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Category:
Women
Publisher: Vanilla Heart Publishing
Type: Fiction
Pages: 340
Copyright: May 15,,2009
ISBN-13: 9780979654503
Four women from varying backgrounds meet aboard the USS General Mayo bound for Korea in 1946 to join their Army officer husbands. The diverse young women forge bonds that will last them throughout the journey, their lives in a military compound, with a promise to meet again in twenty-five years. Trudy Cavanaugh is a young newly-wed, married to the heir to the Cavanaugh publishing empire; Maggie Gorski is from Chicago, the comic relief of the group, who has two unmanageable boys and a heart as big as her home town, Chicago; Nell Martin, a west Texas farm girl who thought she was escaping her parents' wood-burning stove and lack of running water, only to encounter the same living conditions in Korea; and Leah Damon, born in OK as Mary Alice Thomason, is a famous model with a drinking and pill problem who ultimately commits suicide in her cold and lonely military-provided quarters; Their childhoods are explored; meeting their husbands and, although they are completely different, they form a bond that brings them together 25 years later, where long-held dark secrets and sorrows are revealed.
Excerpt from The Women – 6/1/06
Leah-Mary Alice
The Early Years
She was called The Dark Goddess. With her exotic coloring, black hair and dark eyes, Leah Damon was in demand everywhere for modeling jobs. She lunched with the best of society and was a prized decoration at parties. Her face appeared on covers of high fashion magazines and her paycheck enabled her to buy a luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park.
Leah Damon was a success.
Mary Alice Thomason, however, was a constant reminder of what she had once been.
Mary Alice was born in a small town near Tulsa, Oklahoma. From a dark-eyed infant she grew into a wide-eyed precocious child who gracefully avoided that awkward phase which afflicted other girls at puberty.
She sprouted no pimples, had no struggles with unruly hair, had posture or overweight. While her classmates worried about these ailments, the teenager Mary Alice woke one morning in a perfectly developed woman’s body.
Girls hated and envied her while boys fought for her attention. Not one of those males, however, could rightly claim he was “going steady” with Mary Alice Thomason. She remained cool, pleasant and chaste.
There was only one blemish on her childhood. It seemed that as Mary Alice grew, she noticed that her parents were considerably older than those of her friends.
And, where she was dark—haired and brown-eyed, her mother was fair and blue—eyed. When she questioned her mother about this, she received an abrupt answer: “It’s your Black Dutch ancestors. Don’t worry about it.”
And Mary Alice would put any further questions in the back of her mind.
Until she overheard her aunts whispering about “the poor child” and when she inquired, they changed the subject, looking at her with pity in their eyes.
She knew better than to question her mother again, so she simply filed these chance remarks away and laid her differences to her Black Dutch ancestors.
Whoever they were.
Her one constant friend during her growing up years was David Barnes, a neighborhood boy who often studied with her at the table in the Thomason’s warm kitchen. Both sets of parents assumed their children would marry when they were of age, a fact that both David and Mary Alice would have gradually come to accept had it not been for several occurrences during her school years.
One languid summer day, while locusts shrilled from live oak trees, David and Mary Alice, sweat soaked and burned bronze by the searing Oklahoma sun, sought refuge in the Thomason’s barn, where they rejoiced in the end of another school year and their simultaneous passage into the fifth grade.
“I’m gonna be a pilot when I grow up,” David boasted. His chin jutted out and he stuck out his chest as if it were already covered with ribbons.
Mary Alice rolled over on her stomach and contemplated the view from the hayloft.
“You gonna be a nurse?” David prompted, irked by her lack of enthusiasm for his choice of profession. He flopped beside her and stripped off his shirt.
“No, I’m gonna be a model.” She stared at his chest.
“A model? That’s that?”
“It’s like in the movies, only it’s before the main movie starts——the newsreels, where they show the latest styles from New York. The ladies walk around in front of people, wearing long, pretty dresses, and fur coats and joolery. People sit and look at them and go ‘ooh,’ and ‘Ahhhh’, and clap their hands.”
She sat, a dreamy look on her flushed face.
“Bathing suits, too, don’t forget. You’ll have to show almost your whole body, Mary Alice.”
She shrugged. “What’ s wrong with that? You’re showing almost your whole body.”
“A guy can show his chest. A girl’s not supposed to.”
“Oh, phooey! I’ll show you my chest.” She pulled off the light cotton blouse. “See? There’s nothing wrong with it.”
David stared, openmouthed. He had noticed months ago that Mary Alice’s dresses had funny bumps underneath. He reached out and touched the pink nipples.
“You’re not supposed to touch! Only look,” she giggled. Nonetheless, she didn’t remove his hand.
“Touch me, Mary Alice.”
She lightly touched his bare chest. “I can feel your heart beating.”
“I can feel yours, too.”
“Are we doing something wrong, David?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
She frowned. “I don’t think this is what my folks told me not to do. It had somethin’ to do with birds and cows and stuff—”
Below the loft, hens clucked disapprovingly, but the children didn’t hear them. The smells of warm hay and sweat and dust mingled in the still, moist air.
“You wanna see my whole body?” she asked.
He nodded, his hands still on her bumps.
“Well, move.” She wriggled out of her shorts and panties and lay naked before him.
“Now you. It’s your turn.” She smiled lazily at him.
David hastily shed his pants and shorts and lay beside her.
“You’re pretty,” he whispered.
“You’re not looking at my face.”
“More to a girl than just a face, my daddy says. Gotta have a body, too. Mary Alice, I think we’re pretty close to doin’ what grown-ups do——you know——” his face turned crimson and he reached for his trousers.
“We’re not doing anything.” She reached for his hands and put them back on her breasts. See?”
“What in thunder you kids doin’ up there?” Lewis Thomason’s voice boomed from below.
David turned white and threw on his pants; Mary Alice hastily retrieved her clothes and slid them on her bare body.
“David Barnes, your daddy wants you home right away.”
They heard her father’s heavy tread on the ladder, and then his head peered over the ledge. “What you kids find to do all day up there, anyway?”
“Nothin, Papa.”
“I’m gonna be a pilot, Mr. Thomason,” David said. “Mary Alice says she’s gonna be in the movies.”
“Not the movies, you dumbbell.” She stood and dusted the hay from her rounded bottom. “A model. I told you, a model.”
They followed Lewis down the ladder.
“How you gonna do that? Models are in Hollywood and here you are, stuck in Oklahoma.” David continued.
“Shows you how much you know, smarty. Models are in New York. So I’ll go to New York.”
They rounded the barn where David would take the path to his house. “See you tomorrow?”
Mary A1ice looked at her father, who preceded her towards her house. She shook her head, then said in low tones, “I don’t think so.”
“You comin,’ Mary Alice?” her father called.
“In a minute, Papa.”
They watched Lewis enter the house; the screen door whined and shut with a thud.
“I won’t do it again, honest,” David pleaded. “I know what we did was wrong.”
She looked at him a long minute, then kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’m not going up there with you again. But I liked it, David,” she laughed as she ran toward the house. “I really did like it!”
The children never spoke of that day again. Mary Alice and David grew up, and then apart, neighbors and schoolmates, but they never forgot how close they had been that one hot summer day.
Excerpt
The Women of Camp Sobingo
A Novel
By
Marilyn Celeste Morris
A Note to the Reader
There really was/is a Camp Sobingo, located outside the capitol city of Seoul, South Korea at the end of WWII. This military compound’s cookie-cutter “quarters” was home to the women and children who joined their Army officer husbands during the US Occupation. The camp had a school, a post exchange, a dispensary, a commissary, and even a movie theatre (think “MASH”). Ever-present, however, was the military presence, both Korean and our own US forces, and the tyranny of the Russians located across the 38th parallel, who merely annoyed the dependents with their random denial of electricity to the American contingent.
Most of the Americans had deployed to other assignments before June 25th, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. Those remaining escaped safely, but “The Land of the Morning Calm” would never be the same. In 1954, my father was ordered back to Korea as part of the Military Advisory Group. He took a short drive to what remained of Camp Sobingo, and sent snapshots of our former quarters, (Hq.G-27) which had been pock-marked by aerial strafing, and natives were stripping the floorboards for fuel.
The window, where I had sat and dreamed a 10-year-old’s dreams and played with my homemade doll-house populated by models cut from the Sears, Roebuck catalog, was boarded up. More pockmarks surrounded the framework.
An unusual childhood, one might correctly assume, yet I was not alone in this kind of adventure. There are vast numbers of military brats and wives of servicemen who carry the same experiences from different countries. Thanks to the power of the Internet, we are finding each other. Two such sites that assist in this process are:
www.military-brats.com where you may register so that others may find you, and www.Overseas-Brats.com. Another organization of interest is the American Overseas Schools Historical Society, which recently broke ground for a museum to be built in Wichita, Kansas, housing such “sacred artifacts” as my 4th grade report card from Seoul Dependents Elementary School. Many of the schools currently in operation overseas are being closed as our military presence is no longer required.
Researchers and historians will be astounded by such a treasure trove detailing one small but important part of our nation’s history.
Prologue
1973
Trudy Cavanaugh strode from the mahogany paneled boardroom, leaving in her wake seven men looking at each other in astonishment. She bolted into the ladies’ room at the end of the hall, pushed open a stall door, and leaned over the toilet, allowing the bile to flow freely from her agitated stomach. Damn! she thought. When will I ever get used to confronting people without vomiting? Straightening, she flushed the toilet and emerged from the stall, going directly to the vanity area where she ran water and pumped the soap dispenser vigorously. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she grimaced at her appearance. She hoped she didn’t look as sick as she felt. Cupping her hands under the flow of cold water, she sipped water and rinsed her mouth of the foul taste. That would have to do until she could get her handbag where she carried a small bottle of mints. Opening the ladies’ room door, she nodded at her secretary, who handed Trudy her handbag and her full-length mink coat, then motioned to the man who was leaning over the desk.
Her attorney pursued her through the offices of Cavanaugh Enterprises toward the elevators. Leo Powell knew he didn’t have to hurry; even the powerful and wealthy Cavanaugh woman had to wait for the elevator to crawl slowly from the ground floor to the twenty-fifth.
So, she’s done it again. He grinned to himself as he walked behind the rapidly retreating figure. She outwitted those old farts on the board and headed this business in the right direction. If Trudy had been merely a figurehead chairman, she would have allowed the members to watch the company die, along with many other publications in this year of change.
Instead, Trudy held her ground and bullied the old men—those paunchy, balding, impotent, old men in their pinstriped suits—into turning the focus of the business around toward the ladies’ market.
Not the traditional ladies’ market, though. With the emergence of women into positions of authority and power in the business world, Trudy had recognized their need for publications aimed at their work-world. No recipes for her. No fashion commentaries or movie-star profiles, but articles related to work experience, how to juggle appointments with babysitters…that’s what Trudy Cavanaugh wanted.
That's what she’ll get, Leo knew. He slowed his pace and stood silently beside his employer by the elevator.
"Leo,” she said without turning to him. "What were those old geezers doing when I left?"
“Babbling amongst themselves. Having strokes and heart attacks.”
She chuckled. “Good. I want a meeting with the editors of all our publications tomorrow morning. I want to tell them all personally before the Board has a chance to do any more damage.”
The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside as the brass doors closed silently and firmly. They rode in silence to the garage floor where Trudy’s limousine waited.
Leo assisted her into the back seat, telling the driver, “We’ll go to Mrs. Cavanaugh’s home, now.”
Trudy settled herself against the car’s soft leather, pulling off her kid gloves and shrugging off her mink coat.
Leo pulled his cigarette lighter from his coat pocket and held it as she put a cigarette to her lips.
“Thank you.” She inhaled deeply and stretched her long legs straight out, flexing her tense leg muscles.
Leo wisely withheld his questions as Trudy was seemingly absorbed in looking out the window at the changing autumn scenery.
Glancing out the window every so often, he studied her.
I know her like a book, he thought. In fact, Leo had been offered a great deal of money to write a book about the Cavanaughs, all of them, with Trudy as the focal point, but he had declined. Leo was above all else, loyal to the family, but what a book he could write. The Cavanaughs were newsmakers, and this lovely member of the family was the most sensational of them all.
He found himself appraising her: tall, rather an angular woman, with strong features, and a certain boyish stride. Her hair was blond with sun-streaks, unaided by hairdressers, as far as Leo could determine, and he knew well how her emerald-green eyes could turn from warm to stone cold. A line or wrinkle there, he admitted, but the woman was approaching fifty, and the strain of simply being a Cavanaugh was enough to age her.
He shook his head.
Trudy had said something.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I want to give a party.” She ground out her cigarette and turned her luminous eyes on him. They were not warm.
“I’ll get your social secretary—” He put his hand on the telephone.
“No.” She put her hand over his, stopping him. “No, Leo. I want do this one myself, but I need your help. Give me your legal pad and a pen, would you?”
He pulled them from his briefcase, and she began writing in her illegible scrawl.
“I want you to find these people— ”
“Is this what I think it is?” His eyebrows knitted in a frown. “Your friends from Korea?”
She continued scribbling. “We promised twenty years ago that we’d all meet again, and it’s time, or it will be, soon.”
She tore off the page, handing it to him. “Do what you can, will you?”
It wasn’t a request. It was an order.
Leo looked at the list in dismay. It contained about twenty names, ranks, and a few last-known addresses. He looked up at her, but Trudy was looking out the window again.
“I’ll find them. When do you want them?”
“I’ve wanted them for a long time, Leo.” Her chin trembled and tears welled in her emerald eyes.
Leo had never, in all the years he had been around the family, seen Trudy Cavanaugh cry. Never. Not when she and Philip returned from Korea, his body mutilated then his soul, nor when Philip died. Not even when the Old Man died—but now—now, the woman was about to cry.
The driver slowed as he turned to question his employer with his eyes. They were nearing the turnoff to the cemetery.
Trudy nodded, slowly, as she bit her lip to control the tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks. Yes, she would stop at the cemetery as was her usual custom after haggling with the Cavanaugh Enterprises board members over one issue or another. She needed to get in touch with her roots, where she came from, more than where she was headed, and her roots lay with her late father-in-law, who had chosen Trudy over his own son, to assume the chairmanship shortly before he died.
Leo helped her into her coat before she stepped out of the car in front of the Cavanaugh Mausoleum.
She approached the stone edifice with legs that felt like rubber. Entering, she paused at the casket that contained the body of her father-in-law. “Colin,” she murmured. “You would have been proud of me today. I turned the company upside down. And yes, I threw up later.” She allowed herself a somewhat crooked grin as she stroked the top of the casket. She could almost imagine Colin guffawing loudly, his eyes sparking with a mischievous glint. She was silent for a few moments then turned to her husband’s casket a few feet away.
“Philip,” she whispered softly as she knelt to touch his casket. “I’m keeping the pact we all made when we were in Korea. We will all meet again as we promised. Maggie and Jake, BT and Doc, Nell and Evan…and…and…” She could not finish before she was swept away by great sobs. A moment passed while she composed herself. “I miss you.”
Wiping her eyes, she straightened and walked briskly to her waiting car.
“Let’s go home, Leo,” she said.
* * * *
Now clear-eyed, Trudy allowed Leo to assist her from the limousine, saying, “Come into the study. We’ll have a drink before we go over those new Ellis contracts.”
Leo followed her from the car into the great hallway and into the massive oak paneled study. At the sideboard, she poured a drink and sat in a dark green wingback chair.
I feel like a fool, crying in front of Leo like that. It must be hormones, she thought.
They’re running full steam, getting in their last gasps, but Alex doesn’t think I’m too old. The feeling of warmth spread to her breasts as she remembered last evening with Alex. No, there was nothing wrong with my hormones, she assured herself.
She turned her thoughts to her upcoming reunion. She wondered how her “old” friends had fared in these twenty-five years since they had all been Army wives in a military compound so far from home.
Maggie would only be more plump, more brassy, if possible. And Nell. Nell would be even more of a comfort, an island of sanity in a crazy world.
And Leah?
She swallowed her drink
Leah should be here, she thought.
But Leah was dead.
Leah died in Korea, a voice taunted.
She stood and mixed another drink, something she rarely did.
The voice nagged at her. Leah didn’t just die. She killed herself.
Her legs became unsteady beneath her, and she sank into the chair. Colin’s chair. Her breath came in ragged gasps.
She was crying, dammit.
“I really don’t know why I’m crying, Leo,” she sobbed. “Except, after all these years, I miss those people. They were special.”
She motioned for his handkerchief. She blew her nose and started to hand the handkerchief back. “Thanks. I’ll get this back to you later. I’m sorry you had to see me cry.” She laughed self-consciously. “And if word ever gets out that Trudy Cavanaugh cried, I’ll know who to blame…”
“I’ll find them for you, Trudy. I’ll bring them all back.” Leo patted her shoulder awkwardly.
No, you can’t bring them all back, Trudy thought. Not Colin, Philip, nor the past.
Never the past.
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