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By Root 493 0

”: she had a Terminator temper and she’d been so busy trying to prove she was the number-one pilot in the Navy that she hadn’t made enough time for their marriage; otherwise she would have known that Melody didn’t mean a thing to him. Annie was a “mental capacity natural” so she didn’t understand how hard Brad had to work to stay ahead of the game. He’d had a tough time on some exams he’d taken just before Annie’d caught him with Melody. Plus he really suspected Melody had given him sex pills without his knowing it. He was strictly off all substances now but he had to admit he’d gotten a little high that night after hearing he’d flunked the one exam he thought he’d passed. Melody came over to the bungalow to borrow some olive oil and then she’d started to rub it on—

“Jesus Christ, just be quiet!” Sam exclaimed, hearing a floorboard creak above her. “It wasn’t a ‘slipup’! It’s not something to ‘smooth over.’ You are so full of shit, I could, I could—” At a loss, Annie’s aunt, still almost as athletically trim as Brad himself, swung the imaginary tennis racket down onto his skull while with her other hand she landed a hard jab in the pilot’s washboard abdomen. They stared at each other, both surprised. Then straightening up, Brad grinned. “I see where she gets her temper too…Nice left.”

“Thanks.” Sam took a long breath. “All right, forget about Annie then. Get divorced. Aren’t you a Republican? Why don’t you move on?”

“I’ll never get over Annie.”

“Why not?”

His face furrowed. Finally he gave up thought. “I don’t know what to do without her.”

Sam couldn’t help but respond. “Oh, Brad.” Frowning unhappily, she walked him to the door. “Okay, gut it up. Quit the pills—”

“I’m off those uppers. If Annie told you—”

“She didn’t tell me anything. Say you’re sorry, mean it, try to win her back.”

Brad shook his head. “No-go. I asked her to take me back. Know what she said? ‘How dumb are you?’”

“Well, you are dumb,” Sam conceded. “But brains aren’t everything. Like I used to tell Annie myself, ‘Maybe I’m not as smart as you—’”

“Wow, Sam, I used to say the same thing.” He hugged her like a comrade.

“‘But, Annie, you can still learn a lot from me,’ that’s what I used to tell her. So, try again.”

“No-go.” The young lieutenant added with the world-weariness of youth, “Life’s a bitch.”

“Honey, you don’t know the half of it,” Sam predicted.

He stepped out the door onto the porch then slipped back inside. “I’m not a Republican. I don’t even believe in politics.”

She shook her head at him. “Jesus Christ, what does that mean? You can’t not believe in politics. It’s not like the tooth fairy, Brad…You want me to give Annie a message?”

“Yes.” He nodded mournfully. “‘Don’t hate me.’”

Sam hugged him. “She’s just mad.”

“How long you think it’ll last?”

She rubbed his arms briskly with strong tanned hands. “Oh, twenty, thirty years, max. I love you, you jerk. No cause why I should, love’s funny that way…Hang on.” She ran up the stairs, whispering into the hall. “Annie, Brad’s leaving! Annie?” Sam looked for her niece, but her bedroom was empty. As Annie’s father Jack had done as a boy, she had climbed out the window, run across the roof and swung down the old wisteria vine that twisted around the back porch corner post. She was sitting on the ground, beside the thick root, her head in her arms.

If Brad had known Annie better he might have looked near that wisteria. But he didn’t know her well at all. He drove next door to see if she were with Georgette and if not, to get Georgette’s advice. Not finding the young psychiatrist at home, he called her at the hospital and poured his best wheedle into his voice. “My heart’s about broken. I flew all the way here and Annie won’t see me. I’m staying at the Omni; meet me for a drink? I need help and all the roads are leading back to you, Georgia.”

With a sigh, Georgette declined. He was the only person who made her like her full name, Georgia Georgette. He knew it and was always singing “Georgia on My Mind” whenever he saw her. He was a very good-looking man. “You know what, Brad? I see you,