I’m just writing to say good-bye as I’ve recently joined the army and will be going to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for training. I’ve been assigned to the 45th Infantry Division. I hope you don’t mind, but I got your address from your grandmother. I just wanted to say, in case I never have a chance to express myself in person because of the war and all that I’m sorry if I caused you any distress in school. I only wanted you to know how much I admired you for being so gutsy, you being so small and cute and nobody expecting such gumption from a girl like you. I understand you’re graduating from college with high honors like you did from high school. May I say I’m not surprised. I cut your picture out of our yearbook to take with me overseas because that’s where we’re eventually going. I wanted it to remind me of what we’re fighting the Nazis for. Take care of yourself, Slugger, and maybe give me a thought now and then—a kind one, I hope.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hammett

Bridgette’s eyes stung when she’d finished reading. She could now look back on Steve Hammett’s pestering of her in junior high school with more understanding. He had meant her no disrespect and had shown his admiration for her in the only way he knew, having been brought up motherless by a drunkard father. Steve had been considered the bad boy of Traverse City’s junior high school. Tall and brawny and darkly handsome in an oily, cheap, Hollywood way, he had all the girls mad for him except Bridgette. He sat behind her in ninth grade English class, and she’d finally had enough the day he traced the faintly visible lace pattern of her slip through the back of her white silk blouse with the eraser tip of his pencil. She’d whirled around and given him a tongue lashing, and he never bothered her after that. But all through high school until the day they graduated, she’d had the sense that he had his eye on her. She wondered now if he’d been watching out for her, making sure she stayed safe. Bridgette wished him well in the army, a life that might suit him to a tee—if he lived. Gladys would be as surprised and moved as she when she showed her the letter. Imagine Steve Hammett carrying her yearbook picture in his wallet! Bridgette hoped it would bring him luck.