Front Lines (Front Lines 1)

“This town is so boring. So, so, so boring.” Jenou Castain lolls her head back and forth with each “so” before dropping forward on the “boring.” This has the effect of causing her voluminous blond hair to sway very attractively and earns her appreciative looks from the booth full of boys at the far end of the diner. A fact that Jenou is, of course, quite aware of.

“You always say that,” Rio points out. She is vaguely annoyed at Jenou for pulling the hair routine. Rio has been sneaking peeks at a boy named Strand Braxton, who has been glancing back from time to time. Once they even make eye contact, which causes both to blush and quickly focus attention elsewhere. But Rio has been hoping for a second such accidental meeting of ever-so-casual glances, and Jenou, forever playing the blond seductress, has diverted Strand’s attention.

“I always say it because it’s always true. Let me ask you something, Rio . . . and don’t bother making eyes at Strand, I heard he’s taking Hillary to the dance. Is that a shocked look? Rio, if you’re going to suddenly discover the human male you’re going to need to also discover gossip. Now, where was I?”

Hillary? And Strand?

“You were telling me how boring everything is,” Rio says. “Which is kind of boring by itself, you know? Saying the same thing over and over.”

“No, I remember.” Jenou snaps her fingers. “I was going to ask you if there is a single square foot of this town that you don’t know by heart.”

The waitress appears at that point, and Jenou says, “I’ll have a cheeseburger.”

“Not today you won’t,” the waitress said. “No cheese.”

“No cheese?”

“Dontcha know there’s a war on?” the waitress asks wearily. “Deliveries are all fouled up.” She’s in a faded pink uniform and a food-stained apron and the kind of white shoes that nurses wear.

Jenou, exasperated, smacks the table with her palm. “That does it, now the war is getting serious.” Then she winces and says, “Oh, honey. Sorry. Sometimes my mouth . . .” She shrugs.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Rio says.

The waitress looks quizzical, and Jenou explains, “Her sister.”

“Oh, I heard about that,” the waitress says, losing the wise-guy attitude. “Condolences, sweetie. She’s in a better place. Dirty Japs.”

I’m that girl now. The one everyone has to pity, Rio thinks. It’s been weeks since Rachel’s death, but the Richlin home is still the only one with a gold star hanging in the window. Life goes on for everyone, almost as if there was no war, until they notice Rio. Then comes the mask of pity, the low voices of sympathy, the threats, the tough talk.

Rio wants to forget it too, the way they all do with such apparent ease. She wants to be normal for a while, to gossip and tease and laugh.

“Hamburger,” Rio says, trying to avoid the tears that have stalked her since the coming of the telegram, coming suddenly without warning, prompted by some familiar sight, some gold-hued memory. She wants to shoot the breeze with Jenou and flirt with Strand and not have death and tragedy and her father’s stony silence and her mother’s drawn and defeated face hanging over it all.

“Two hamburgers and two milk shakes,” Jenou says. “What flavors?”

“Well, we have vanilla, and then we have vanilla.”

“I see: no chocolate because there’s a war on.” Jenou reaches across the table and pats Rio’s hand.

They sit in comfortable silence until the hamburgers come. It doesn’t take long; the patties aren’t much thicker than a sheet of construction paper and cook up quickly on the long steel grill behind the counter.

They take a few bites, and Rio says, “I found a journal she kept. Rachel, I mean. Up in her room, hidden under her mattress. I was in there to . . .” She shakes her head to ward off the tears and takes a big bite of burger, swallowing it past the lump in her throat.

Breathe. Breathe. Okay.

“I was in ther

e to snoop,” Rio admits. “Anyway, I found her old journal. I wondered if maybe she’d kept one like it on the ship.”

Jenou nods cautiously.

“If she was a soldier, maybe we’d get her things, you know? What they call her effects. But it’s all on the bottom of the Pacific, I guess, and we won’t ever know.”

“I guess not,” Jenou says. “What did she write about?”

Rio shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t had the . . . I haven’t read it. Her secret crushes, I guess. But if I read it . . . I mean, what if she just complains about her annoying little sister?” She tries to force a smile, and it doesn’t quite work.

“You know you don’t have to be funny and lighthearted with me.”