G.I. BABY (12 page)

“You sold your dignity for tuition?!”

“Why not? I was gonna give it for free to some guy anytime soon who’d then forget about it the moment he’d meet his real dream girl. I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning on saving it for marriage.”

Frida sat on the sofa and didn’t speak for a full minute. She knew her aunt. When she was furious with her Uncle Reno, she would clam up and not speak to him for a week, which was hell. She didn’t want the cold treatment.

“Auntie, please, I’m sorry.”

Frida shook her head. “I still don’t understand why you did it. I do not buy that “he paid you” bullshit. Is he good-looking?”

 
Her cheeks heated up. “Yes.”

Frida speared her with a penetrating look. “So you like him.” It was a statement.

She didn’t know how to reply to that. She didn’t want to lie. She just bowed her head and nodded.

Silence.

When her aunt spoke again, her tone was soft.

“I see. I understand now. And I’ll agree with you now, too. It’s best that you’ll not see him again.”

Andi swallowed, relieved. But her aunt’s next words hit her where it really hurt.
 

“I know you’re not like your mother. But just in case you forget-- because I saw Craig Walker’s picture in her sister’s house which I also clean and he’s very handsome-- don’t be like your mother. Aspire realistically. Craig Walker is very rich. You saw his place. I met his sister, Bella Stimson. They’re high society. Her husband owns one of the biggest vineyards in Fort Lauderdale, and more importantly, they’re white.”

She nodded. Her aunt’s words hurt more than she probably realized, but Frida spoke the truth. It was reverse racial discrimination in the twenty-first century which a lot of people from this country would find offensive or laughable, but it still rang true among Asian minorities here in the US.
 

Aspire realistically. Translation: Associate with your own kind, with your own level. “I know my place. That was it. The end.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I get it, auntie. Craig Walker will not take the likes of me seriously, because one, though I have Caucasian blood, I was born and raised in a third world country. Craig Walker, who’s clearly highly educated and an Air Force pilot at that, will never even contemplate dating an Asian who’s a product of a liaison between an American GI and a Filipina a quarter shy of being called a whore. He’ll only call me for one reason, to use my body. I’m beneath the likes of Craig Walker.”

Frida was looking at her with pity and she hated it. She hated the glaring truth of reality, that Frida was right, not that she had ever entertained any idea of her and Craig being more than a one-week stand. This was the modern world and the internet age, but she had seen enough heartbreak between interracial relationships. She had a very good example of it. Her own mother. No, she will not repeat history.

“
Hija
…I didn’t mean…” Frida’s voice trailed off. She did mean it that way.

She tried to smile. “It’s okay, auntie. I wouldn’t want to date him, too. He’s with the Air Force. I’ll never date a man in uniform.”

Frida hugged her then. “I just want the best for you, Andrea. I want you to finish college, so
 
you’ll have a better chance in this world. I want you to be successful one day.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It was a….a one-time hormonal rampage. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

She was glad her aunt no longer looked distresses. “But he’s handsome,
no
? You had a great time, at least? He was a good lover, I hope?”

She smiled. “Yes, he was. I had a really great time.”

CHAPTER
8

THIS TOUR WAS DRIVING CRAIG NUTS.

Patrolling the skies in the F-22 Raptor, returning to Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE after every uneventful CAP (Combat Air Patrol) was so fucking tedious. He resented this perfect machine he’d been flying for the past four months now. It was too beautiful, too clean for his comfort. Clean, because it hadn’t seen real action yet.

He wanted to be on a F-15 Eagle, his usual ride in the sky, but his superiors decided he should be in a fucking Raptor in this tour. He envied his comrades who were doing some real action in Syria, pulverizing the ISIL forces there.

As an elite multi-rated pilot, he had earned the credits and the special training to fly the Raptor, the most advanced fighter plane in the USAF, whose stealth ability was so superior it could completely penetrate hostile territories without being detected by radars, thereby aiding the coalition fighter planes to position and strike before the enemy could detect their presence. But it was like driving a flashy, V-12 sports car and not able to join a drag race. It was the best killing machine the USAF ever had but had not dropped a single ordnance on enemy soil since it had been operational almost a decade ago. A Raptor plane was worth 400 million USDs of cutting edge engineering and still a combat virgin. Unbelievable. He would really love to pop the Raptor’s cherry but it may have to remain so for some time, well, until China, Russia or North Korea started really acting up and only the Raptor can match or outmatch their aerial firepower.

Speaking of cherries…

No. Forget about her fucking cherry already. She’s history. Come on!

Yeah, she was history. In his next RNR, he’d make sure Tommy delivered the right goods. No wonder he was so fucking antsy. That virgin pussy that couldn’t take a rough pounding was not able to eliminate all his blood lust from the last tour spent mostly in the skies of Iraq and Syria aboard an Eagle, evading SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) going after his bird like hungry vultures or shooting down high-value targets. The ISIL seemed to have unlimited supply of SAMs, fuck ‘em.

It was no wonder being in the boring Raptor was making his demons restless as caged sex maniacs. They had a lot more energy left to spend. The Raptor was the most valuable jewel in the USAF’s crown, too valuable both in technology and cost it must be guarded like a fucking queen. He hated being the queen’s bodyguard. He wanted to be in the thick of the action at the battlefront. He didn’t want to be doing almost nothing up in the air but think, think, think.
 

Of HER.

Andi.

Fuck, he still couldn’t be thinking about her! It had been four months!

——*****——

Andi couldn’t put it off for much longer
. Her bump couldn’t be concealed by loose clothes and thick jackets anymore. And the dizziness and vomiting was just too much.
 

She had prayed so hard that her period was just delayed, but it was only trying to deny the obvious.
 

She was having his baby.
 

Craig Walker’s baby.

What a stroke of bad luck!
 
She wanted to hate her body that so eagerly received his seed that night like a fucking guest of honor! Why oh why did her womb have to be so welcoming in those moments?

She had to tell someone of she’d go crazy. What were BFFs for?

 
“I knew it!” Greta exclaimed when she fessed up over steaming cups of coffee at their favorite café.

She threw Greta a doubtful look. She thought she was great at camouflaging her condition in the first three months. “You knew? How?”

“Well, you started eating like a Sumo wrestler. Never seen you devour an entire family size-pizza all on your own. Who’s the father? Is it Renly?”

“No! Ew! Renly? C’mon! It will be incest.”

“Then who? You don’t date, never mentioned a BF. What’s that, immaculate conception?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha-ha.”

“Okay, okay, shall I give you my real reaction now?”

“Oh, that wasn’t it?”

“Of course not! That was your cool BFF trying to downplay your major fuck-up.
 
Now this is Greta’s reaction, Greta who’s practically your sister, mind you---Are you fucking shitting me?! No---ooo! No, no, noooo!”

“Shhhh!”

The people in the café curiously looked in their direction.

“Will you keep your voice down?”

“What the hell, Andi? Please, please, tell me you’re just joking,” Greta said in a furious whisper.

She sighed and looked at her best friend seriously.

Greta’s shoulders slumped. “Ohhh shit.”

“Please, don’t make me feel worse than I already do,” she said softly. “I need you, Gretz.”

“Oh Andi.” Greta squeezed her hands which had gone colder than the cafe’s temperature. “Okay, tell me what happened.”

She really didn’t want to talk about Craig Walker again but she reckoned she owed her BFF some explanation if she’d be needing Greta’s help in this pregnancy.
 

“Oh my god, between the two of us, I’m the one serial dating and you’re the nerd type. If there’s someone who’s likely to get knocked up, it’s me!”

“I know. Nerds are stupid, after all. We’ve too much IQ but below average EQ,” she said in self-deprecation.

“Oh,
chica
,
 
what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know…”

 
“How far along are you?”

“Four months.”

“So, you’re keeping it?”

“I guess.”

She’d considered abortion. In this country, abortion was legal. She had a choice. She was not prepared for this. She had plans, so many plans for her future that didn’t include a baby.

But she couldn’t do it. If her own mother had considered it, she wouldn’t have been here today. Stupid she may be but her mother was not a murderer.

No, she couldn’t kill her own child. She brought this unto herself. Blaming the innocent baby in her womb will not make it better. Terminating it will not make it right. She wouldn’t be able to live with it anyway.

She was strong, but she had to be made of sterner stuff now that she was going to be living for two.

“What about the father, this Craig Walker?” Greta asked.

“He won’t have anything to do with this baby.”

“Why not? He’s equally responsible. He must know.”

“No. I’d rather do this alone, Gretz. I don’t want a complicated life. This baby was conceived from a week of fun. There was nothing involved but consensual sex. I can hardly dump a baby on a man who was only in it for fun.” She was now embarrassed to mention that Craig paid her.

“I don’t agree. He had fun, you had fun, therefore you’re both responsible for the consequences. Men get off the hook easily because we absolve them all the time. It’s not fair.”

She shook her head repeatedly. “I don’t wanna complicate my life further with a man like Craig Walker.”

“But why? He’s not married, is he?”

“No.”

“Then—“

“He’s a soldier.”

“Oh.”

Greta knew her life story, how strongly she felt about soldiers of any kind.

Her BFF gave her a tight hug and shut up.

——*****——

Call it a divine intervention,
not that The One up there approved of his inexhaustible blood lust, but yesterday, the situation at the Iraq/Syrian border took a sudden, crucial turn.

ISIL troops conducted another massive, coordinated attacks and lay siege to several towns and a military base in Western and Northern Iraq.

The last of the US troops departed from Iraq several years ago but there were still more than three thousand GIs down there aiding the Iraqi Security Forces and training them in modern warfare. Now that the ISIL was acting up like a full-blown virus intent on ravaging the entire country, more US troops had been deployed back in Iraq early this year. They were demanding for the Hog, their most efficient close air support (CAS) aircraft since the onslaught of the first Gulf War. In
danger close
air-to-ground assault, the Hog had no equal.

The ISIL forces were brutal and single-minded in their intent to make their jihadist belief a dominant religion. They’d been doing the global media rounds a lot the past few years, capturing their brutality on cam, sending clear messages from various parts of the world that they were a major force and could no longer be ignored. They were experts in guerilla warfare. It was for this very reason that the Hog was brought back into the picture. There was nothing that could terrorize the Muj (mujahideen; jihadist) more than the notorious Hog.