World War III

“Hell, don’t apologize. I’ll tell you what. If they were sending me to Alaska, you can be goddamn sure I’d have a bash to mark the occasion.” The general nodded politely to Nancy. “How do, Nance. We’re going to miss this oaf, you know.”

She smiled politely but without affection. “I’m sure you will, General.” In her next breath, thinly disguising her effort to get away, she turned to Caffey. “Excuse me, darling, but I have to check on the punch. Shall I get you some?”

“No, thanks. General?”

“No, I’m not much for punch at these things. That’s usually what it is.”

Nancy squeezed Caffey’s hand. “Don’t forget to circulate. This is for you, remember.”

When she was gone Selby said, “Still blames me for your transfer to Outer Mongolia, eh, Jake?”

“She knows better, General.”

“And you can drop that ‘General’ crap. I didn’t come here just because you’re a damned good officer that I don’t like losing. Generals, contrary to popular belief, do have friends in the ranks.”

Caffey smiled genuinely for the first time since he’d arrived. “Thanks, Walt. This wasn’t my idea, I guess I don’t have to tell you.”

“Jake Caffey at a full-dress party? Why do you think I showed up? That is you under all that spit and polish?”

“Nancy was so insistent—”

“Say no more. I shudder to think what grand scheme Edna would come up with.” The general paused to look around. “Speaking of grandness, where is Diana, the real glory of the Caffey household?”

“It’s exam time.”

“They take exams in the seventh grade?”

“I don’t know, but they do in the ninth grade.”

“Jesus, where’d I lose two years?”

Caffey shrugged. “Same place I did. Last month I said she was twelve. She’s thirteen. She cried for an hour. Teenagers are very sensitive about that sort of thing.”

“The little princess.”

“That’s out these days, too. She’d prefer to be called Diane or Diana Elizabeth. Deedee is out. So is Blonde Beauty and Twinkletoes. I’m Father; Nancy is Mother, but Richard K. Fredricks, Jr., the tenth-grade quarterback with pimples for brains, is Dickie. You figure it out.”

Selby laughed. “You are entering the age of love, Jake. It starts now and doesn’t ever stop.”

“You’re a big help.”

“Wait until she hits sixteen. You think the Alaskan Defense Command will be trying? Just wait three years. You don’t know the terror a grown man can surfer from a one-hundred-pound sixteen-year-old daughter.”

“Horror stories I don’t need tonight.”

Nancy was weaving through the crowd back toward them when Selby saw her. He gripped Caffey by the shoulder. “I’d better vamoose before she bites off my other leg, Jake. You know I don’t like seeing you leave this outfit of screw-ups. When you get tired of igloos and Eskimo Pie, just give me a call.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it, Jake. Anything you need up there, you let me know. Gard Roberts can be a pissant.”

“I’ll remember, Walt. Thanks.”

As Nancy approached, Selby said, “Just leaving, pretty lady. As becomes my rank, character and influence, I shall engage in some serious drinking with the ever-ready warriors of the infamous 82nd.”

He winked at her and moved toward a group near the Christmas tree.

She handed Caffey a small glass of punch. “Here, you need to hold something. You look like a bored doorman the way you stand with your hands behind your back.”

“I feel like a doorman. Look, let’s slip out of here—”

“Not now. You haven’t met some of these people. There’s a Mr. Whorley from Congressman Gilbert’s staff and—”

“I met Whorley,” Caffey said with a strained smile. “I’ve been watching him watching you. The little prick’s spilled his drink twice trying to get a better look at your cleavage. Not that he has to try very hard. Did you have to wear that dress?”

“I don’t have my Eskimo sealskins yet, darling,” she said viciously. “What was so amusing with the general, if I might ask? Something about me?”

“We were talking about kids. Deedee, as a matter of fact.”

“Did you remember her?”

Caffey let out a sigh. “Nancy, please.”

“I don’t know how he ever got to be a general. He doesn’t act like one.”

“Walt Selby is the finest—”

“Yes, of course, dear,” she said, nodding impatiently. “Now, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Nancy raised up on her tiptoes to see. “Yes, there they are. Bill and Mary Tretton. They have a son at Harvard. Bill’s a major contributor to—”

“I’m leaving,” Caffey cut in. He drained his glass of punch. “My feet hurt and my shirt is soaking wet.”

“Jake, you can’t leave!”

“Watch.”

“If you think—”

Caffey turned to her. With quiet menace he said, “What I think is this, Nancy. I’m tired. I want to get out of these clothes and spend some time with our daughter before I have to leave this place. You stay here. You’re better at this than I am. It’s what you live for, anyway. So you just entertain until the punch gives out. I’ll be at home.”

“Goddamn you,” she said in a low breath.