A Date: Ensign's wife dates a captain.
I'm Emily Thompson and I am living in paradise. My husband, John, is a naval pilot assigned to Honolulu. I am told that you should watch out for serpents in paradise, but so far it is great. Officers' quarters are like a country club, and the tennis courts are almost always available. My husband's duties have been light, and we have been able to play a lot of mixed doubles. I have met a navy nurse, Julie, who also likes tennis. She can easily find an available guy to give John and me a match. We generally have won about sixty percent of the time, so the matches are both competitive and enjoyable. When we did not play tennis, we were only a short drive from Waikiki. Swimming in the Pacific is rougher than the Alabama gulf, but the tan is just as good. I like fish, and the seafood in Hawaii is beyond compare. Fish is low calorie and healthy, so it allows me to keep a figure that the multitude of men on the base notice. It is summer in December, I am in paradise.
That version of heaven ended as the international situation worsened. My husband's duties were no longer easy, and he was seldom at home even when he was in Honolulu. But he was not often in Hawaii. He was most often training at sea, and I was alone. Julie was my lifeline. Look, she said, "we can still play mixed doubles. I can find a partner for you. The men outnumber the women on the base by 50 to 1." So I still had tennis. The only problem was that I had to frequently change partners. Usually by the third game, my partner would start hitting on me. I would insist that Julie find me a new partner. At least that's what happened until I got Robert. Robert, never Bob, was Captain of a destroyer. Shockingly, he didn't change on the third match, or the fourth or fifth. He treated me as any other player, guy or girl. After we won our seventh match, he said I don't want to eat alone tonight. Will you let me treat you? He said that he respected my marriage and it was not a date. I was a virgin at marriage, but I am not naive about men. I would not take his words at face value. But I was tired of being alone, so I would test them.
Robert picked me up in a Cadillac. It was a shock to ride in something other than a Jeep. I was going to object when he took me to a hotel, but it had one of the best restaurants in Oahu, so what could I say. The restaurant had a band that was playing quietly during supper hour. We were seated near a small dance floor. He asked me what was my drink. White wine for me, red wine is bitter and served too warm at room temperature. When people started drinking wine,
room temperature was 40 degrees in the winter. Robert ordered a bottle of Sancerre, a French Loire Valley wine. I made my calculation. Cadillac, hotel, dance floor, French wine, this was a date. I could demand that he take me home, and return me to my boring life, or just enjoy.
