My best friend Starr Ann and I are just pulling off our muddy boots after tramping around in the pasture all morning picking up stones. Always does amaze me how so many of those big, flat chunks of sandstone can work their way to the surface during a wet winter like we've had this year. Anyway, Starr Ann has one boot off, and I'm completely in sock feet when somebody knocks on the door. Laverne, our postal delivery lady.
Starr Ann hobbles to the door real fast to accept the letter. We know it has to be from Lane, because those are the only ones Laverne brings all the way to the door. She started doing that after Lane accidentally messed up the address when she first went into Basic Training. Crazy kid. Anyway, we don't even take time to get our feet situated right before tearing in. I know everybody else feels the same way, so I'll just get out of the way and show it to you.
Hi Starr Ann! Hi Margo!
I really miss you guys. I finished 21 S school and decided to join my new friend Jamila (which is African for “beautiful”) at her family’s house outside of Dallas for the week before we head to our next stop, which they’ve declined to inform us of the exact wheres of so far.
I did real good in school. Seems I paid a bit more attention in math class than I thought I did. Jamila and me were real tight from day one. There were only four women in the class. Jamila, it turns out, is into dressage. Now, her family doesn’t have any money, but a classmate’s mom once took her on a weekend event to keep her daughter company so let her try it out. Well, seems like she was a natural so she was given lessons by the nice white lady and got sponsors for the next few years. So, listening to her talk about horses was ALMOST as bad as listening to you two carry on. She looks totally hot in that funny English riding gear.
Anyway, I think I’m in love. Jamila is super smart and could have gone to college, but she wanted to get away from home and do something of her very own. She jokes that her recruiter told her she could be in the cavalry, but here she is, a land surveyor. Amanda writes a lot, but I hear they are sending her to Germany for two years.
I hear you’ve lost your voice, Margo, and I’m hoping that’s not true. Sometimes, we have to keep at it even when we don’t think we can just to prove ‘em wrong. Least ways, that’s what Sgt. Cooper says all the time. Dallas is real nice, but we have to report back and receive our orders on Friday. Hope to call before then.
I was kind of hoping that this danged war would be over by now, but, I guess with months and months left of our own terrorist regime in office, there ain’t a rat’s chance that I will not end up in the desert sand. I was kind of hoping for Hawaii. With Jamila.
Love,
Lane
