, who had an unlucky birthday drawn and no money or connections to get out of being shipped overseas.
I, like the patriotic soldiers who volunteered for this hellish war because of moral and political beliefs, chose to climb onto that plane out of Minneapolis ten months ago. Martha and I resigned from WQRX on the same day, and Don Hollinger lost his ever-loving shit as we cleaned out our desks.
“When you crash and burn out there, don’t even think about crawling back. You’re dead to me.”
Martha had a few choice words for Don, but I’d already packed away my bitterness after almost unleashing them at the MWBA banquet. It’d been Betty who’d convinced me to keep quiet, who’d reminded me of my pledge to her, but she had no idea how far away I’d need to go to keep those promises.
“What do you mean, Vietnam?” she asked from behind me as I sorted through the standing toolbox in the studio after escaping Hollinger’s tirade, collecting a few screwdrivers and wrenches I’d brought from home.
“I was offered a job with KSTP. They’re a part of a group of some Midwestern stations headed over there. They lost their other camera guy.”
“I thought you hated the war,” Betty said, the sound of her foot tapping increasing my anxiety.
“I do,” I said. “That’s why I’m going—to show people what’s going on over there, to make a difference.”
I tossed a screwdriver into my canvas bag and faced Betty. She stood with her arms crossed over the buttoned bodice of one of her Classy Homemaker dresses, the hand with her engagement ring tucked under the bicep of her right arm. I couldn’t see it, but I still knew it was there.
“It’s not safe,” she said with tears in her eyes, like she was really worried, like I was her sweetheart or her brother rather than a coworker. I was ready to leave WQRX and I was ready to leave Betty, mostlybecause it hurt far more to stay, but I never thought leaving would make her cry.
“Listen, I’ll be fine,” I said, wiping some grease off my fingers with a rough towel. I wanted to reach out and touch her one last time but stopped, knowing I’d ruin her show-ready look.
“You don’t know that.”
“None of us knows that,” I said, hiking the canvas bag over my arm, thinking of Pop’s heart attack when I was twelve, Ma’s lifeless body three months after finding out about Jim, her grief too great to keep on living.
