Final impact

Julia Duffy was famous. And beautiful. And rumor had it that she was as rich as a Rockefeller. So if he didn’t feel like sharing her bed, then Savo and Lobes reckoned they’d be more than happy to volunteer. After all, if she was good enough for the president of the United States of America-well, he’d be president someday, at least, if he survived the war-then who were they to turn her away?

Amundson caught himself staring at her just before she locked eyes with him. He glanced away guiltily.

Julia kicked him. It would have hurt if he hadn’t been wearing a thick rubber knee pad.

“You and your boys, you’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” she called out over the noise. “Don’t sweat it. You’re gonna eat those fuckers alive. Garry-fuckin’-owen.”

The men in his chalk roared back.

“Garryowen!”

Amundson smiled. But he felt sick in the pit of his stomach.

About three months after the Allies had retaken Hawaii, a package had arrived for Julia at The New York Times. She’d been back home for a month by then. After the slaughter on Oahu, the paper had insisted that she take a proper vacation, and to everyone’s surprise she had agreed.

She’d still been with Dan at that point, but she hadn’t gone out to the Zone. Hadn’t even bothered to phone and tell him she was back. Mostly, she just stayed drunk.

She did manage to visit Rosanna’s family, and for about three hours in their company she felt half human. But she fell apart when Poppi Ugo brought out the family album and insisted on taking her through every shot they had of Rosanna. She’d guzzled down nearly three-quarters of a bottle of grappa, crying hysterically all the time, and had passed out on the couch. She woke up at three in the morning, shivering under the Natoli family quilt, then vomited and snuck out the front door, leaving twenty dollars to cover the dry-cleaning bill. Hours later she remembered that dry cleaning as she knew it didn’t exist yet.

She’d gone back to apologize, but the Natoli clan refused to hear it. They tried to talk her into staying for another 188-course dinner, but-fearing a meltdown-she had begged off and fled back to the city. The next she heard from them was when this package turned up at the Times.

The mailroom cleared about a thousand items a week for Julia. Letters from servicemen she’d written about. Cookies baked by their moms. Crayola drawings by little girls who said they wanted to grow up and be just like her. And at the other extreme, hate mail and death threats from fans of the former FBI director who blamed her for his ruin, or from nutjobs who just didn’t like her. There were plenty of those. Many of them working for the same paper as her.

The package from Rosanna’s family lay on her desk for about two weeks before she could bring herself to do anything about it. Worried that she might fall apart in front of her colleagues, Julia had carried the parcel back to her apartment and left it in a closet for nearly a month.

It took a fifteen-hour liquid lunch at the Bayswater before she could get it back out of the closet, and two pots of black coffee before she could take a knife to the packing tape without cutting a finger off.

She had no idea what was waiting in there. Part of her thought the Natolis might have sent the quilt over for her to clean up. But the package wasn’t big enough, and when she spilled the contents of the thick, padded envelope onto her Castiglioni coffee table, a small “Oh!” escaped her, and she had to run to the bathroom to be sick again.

The snoring man in her bed stirred but didn’t wake as she lost a whole day’s worth of Manhattans and finger food in the bathroom. She sucked a few mouthfuls of cold water straight from the faucet, thought about taking a shower, and decided to go without, lest she wake up the asshole in her bedroom.

Walking very unsteadily back into the lounge area of her huge open living space, Julia studied the sad collection of personal effects that lay on the tabletop. Rosanna’s flexipad and a dozen data sticks, a traditional leather-bound diary, some jewelry, an Hermиs scarf, her imitation Bordigoni handbag, a wristwatch, a small piece of notepaper, and some cosmetics.

Julia stared at the pile of detritus for a long time while her stomach threatened to rebel again. She tried to think, but it was as though her mind could gain no traction. It kept slipping over the sight in front of her, refusing to latch on to anything in particular. After a few minutes, with a shaking hand, she picked up the piece of paper.

Rosanna’s great auntie Tula had written on it in her large, looping style.

Dearest Julia.