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Show Blue Run/39 Shauna Fagg's fogged up window the week before~a ring of purple Jesus around its mouth. She was on her period, so they couldn't do that, no way Jose. Sammy said. So it was the other, the thing she hated most, his hands still coated with the stickem Coach sprayed on his hands to ward off fumbles, fraying the french braid her mother'd made for her tonight-the sweat and filth in the car's back seat and the forever feel of being pushed down and down and down. At the last minute, the tap on the window, Sammy's side, stopped what was happening. And even though she never saw it, the ghost girl's purple-stained lips-she's always believed that the enlisted man's daughter somehow turned her life in a different direction. One last thing-that fall, that October night after homecoming, after Sammy'd driven her back and not even kissed her good night, Cap was up, sitting at the kitchen table in the uniform he'd worn to work that morning. "Hey," he'd said. "How's my girl." "Tired." "Good game tonight. How was the dance?" "Just fine." "Well, goodnight." And Renee climbed the stairs and left him down there sitting, not doing anything, just sitting alone at the kitchen table with his hands in his lap. Later she'd learn what had happened that day, how Cap had been passed over-and the Navy was up or out, no two ways about it. A record of some weak inspection at sea had circulated, Cap was not to make admiral. A lot would happen before Christmas. She'd break up with Sammy Davido on a night when he stood outside under the nightlight, just stood there waiting her out. "Just go," she'd said after a while. He took a few steps, still wearing half T-shirt from under his shoulder pads. He'd force her to remember this |