Front Lines Read Online Free PDF Page A

confused, her thoughts zooming like rockets, leaving random trails of sparks and smoke and . . .
    â€œSo, anyway,” Strand goes on, struggling with every word, “I know we don’t really know each other all that well. But I was wondering whether you might go see a movie with me tomorrow night. Then I could write to you when I’m away. But now if you’re going away as well, so . . .” He looks exhausted suddenly, as if he’s used up the last of his courage getting the conversation this far.
    â€œI imagine soldiers can write to each other,” Rio says, sounding chirpy and false to herself. “I mean, wherever you are, and wherever I am, we could still write letters back and forth. Couldn’t we?”
    What are you doing? Enlisting? Or going on a date?
    But she can hear Jenou’s voice in her head, and that voice says, “Oh come on now, honey; you know exactly what you’re doing.”
    Rio’s suggestion gives Strand an infusion of energy,perhaps a little too much energy, as he practically shouts, “Yes! Yes, we could, couldn’t we? After all, it’s not as if you’ll be off in the trenches somewhere. They’ll keep the girls here in the States. Or perhaps send some to England, but in any case, you’ll be able to write.” He claps his hands, then seems surprised by those very hands, stares at them for a second in confusion, sticks them into his pockets, and goes on. “We could compare notes on . . . on army life. Of course we could. Why not?”
    â€œAnd it would make sense for us to know each other a little better before embarking on this correspondence,” Rio says.
    Embarking on this correspondence?
    That sends his eyebrows up.
    â€œYes, that was an interesting phrase,” Rio admits ruefully. “I meant, a movie, like you said, we could go to a movie.”
    â€œYes! That’s it, of course, because I did mention a movie, didn’t I? Tomorrow night. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it?”
    â€œOf course!” she says, and it comes out as a squeak.
    Well-raised boy that he is, Strand walks her the rest of the way home, but the only conversation takes place between voices in Rio’s own head. She has just upended her entire life based on a diner conversation with her best friend and an awkward exchange with a boy she barely knows.
    Now, right now , here at her front door where she must say good evening, is the time to take it all back.
    But I do want to go to a movie with him. I do want to.
    â€œGood night, Strand.”
    â€œI’ll come by at seven, if that’s all right with you.”
    â€œThat would be perfect.”
    Rio rushes inside, closes the door behind her, and leans against it.
    She is going on a date.
    And also, going to war.

3
FRANGIE MARR—TULSA, OKLAHOMA, USA
    â€œI don’t want you to go, baby.”
    Dorothy Marr tugs at the fabric, lines it up, glances at the spool of thread, presses the pedal, and ree-ree-ree-ree-ree-ree.
    â€œI know that, Mother,” Frangie Marr says. “But you can’t pay the bills on your own. We’ll end up in the street if I don’t.”
    Just about eighteen hundred miles east and a little south of Gedwell Falls, seventeen-year-old Frangie Marr sits with her mother on the screened porch where her mother hauls her battered sewing machine on hot, humid nights like this.
    The screens have been torn and patched and torn again, and the mosquitoes have memorized every last one of the holes. Unseasonably warm weather has released the insects from their slumber, and Frangie slaps one that lands on her arm, leaving a spot of herown blood that she flicks away.
    She’s a tiny thing, Frangie Marr, that’s what people always say about her and have since she was twelve. Her adolescent growth spurt came late and petered out early. Until age fourteen she’d been just four foot ten. Now she is five foot one—if she cheats a