The timer in the kitchen dinged. Debbie rose. “Got to get the egg rolls out of the oven.”
John stood up and excused himself, saying he had to get something from the trunk of the car. I shrugged my shoulders at Debbie’s glance. “Mystery man,” I said. “We know that by now.”
I picked up the empty appetizer plate and followed Debbie into the kitchen. The trunk slammed and we heard the rustle of plastic coming up the back steps. John emerged into the kitchen, with a grin from ear to ear. “Come on, I’ve got to show you this. It’s the best birthday present I ever received.”
We settled back in the living room, drinks and hot egg rolls refreshed on the coffee table. John grabbed his mystery bag from the floor and put it in his lap.
“You know I’ve been trying to get the kids to come around, accept Barbara and all that. Well, it’s happened.”
“Good or bad?” I interrupted. “The kids’ track records have been anything but exemplary so far.”
“The best,” John beamed. He clutched the bag closer. “Sonny sent me something very special ... my service medals.”
John explained that his medals had been kept in a safe-deposit box at Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C., waiting for him to settle in one place. Sonny was the only one who had access. I thought it strange but plausible, like so many of the things John said. When John moved in with me, Sonny resisted sending them along. Now he had relented. He had decided that because John and I had been together for six years, John should have the medals earned from his distinguished military service in three wars.
“Let’s see them,” Debbie commanded.
John turned the sack upside down, over the couch. Thirteen boxes of various sizes, textures, and colors tumbled to the cushion. One by one, he opened them. “This one is the Purple Heart,” he whispered, fighting back a tear. “I got it in Korea when my plane went down.” He handed the box to me and I passed it along to Debbie.
“When you lost your best friend?” I said. I was proud of myself. I had tied the Purple Heart to one of the horrible stories that still gave John nightmares. Little did I know at the time that a psychopath uses pity to keep his victim engaged in the relationship.
“Here’s the Navy Cross.” John took it out of its case and clutched it tightly to his breast. “This is from World War II, for a dangerous mission when I was in the Navy SEALs. I lied about my age to get into the Navy, to make my dad proud. The best way to do that, I figured, was to sign up for the underwater demolition team.”
John continued to open each box: the Air Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit Legionnaire, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Navy/Marine Corps Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Australian Military Cross. When he came to the last box, the largest of them all, his hand paused over it before picking it up.
“This is it. My most prized of all. It’s my Congressional Medal of Honor, for valor in action against an enemy force.”
“From the battle where you lost your lung?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said, placing his hand on his shirt, right where his scar was. I doubt Debbie caught the symbolism. I got a lump in my throat.
John left the medal in its rectangular box and passed it to me. I wasn’t raised in the military. I didn’t know what service medals were supposed to look like. I had heard about the Congressional Medal of Honor, probably from the World War II movies I watched as a kid and more recently from John’s stories, but now I was holding one. I felt proud of John, and of my country. I ran my finger along the blue satin ribbon that fastened around the neck, along the square fabric knot in the middle with its thirteen white stars, and down along the inverted five-pointed star that hung from an anchor below the knot.
“I never knew there was so much detail in one of these,” Debbie said. “Ted would have liked to see it.”
“He’s seeing it now,” I said. “I can feel he’s right here with us in spirit.”
“To the big kahuna,” we said in unison, raising our glasses again.
John collected his boxes and put them back in the plastic sack. What irony, I thought, to have so much valor stuffed into inconspicuous plastic. They deserved better. “I just had an idea,” I cried. “Let’s get your medals framed, maybe group them around the Medal of Honor. We can hang them in the family room, above your chair, alongside the naval prints and the Stiha painting.”
“The Stiha painting?” Debbie said.
I reminded Debbie about my moment of weakness that past April in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when I let John purchase an oil painting from the artist V. Stiha. We were in town visiting my sister Meredith, playing tourist in the historic square.
In all fairness, I have to say I loved the painting at first sight. It sat in the front window of the La Fonda hotel. Brilliant ducks on a river called to both of us, and when I was the one who eventually figured out where we could hang it, John’s Spanish came in handy. He was able to bargain the artist down to $12,000. I must have been crazy to give him the go-ahead, but we put $1,000 down on
Country Living
and had it shipped home.
We were back in the collectible art world. I thought we could afford it. It wasn’t like the time we tried to purchase the Red Skelton paintings. John had a new contract with Foxboro, and commission checks were coming in regularly, so I felt we could make the payments. That would prove to be a mistake.
“Are you going to wear one tonight?” I asked, excited for him.
“No, I think not.”
I didn’t pursue it. I didn’t understand Navy protocol or the rules for wearing medals, and I figured John knew best. I didn’t understand that he now had another avenue to put his admiral status on display, nor did I understand that medals are not worn nonchalantly in public. A true hero doesn’t want the attention. I turned to Debbie and changed the subject. “I’m so glad you and Ted got to go to Mexico with us in February.”
“Who would have guessed it would be our last trip together?” Debbie sighed. “But it was a good one.”
We reminisced about the truck that lost its brakes and almost plowed our VW bus over the cliff, and about Debbie getting so sick in Mexico City that she had to be hospitalized.
“I was just lucky you had the thousand dollars to pay my hospital bill when they wouldn’t take our credit card,” Debbie responded. “I can say I literally owe you my life.”
After a delicious dinner at the Tonga Room, we said our good-nights to Debbie in Walnut Creek and headed home to Concord. I was getting undressed when John came into the bedroom, looking worried.
“Your mother left a message on the answering machine. She got a call that your grandmother is dying.”
I rushed to the phone. Mom and I agreed that we both would fly to Arkansas. John, in the marvelous way he was able to pull things together, secured the ticket and made rental car arrangements. We made it to Hot Springs just in time; Grandma Shirley passed away one hour after we got to the hospital and told her how much we loved her. I believe she waited for us to say good-bye.
Almost three months later John and I were sitting in the bar of the 25th Floor Restaurant on the twenty-fifth floor of the Sydney Boulevard Hotel in Australia, where we were staying. The world kept opening up to me, and it was all because of John. We were doing a three-week tour Down Under with eleven pieces of luggage and a full itinerary.
The sunset cast warm shadows over the harbor as the city lights sporadically flickered on. “Breathtaking,” I said as I sipped my wine.
“Wonder where Joe and Paula are,” John said, looking at his Rolex.
We had met Joe and Paula only six days before on Dunk Island, off the Queensland coast. When we discovered we would all be in Sydney at the same time, we made plans for dinner at our hotel. “They’ll show up,” I said, ever the optimist. Then, to keep the conversation going, I asked “Who was on the phone when I was in the shower?”
“The front desk. Said the credit card I gave them was overextended, so I gave them another card.”
I cringed. We were running close to empty in the money department again. We had planned the trip when there was more in the coffers, but when John’s commission checks from Foxboro didn’t show up, I saved the trip with my $2,000 inheritance from my grandmother and a $700 advance on my paycheck. My mother didn’t approve. I felt it was very resourceful of me when, in fact, I didn’t recognize at the time that I was sucked up once more into the glory and glamour of John’s plans. I changed the topic.
“You look very distinguished wearing your Medal of Honor tonight,” I beamed. “It’s the first time you’ve worn it since you revealed it to Debbie and me.”
“Australians are patriotic. They always say if the U.S. hadn’t been here in World War II, they’d be speaking Japanese now.” It didn’t occur to me to ask why he chose a foreign country for the premiere display of his medal.
We made our way to our table. A few minutes later Joe and Paula joined us.
“Sorry we’re....” Joe froze and stood at attention. “Honored to be in your presence, sir.”
“Thanks,” John blushed. “Now sit down before we make a spectacle of ourselves.”
“I’ve never known anyone who had one,” Joe said, following orders. “I feel privileged to be sharing your table.”
The waiter came over, explained the nightly specials, and asked for our drink order. “Champagne,” John said. “It’s a night for celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?” Paula asked.
“In two days, it will be our fifth wedding anniversary.”
Later, while we were having dessert, John told the story of how, in January, he had been offered the post of undersecretary of defense. He had turned it down. “Too political,” he laughed. “I think Ted Kennedy had it out for me. Something to do with his family and my father.”
A man and woman on their way out crossed over to our table. The man extended his hand to John. “I recognize the medal, sir. I’d like to shake the hand of someone who was brave enough to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor and lived to tell about it.”
John blushed and whispered, “Thank you.”
Later, in Perth, at the end of our trip, John wore his Australian Military Cross to an upscale restaurant. “Awarded when I served with some Australian mates in the Pacific during World War II,” he reminded me, when I couldn’t figure out why John would get a medal from Australia. At the restaurant, the Australian Military Cross commanded recognition and respect from those customers who knew its significance. John was a hero, even on this side of the world.
THIRTEEN
The Inaugural Ball
For the past seven years, life with John had been like a long-distance flight; most of the time it was long stretches of clear skies and smooth sailing. Occasionally we’d hit financial turbulence. Then I’d hold on tightly until we found some means to once more move into stable air, by refinancing or John’s acquiring new contracts. Now my dream to be debt free was close at hand. Jason’s future payment was due in three months. Debt free? Would it ever happen? My soul ached for it to be true. The payment was the only thing that had kept me from totally losing it these last seven years. It was the carrot John always dangled. That, and his grandmother, each time we played the refinancing game.
At least John had secured a job with Cremcon, a Silicon Valley company run by Bruce Wenden, a pioneer in color copier and fax machine technology. John was on the board. As a signing bonus he received 250,000 shares of stock and was part of the marketing team. We even looked at houses in upscale Saratoga, just in case we needed to move. Cremcon fed my appetite for travel. This time it was to France and Spain as John looked for production facilities for the company.
One evening in our family room we discussed Cremcon and the fact that they, too, were slow in paying John’s consulting expenses. John knew how to play me, distract and entice me to move beyond the subject at hand. “Right now Cremcon is small peanuts when it comes to electronic companies,” he said, “but we’ll make it big when the stock takes off.”
I was noncommittal. “I’m ready for another drink.”
“I think you’re going to need it.”
What was coming now, I wondered?
John retrieved a large white envelope from under the bar and handed it to me, with an expectant grin. It was addressed, in formal script, to Admiral and Mrs. John F. Perry. The presidential seal adorned the left-hand corner.
“We’ve been invited to attend the inauguration and inaugural ball for George Herbert Walker Bush!”
“I’ll take that drink now,” I choked.
The following month we exited the Capitol South Metro Station and looked for the Capitol. I still couldn’t believe I was going to attend the inauguration of the forty-first president of the United States, but the closer we got, the more real it felt. The excitement in the air was palpable. Crowds blocked the sidewalks and spilled out into the streets. Barricades blocked cars. Police directed confused pedestrians. The skies were gray, the chill wind invigorating, but at least it wasn’t raining or snowing. We had bundled up for the weather.
“Our orange ticket says we are to enter by the Independence Avenue gate,” I said.
“It’s this way, to the left,” Alec Baxter said.
John and Alec were business associates, a relationship that had developed into a friendship. When I insisted that we couldn’t afford to accept the inaugural invitation, John worked it out so we could stay with the Baxters in McLean, Virginia. On the day of the inauguration, we had opted to get there by Metro and squeezed into a car with standing room only.
We made our way to security, showed our tickets for the orange section, and eventually reached our seats. “John, how did you get such great seats?” Noreen Baxter asked.
“I called up several Democratic congressmen. They get tickets, but since a Republican was being sworn in, I figured one of them wouldn’t want to go.”