Stranger at the Door. Laura Abbot

lovemaking, I explored my surroundings. The bathroom, tiled in mustard-gas green, was tiny. The west-facing kitchen boasted a small refrigerator, an ancient oven and a two-burner electric cooktop. The living room furnishings consisted of a vinyl couch, a two-person dinette set and one scuffed armchair. Sam had, however, added two large fans and a small black-and-white TV.

      I peered into the refrigerator, wondering if I was expected to cook dinner. Then I unpacked, and was overcome with shyness when I discovered drawers filled with Sam’s undershirts and briefs, a razor and shaving cream on a bathroom shelf and a pair of dirty jeans in the clothes hamper. Somehow I was to make this drab box a home for both of us, preparing appetizing meals, laundering military uniforms, keeping house. I lay across the utilitarian tan bedspread, immobilized by the enormity of my new role.

      Until I heard a knock. I smelled the cigarette before I opened the door. There, one eyebrow cocked in assessment, stood the woman who was to become my chain-smoking, dyed-blond guardian angel.

      Flicking her ash, she sized me up. “Honey, you look like you’re straight off the banana boat.” She moved past me into the living room and only then stuck out her hand. “I’m your next-door-neighbor, Marge DeVere. And I’ll lay odds, you need help.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “Am I right, sugar cakes?”

      All I could do was nod. Marge was as unlike my sorority sisters or the matrons of Springbranch, Louisiana, as anyone could imagine, but I couldn’t have been more pleased to see her. “I’m Izzy,” I said, surprising myself. I had always referred to myself as Isabel. “And to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue.” I shrugged, then grinned. “About anything.”

      Marge’s laugh rolled up from her belly and filled the room. I joined in until tears ran down my face. Finally, catching my breath, I remembered my manners. “Please sit down. I have more questions than you can imagine.”

      “I’ve got plenty of time. Why don’t you check the fridge and let’s have us a beer and some girl talk.”

      Until then I had never guessed beer could substitute for an afternoon glass of tea. I pulled out two bottles, snatched up a bag of chips and settled on the sofa. In a few short hours she gave me a tutorial on the intricacies of being a military wife, reminding me to wear a hat and gloves when Sam and I called on his commanding officer and his wife, and cautioning me about speeding on base, an infraction for which Sam could be reprimanded. Never, before or since, have I been so grateful to a teacher.