“Here.” Everett plucked a card from his pocket and shoved it into Amarjeet’s hand.

If you are a veteran, honorably discharged, soldier or sailor, regardless of rank or political convictions, regardless of whether you served overseas or on the home front, please add your number to our group, at 2:00 P.M. at the Hotel Barbara Worth.

“See? You’re a Doughboy, ain’t ya? Tomorrow, all right?”

Perhaps it was too much to ask that he be invited to the west side of El Centro, whether to a home or hotel. But ball games that the vets organized themselves, picnics with no women present—these he was asked to attend, along with Mohamid Nawaz, along with Ho Look, Wong Yan, William Anjai and Py Okaymoto, Manuel Pedro, and Haygash Pampeyan. It did not matter that he was not invited, Amarjeet told himself. How could the families of these boys understand the bond their sons shared over there? He could not expect their women to feel safe with people not their kind.

“Sounds swell,” Amarjeet said. He would be there.

THE NEXT MORNING, he dressed in his good shirt and dress slacks and asked to borrow Karak’s car.

“Meeting up with a girl, are you?” Karak said, looking him up and down.

If he had told Karak that he was going to the Hotel Barbara Worth, Karak would not have believed it. “A veterans’ meeting.” Amarjeet could not keep the pride out of his voice, but Karak did not seem to care.

Amarjeet parked on Main Street. Some of the boys were out front, gathered around Sam Pinkerton. He was telling the others a joke and they were leaning in to hear. As Amarjeet approached, the men erupted in laughter.

“Hey, Jeet,” Sam Pinkerton called, “long time no see!” Amarjeet recognized other boys in the gathering, all of them dressed well, shaved and trimmed with crisp shirts and gleaming shoes. They clapped him warmly on the back, struck his arm, fellas he hadn’t seen in four months, since leaving Camp Lewis. He knew he carried some of the aura of Harry’s heroism, just because they had been so close. They moved inside as a group—ten or twelve young men of the Valley.

The lobby opened up like a cavern before them. The air inside was unbelievably cool, fresh, and inviting; he had heard about the indoor plumbing that kept it so, pipes through which cold water flowed and chilled the air. In the corner, a string quartet played and the sound floated toward them across the space and emptiness. Their shoes tip-tapped on the marble floor. He wanted to loll on the orange velvet sofas, straight-backed and majestic.