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dolled up, done up, and if everything about her was so convincing, it was just that she was better than some of the others at the artistry she created. It was all an illusion, wasn't it? … But he knew it wasn't as his eyes met hers, and she smiled at him. There was nothing fake about the woman who stood there. She was precisely who she was. “I've got to go back out there.” She waved toward the din, mouthing her words as she spoke carefully, and he nodded, shouting his.
    “The CO. would like you to join him for dinner.”
    “Thank you.” Her eyes pulled away from his before she left him and went back to give the men another half hour. This time she sang songs that amused them, including two in which they joined her, and at the end a ballad that made them all fight back tears. And when she left them, she did it with a look that seemed to envelop each one of them, like a goodnight kiss from their mothers … their wives … the girls back home … “Goodnight, friends … God bless.” Her voice was husky and suddenly the din had turned into silence. Almost no one spoke as they left their places, and quietly went home to bed. Her words rang in their heads for hours. They had screeched and applauded, but they had been ready when she left them, and now they wanted to go back to their bunks and think about her, letting the songs roam in their heads … remembering her face … her arms … her legs … the mouth that seemed to kiss them, and then exploded into laughter and then grew serious again. They all remembered the look in her eyes when she had left them. They would remember it for months. Right now it was all they had. And Faye knew that. It was her gift to them.
    “She's some woman.” The words were spoken by a thick-necked sergeant, and were unlike him. But no one was surprised. Faye Price brought something special out in each of them. Their guts, their hearts, their hopes.
    “Yeah …” An echo voiced a thousand times that night by the men who had seen her, and the men who hadn't, who had been forced to be on duty, tried to pretend they didn't feel cheated. And in the end, they didn't have to pretend at all. Her request was unusual, but quickly granted, and the CO. was obviously surprised when he heard of it. He had even assigned his aide to take her around. She had requested permission to tour the base, to meet the men on duty that night. By midnight, she had shaken hands with everyone. So that the men who hadn't seen her performance had met her face to face instead, looking into those incredible green eyes, feeling the strong cool hand she extended, smiling awkwardly at her words. And in the end, each one felt he had been special … those who had heard her singing, and those whom she had come to see instead. Suddenly, men were sorry they hadn't been on duty, so that she would have come to see them. But all in all, everyone was pleased. And at twelve thirty she turned to the young man who had taken her around the base, and she saw something warm and friendly in his eyes. He hadn't looked that way at first. But slowly, she had won him over, as she had everyone else. He had wanted to say something to her about it all night, but there had never been quite the right time. He had been so skeptical about her at first, the cool Miss Faye Price from Hollywood … who did she think she was, coming to show off for the men on Guadalcanal? They'd been through enough, they'd seen it all. They'd already survived Midway and the Coral Sea, and the hideous naval battles it had taken to win and keep Guadalcanal. What did she know about it, Ward Thayer thought to himself as he first looked at her. But after all these hours at her side, he had begun to see her differently. She cared. She cared a lot. He read it in her eyes. Watching her meet the men's eyes, totally oblivious of her own charms, reaching out only to them with something they had never felt before made you care about her as well. There was a kind of warmth and