Whenever Jane stopped to think about it all the next day, this whole deal seemed pretty weird. Well, it was weird; she’d never heard of anything like it before, but it had some interesting potential. She couldn’t help but wonder what Rick might be like, what he might look like, how he might act. There was going to be a lot riding on the first impression she had of him, that was for sure – and for that matter, the same was true the other way around.

Since dinner was set up for seven she had plenty of time to go back to the apartment to shower and change clothes after work. Since Madelyn never got home this early, she didn’t worry about wearing a robe when she walked from her room to the bathroom, and was mostly thinking about what she wanted to wear this evening. While she thought the honest thing to do was to dress more or less like normal, she knew she’d agreed to dress up a little, but minding Sophia’s advice about not appearing intimidating, she didn’t want to go too far overboard.

While the water in the shower was warming up, she caught a glimpse of her naked reflection in the mirror. As always, she was a little less than satisfied; once again she thought she needed to lose maybe five pounds, but she didn’t really want to run the risk of losing them from her chest, where she didn’t have them to lose. While she normally wore a bra if she was going out, her breasts were so small she didn’t really have to, which was part of the reason she usually wore loose, floppy shirts – no one could tell there really wasn’t much there. She couldn’t help but wonder if her nearly flat chest would be a turnoff for Rick. Well, if it was, what she saw was what he was going to get.

She realized she was no sexpot like Madelyn, at best just average looking, but again, that might be an advantage. She thought about giving a pass to washing her hair, since she’d done it only a couple days before and she didn’t have that much time, but decided once again to put her best foot forward – that was what hair dryers were for, after all. This evening was going to be make or break, and when she got right down to it she wasn’t sure how she wanted it to come out.

The shower didn’t take long this time, mostly because she wanted to be back in her bedroom before Madelyn got home; she didn’t want to get caught traipsing nude through the apartment, especially if Walt came in with her. Once she got her hair dry she went back to her room to wrestle once again with what she was going to wear.

Jane didn’t have a lot of what she considered “dress-up” clothes. After thinking about it all day, she finally settled on a just-above-knee-length denim skirt and a loose print top. It wasn’t bad looking, but somehow didn’t quite say what she wanted it to say. In the end, it would have to do; there weren’t many alternatives and none seemed to work as well as what she had on.

Dressed up now, she realized she still had some time to kill, and she was getting increasingly nervous about this whole thing. I might as well do some touching up, she thought, and headed back to the bathroom to think about makeup.

After quite a bit of looking in the mirror, she decided she didn’t want to do much about it. Her lashes and brows were dark enough that they never needed attention anyway; in the end she just settled for a fresh-scrubbed face and a little lip gloss, which she only wore rarely. She was just getting it on when she heard Madelyn come in. “Hi, Madelyn,” she called. “I’m in the bathroom. How was your day?”

“Same shit, different day,” she heard her roommate reply. “I hope you’re about done in there. Walt and I are going out tonight.”

“Anything special?”

“Dinner and a movie, and we’ll probably wind up here.”

Jane finished what she was doing in the bathroom and stepped out into the combination kitchen, dining area and living room. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said.

“Wow, you look dressed up,” Madelyn smiled. “Looks like you have a hot date.”

“Nothing in particular,” Jane lied. “I’m just going out with that woman I met a couple days ago, and her husband. They’re going to have their friend with them.”

“Is this friend a guy?”

“Well, yes,” Jane replied, a little reluctantly. Madelyn would never believe what was really happening, after all.

“Is he what you might call a prospect?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet. This is sort of a get-acquainted thing.”

Madelyn eyed her roommate critically. “Look,” she said finally. “You look all right, I guess, but if I were you I’d be a little more, well, aggressive in your clothes.”

“I know you would be. I don’t want to overwhelm this guy. According to my friend, he’s pretty casual.”

“You can look, well, a little more appealing and still look casual,” Madelyn asserted. “I mean, you look OK, but . . . well, you could do better. That top makes you look fat, for example. You could do a lot better. Come on, you know the old saw, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

“I realize that, but I don’t have anything else that seems appropriate.”

“I know,” Madelyn shook her head. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but your wardrobe has always seemed a little, well, blah. Look, I’ve got a top I’m pretty sure would look a lot better on you. Let me get it.”

It was a little surprising that Madelyn would be this helpful. Critical, yes, she did a lot of that, and condescending was just about the normal thing for her. In a minute, she came out of her room carrying a white camisole that probably represented about half the material of the top Jane had on now. “Here, try this,” she said. “I think it would look pretty good on you.”

“Madelyn, I don’t know. This is the first time I’m meeting this guy. I don’t know if I’m going to want to see him again or what.”

“Look, Jane. If he turns out to be a dud, he’s a dud, and you don’t have to see him again, so it won’t matter. If he’s not a dud, then you’ve made a good start. It can’t hurt.”

“I suppose,” Jane conceded reluctantly. “Let me go try it on.”

Jane headed back into her room, leaving the door open, and took off the top she was wearing. “This is not going to look good with a bra,” she protested.

“Then don’t wear one. That’s sort of designed for not wearing one.”

At least she was reasonably polite this time in pointing out that I really don’t need one anyway, Jane thought as she took off her bra and pulled on the camisole. It was really snug, and even without looking in the mirror she realized it would show off every curve she had, or didn’t have, as the case might be. “I don’t know,” she sighed to her roomie. “It seems a little, well, extreme.”

Madelyn stepped into the room, took a look, and said. “That’s not bad. In fact, it looks pretty good on you.”

“It shows off how much chest I don’t have.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, and I know you’re sensitive about it. Jane, you really do have boobs, you know. In fact, they’re not much smaller than mine, and I don’t think mine look bad. You just need to realize that it’s not a case of how much you have, but how well you present what you do have, and I think that top does it nicely.”

“I think it’s a little extreme for a nice restaurant. It wouldn’t be all that bad for a date in a hot bar.”

“Well, true,” Madelyn agreed thoughtfully. She headed over to Jane’s closet, and pulled out a short-sleeve print shirt she rarely wore, mostly because it was what Jane considered to be on the small side, although it fit comfortably. “Wear this over it, but leave it unbuttoned. That’ll give your date a good look at your boobs without you going overboard about it. Then if he should wind up taking you to a hot bar after your dinner, you can always take the shirt off. That way you’re covered either way.”

“Barely covered, with it off.”

“Hey, that’s the general idea, isn’t it?” Madelyn laughed, and handed the shirt to Jane. After she got it on, Madelyn stood back and took a look. “That shirt doesn’t quite work with that skirt, to me anyway. The denim skirt would look all right in a country-western bar but not in a nice restaurant. I think I have something that would look better. I’ll be right back.”

In only a moment Madelyn was back with a short black skirt, much lighter weight than the one Jane had on. “Here, try this,” she said.

Well, what the hell, Jane thought. I’ve gone this far, I might as well. I’ve got the time to kill, after all.

As it turned out, the skirt fit comfortably around the waist, although it rode a little higher than Madelyn usually wore it. It had a looser hem and was considerably shorter than the denim skirt, although not really all that short; this time of year women often showed a lot more leg when they were out on the street, even if they were going grocery shopping. “Yeah, you might be right,” Jane conceded. “It looks, well, sharper than that other outfit.”

“I thought you’d think so,” Madelyn grinned. “Normally I might suggest hose with that, but I think that might get away from the casual look you seem to want with this guy.”

“You’re right. That would be overdoing it. My friend says this guy is pretty casual himself, and might be a little intimidated if I go too far. I don’t think this will do it, but who’s to know?”

“Look, maybe we can spend a little more time on your wardrobe. If this doesn’t work out, it might help the next time.”

“That takes money,” Jane protested.

“So we’ll do it a little at a time. Since you work in a restaurant, you have to know you sell the sizzle, not the steak. At least show you have a little sizzle. Not too much, which is maybe what you want to show the guy, but at least it’s there. And think positively! This might be the first step to you getting married, after all. You never know.”

Oh, boy, Jane thought. If she only knew . . . “Thanks for letting me borrow these clothes,” she said. “Maybe they will help.”

“I’m sure they will. Now I’ve got to get busy, it won’t be long before Walt will be picking me up.” She bustled off to her room, obviously in a hurry now.

Jane went over and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Yes, she thought. This does look a little more appealing than that other outfit. I just hope I didn’t let her make me overdo it. She glanced at the clock on her bedside stand. Plenty of time, she thought. I sure hope this works out. Or doesn’t work out, whichever is right.

When Jane had called Sophia earlier in the day, she’d been told that reservations had been made at Umberto’s Steak House, out on the north side of town. Jane had never been in there but had driven past it a few times. She’d often wondered about what an Italian steak house must be like, and now she was about to find out.

She took her time driving her old Nissan out to the restaurant, and knew that she still was plenty early. There was no point in sitting out in her car, so she went in and told the hostess that she was waiting for the Rosenvold party.

“They just got here,” she was told. “Let me take you back to them.”

If Jane had experienced bouts of nervousness about this whole thing all day, now it peaked. There was a hell of a lot more riding on this than she’d let on to Madelyn. The next few minutes, the next hour or two at the most, could have a huge impact on the rest of her life.

The hostess led her to a table in the back of the restaurant with a gorgeous view of the mountains to the west. As they walked back, Jane noticed that the restaurant was pretty much cowboy décor, and several film stills of a much younger Clint Eastwood made “spaghetti western” cross her mind. That gave her a little smile as they walked up to the table, where Sophia was sitting with two men.

Jane had not previously met Sophia’s husband Rob, of course. He appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, lean, with thin salt-and-pepper hair, though not bald. And the guy with them had to be Rick . . .

A flood of something that resembled relief came over Jane right at the first glance. He wasn’t a monster or ogre or anything like that, just a normal-looking guy wearing a polo shirt and slacks. He had short-cropped brown hair, a nose that might be a little on the big side, no facial hair, and wore dark-framed glasses. From what she could see, he appeared to be a little on the thin side, and fair-skinned, like he didn’t get out in the sun very much. Just on appearance, if they’d happened to chance on each other in a restaurant or something, she’d have been willing to strike up a conversation with him. First test passed.

“Good evening, Jane,” Sophia smiled. “You’re looking good tonight. This is my husband Rob, and this is Rick Thredford. Guys, this is the girl I told you about, Jane Marshall.”

Both Rob and Rick got up to shake hands with her. From that she could see that both Rob and Rick were taller than she was, although not as much in Rick’s case; she could also see that whatever else was happening, he certainly wasn’t overweight. “Pleased to meet you,” Rob said.

“Uh, yeah,” Rick said, appearing a little uncomfortable about it. Well, Sophia said he would be shy and not very social. That would do, under the circumstances.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Sophia said. “That way we can get a chance to know each other.”

“Can I get you anything to drink?” the hostess asked as she set menus down on the table.

“Bourbon on the rocks,” Sophia replied.

“Sounds good to me,” Rob added.

“How about you, miss?”

Right at the moment a good shot of something stiff sounded really good to Jane, even though she didn’t like the hard stuff. But she realized that this was not a time to let alcohol dull her senses very much. “A blackberry wine cooler if you have it,” she said. “Some kind of dark berry if you don’t.” Wine coolers had worked well for her the last two nights, and she didn’t want to leave the impression that she drank very much.

“And sir, what will you have?”

Rick looked like he almost didn’t understand the question. “A beer, I guess,” he said finally.

“Will Coors be all right?”

“I guess,” he said, almost blushing.

“I’ll have the waitress up with them soon. You can glance over the menus and take your time if you wish before you order.”

It all seemed very familiar to Jane; she’d said pretty much the same thing thousands of times before. But this was different, as different as it could be. What can I say that doesn’t sound so inane that it makes me look like a total idiot?

“That’ll be fine,” Sophia said. “We may be a while, so there’s no rush.”

“Thank you for choosing to come to Umberto’s,” the hostess said. “I hope your meal will be enjoyable and if there’s anything I can do feel free to ask.” With that she turned and walked away.

“I hope you don’t mind that we were a little early,” Sophia said, obviously reaching for something to say herself.

“It worked out fine,” Jane replied, feeling like she needed to say something more profound; on the other hand, she didn’t want to appear overbearing. “I’ve never been here before. It sure has a nice view.”

“It is rather nice,” Sophia agreed, apparently equally uncomfortable with the situation. Jane knew this was, after all, the moment of truth, where the results of her meddling would be found out, so she had every right to be nervous.

Well, she thought, we can’t beat around the bush too long, “So, Rick,” she said. “Have you been here before?”

“Uh, no,” he replied shyly. “I, uh, don’t go to places like this very much.”

“I know Sophia said you work with computers and programming,” Jane said, taking the bull by the horns. “Is there anything else you’re interested in?”

“Uh, not much,” he replied. “I’ve, uh, been helping Rob with his research some.”

Well, that at least gets something started, Jane thought. “I’ve heard that Rob has been involved with some research project,” she asked. “But Sophia has never said what it’s all about.”

“War history, mostly,” Rick replied hesitatingly, then added, “It’s a big project.”

“It involves World War II in the Pacific, specifically the Philippines,” Rob added helpfully.

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much about that,” Jane said. “If you say ‘Pearl Harbor’ and ‘Hiroshima’ you’re right about at the limit of my knowledge of World War II in the Pacific.”

“You’re probably not alone in that,” Rob said. “The whole saga of the Philippines in World War II is not very well known. Oh, there are books about one part or another of it here and there, but never a big study that draws everything all together. There are interesting parts of it that are totally unknown, even to people who are serious about military history. This is turning into a big project. It’s going to turn into several volumes and I can’t tell you for sure how many.”

“It does sound like a big project,” Jane replied, glad of having something to talk about, even if it wasn’t directly with Rick. Maybe the conversation on something halfway familiar would loosen him up a little. “How far have you gotten with it?”

“That’s a little hard to say,” Rob explained. “There are chapters that are more or less complete, but there are some that are barely started and need more research. There’s a lot of research material available in some areas, but it’s very thin in others. For example, right at the moment I’ve been working on the campaign in New Guinea. Morison covers the naval aspect very well, although it’s a bit dated and incomplete in spots. The army side is covered in considerable detail, but it tends to blur the overall picture. But the Australians were deeply involved in that campaign, and neither Morison nor the army documents cover their contribution in any depth. There seems to be considerable documentation of the Australian aspect in Australia, but it’s very difficult to find here, especially in terms of unit histories and personal experiences. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s going to take a visit to Australia to settle that, and I plan on doing it next winter.”

“Sophia was saying something about that.”

“Rick has been very helpful in weaseling out things online about that angle,” Rob went on. “But there’s not as much online as I would like. Anyway, until I know more about that, it’d be difficult to write an overview. There’s never been a balanced, critical overview of the whole campaign written, to my knowledge.”

This was not very close to what Jane was interested in for this evening, which was to say Rick, but at least listening to Rob gave them something to talk about. “Why’s that?” she asked.

“Oh, several things,” Rob replied. “The big thing is MacArthur, of course. He was involved with the whole thing from beginning to end, and his ego was so big that most histories focus on him, rather than what happened with the forces he commanded. What’s worse, most MacArthur biographies tend to hero worship him rather than be as critical as they should be, but having to deal with the MacArthur mythology I believe has scared a lot of historians off. Again, I think mostly because of him, the Philippine campaigns have never received the attention they deserve. There are plenty of other holes in the story that need lots of research. For example, the Philippine resistance probably deserves a full volume, but there’s not much in print in this country about it, with the exception of Mindanao, which had the largest and most successful guerilla movement, but not the most important, in my opinion. Yet, in most available sources in this country there’s little on the resistance on the other islands. I’ve been to Manila twice to work strictly on that and I expect I will have to go again. The recapture of the islands is a long story in itself. Morison takes two whole volumes to cover that, and he sticks mostly to the naval aspect. Again, I’ve never been aware of a balanced, critical overview of the whole thing. Most general histories just focus on the Battle of Leyte Gulf then go on to other theaters, ignoring the rest of the recapture.”

Rob let out a long sigh, then added, “I suppose this is boring as hell to you, and doesn’t mean anything. There’s been a great deal written about World War II, but looking at this part of the war in the whole is something I feel has been mostly overlooked. As a historian, it’s nice to find a field that hasn’t already been plowed to death. There have been so many books written on Guadalcanal, for example, some of them quite good, that it’s pointless to try to write much more about it. The saga of the Philippines is much larger and not nearly as well covered.”

“It sounds like you have your work cut out for you,” Jane commented as she wondered how to steer the subject back to what she was interested in. “Do you expect to have any problems getting it published?”

“Not really. There are several publishers who focus on military history that have expressed interest, though even the first volume is a long way from being completed, the one about the fall of the Philippines, although the work I’ve been able to do identifies the research I need to do there. The volume about the New Guinea campaign I talked about earlier is the nearest to being complete, that’ll be Volume Two, and I hope to have it wrapped up in the next year or so. The other three volumes are about the resistance, then Leyte as volume four, then the recapture of the rest of the islands as volume five. None of them are going to be small books, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me ten more years to get them written.”

“It must be nice to have a topic to keep your interest through an active retirement,” Jane said, mindful of what Sophia had said about trying to find something in which Rick could take an interest.

“Oh, it’s a challenge, all right,” Rob said. “It’s especially a challenge when you realize that much of the source material is obviously incorrect. Much of Kenney’s work is laughably inaccurate when you reference other sources, for example. Sheer self-serving illusion! Then the MacArthur mythology blurs a lot of it, too. On top of that, there’s some interesting source material, especially involving intelligence, that was unavailable when some of the standard sources were written. Like I said, it’s a vast and interesting topic that ought to keep me busy for a while.”

“It’s actually been fairly interesting to follow along with what he’s been doing,” Sophia put in. “I know I’ve learned more about the whole thing than any rational person would ever want to know. But while it’s interesting, it doesn’t have much to do with what we’re here for tonight.”

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