THE WOMEN OF CAMP SOBINGO by Marilyn Celeste Morris

Title of Book: The Women of Camp Sobingo
Genre: Mainstream, Women's Fiction
Author: Marilyn Celeste Morris
Blog: http://www.thewomenofcampsobingo.blogspot.com/
Publisher: Mardi Gras Publications
Date of Release: June 9, 2007
ISBN: 1-934329-73-8

Buy The Women of Camp Sobingo here!

The Women of Camp Sobingo Summary:

This novel is based on my mother's experiences as an army wife sent to join her husband in Seoul, Korea, in the winter of 1946, where she endured brutal cold, numbing loneliness and a primitive environment despite the US Army's attempts in providing amenities such as housing, commissary, post exchange and a dependents school located in the compound named Camp Sobingo.

She forged friendships with three other women, whose backgrounds are disclosed during the narrative, whom she met on board the USAT General Mayo crossing the stormy Pacific, friendships which sustained her and the other women who shared that life. Bridge was a past time which helped ensure their mutual sanity; despite their friendships, however, one of the women committed suicide in that remote country.At age nine, I had been a silent witness to my mother's enduring strength and wondered for many years why this one woman had chosen to end her life there. From that point, a story formed, exploring each woman's background and the strengths each possessed from childhood to maturity.In The Women of Camp Sobingo, near the close of their tour of duty, the women promised they would hold a reunion twenty-five years later, and they kept their promise. Secrets and sorrows are revealed at that reunion and Trudy Cavanaugh, the lead character who now runs a publishing empire, realizes how assumptions and secrets can cloud one's memories and while she treasures her old friendships, she is at last able to let go of the past.

The Women of Camp Sobingo Excerpt:

Leah-Mary Alice

The Early Years

She was called The Dark Goddess. With her exotic coloring, black hair and dark eyes, Leah Damon was in demand everywhere for modeling jobs. She lunched with the best of society and was a prized decoration at parties. Her face appeared on covers of high fashion magazines and her paycheck enabled her to buy a luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park.
Leah Damon was a success.

Mary Alice Thomason, however, was a constant reminder of what she had once been.
Mary Alice was born in a small town near Tulsa, Oklahoma. From a dark-eyed infant she grew into a wide-eyed precocious child who gracefully avoided that awkward phase which afflicted other girls at puberty.

She sprouted no pimples, had no struggles with unruly hair, had posture or overweight. While her classmates worried about these ailments, the teenager Mary Alice woke one morning in a perfectly developed woman’s body.

Girls hated and envied her while boys fought for her attention. Not one of those males, however, could rightly claim he was “going steady” with Mary Alice Thomason. She remained cool, pleasant and chaste.

There was only one blemish on her childhood. It seemed that as Mary Alice grew, she noticed that her parents were considerably older than those of her friends.

And, where she was dark—haired and brown-eyed, her mother was fair and blue—eyed. When she questioned her mother about this, she received an abrupt answer: “It’s your Black Dutch ancestors. Don’t worry about it.”

And Mary Alice would put any further questions in the back of her mind.

Until she overheard her aunts whispering about “the poor child” and when she inquired, they changed the subject, looking at her with pity in their eyes.

She knew better than to question her mother again, so she simply filed these chance remarks away and laid her differences to her Black Dutch ancestors.

Whoever they were.

Her one constant friend during her growing up years was David Barnes, a neighborhood boy who often studied with her at the table in the Thomason’s warm kitchen. Both sets of parents assumed their children would marry when they were of age, a fact that both David and Mary Alice would have gradually come to accept had it not been for several occurrences during her school years.

One languid summer day, while locusts shrilled from live oak trees, David and Mary Alice, sweat soaked and burned bronze by the searing Oklahoma sun, sought refuge in the Thomason’s barn, where they rejoiced in the end of another school year and their simultaneous passage into the fifth grade.

“I’m gonna be a pilot when I grow up,” David boasted. His chin jutted out and he stuck out his chest as if it were already covered with ribbons.

Mary Alice rolled over on her stomach and contemplated the view from the hayloft.

“You gonna be a nurse?” David prompted, irked by her lack of enthusiasm for his choice of profession. He flopped beside her and stripped off his shirt.

“No, I’m gonna be a model.” She stared at his chest.

“A model? That’s that?”

“It’s like in the movies, only it’s before the main movie starts——the newsreels, where they show the latest styles from New York. The ladies walk around in front of people, wearing long, pretty dresses, and fur coats and joolery. People sit and look at them and go ‘ooh,’ and ‘Ahhhh’, and clap their hands.”

She sat, a dreamy look on her flushed face.

“Bathing suits, too, don’t forget. You’ll have to show almost your whole body, Mary Alice.”
She shrugged. “What’ s wrong with that? You’re showing almost your whole body.”

“A guy can show his chest. A girl’s not supposed to.”

“Oh, phooey! I’ll show you my chest.” She pulled off the light cotton blouse. “See? There’s nothing wrong with it.”

David stared, openmouthed. He had noticed months ago that Mary Alice’s dresses had funny bumps underneath. He reached out and touched the pink nipples.

“You’re not supposed to touch! Only look,” she giggled. Nonetheless, she didn’t remove his hand.
“Touch me, Mary Alice.”

She lightly touched his bare chest. “I can feel your heart beating.”

“I can feel yours, too.”

“Are we doing something wrong, David?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

She frowned. “I don’t think this is what my folks told me not to do. It had somethin’ to do with birds and cows and stuff—”

Below the loft, hens clucked disapprovingly, but the children didn’t hear them. The smells of warm hay and sweat and dust mingled in the still, moist air.

“You wanna see my whole body?” she asked.

He nodded, his hands still on her bumps.

“Well, move.” She wriggled out of her shorts and panties and lay naked before him.

“Now you. It’s your turn.” She smiled lazily at him.

David hastily shed his pants and shorts and lay beside her.

“You’re pretty,” he whispered.

“You’re not looking at my face.”

“More to a girl than just a face, my daddy says. Gotta have a body, too. Mary Alice, I think we’re pretty close to doin’ what grown-ups do——you know——” his face turned crimson and he reached for his trousers.

“We’re not doing anything.” She reached for his hands and put them back on her breasts. See?”

“What in thunder you kids doin’ up there?” Lewis Thomason’s voice boomed from below.

David turned white and threw on his pants; Mary Alice hastily retrieved her clothes and slid them on her bare body.

“David Barnes, your daddy wants you home right away.”

They heard her father’s heavy tread on the ladder, and then his head peered over the ledge.

“What you kids find to do all day up there, anyway?”

“Nothin, Papa.”

“I’m gonna be a pilot, Mr. Thomason,” David said. “Mary Alice says she’s gonna be in the movies.”

“Not the movies, you dumbbell.” She stood and dusted the hay from her rounded bottom. “A model. I told you, a model.”

They followed Lewis down the ladder.

“How you gonna do that? Models are in Hollywood and here you are, stuck in Oklahoma.” David continued.

“Shows you how much you know, smarty. Models are in New York. So I’ll go to New York.”
They rounded the barn where David would take the path to his house. “See you tomorrow?”

Mary A1ice looked at her father, who preceded her towards her house. She shook her head, then said in low tones, “I don’t think so.”

“You comin,’ Mary Alice?” her father called.

“In a minute, Papa.”

They watched Lewis enter the house; the screen door whined and shut with a thud.

“I won’t do it again, honest,” David pleaded. “I know what we did was wrong.”

She looked at him a long minute, then kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’m not going up there with you again. But I liked it, David,” she laughed as she ran toward the house. “I really did like it!”

The children never spoke of that day again. Mary Alice and David grew up, and then apart, neighbors and schoolmates, but they never forgot how close they had been that one hot summer day.

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