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doors of the auditorium, the look on his face told her the prayers hadn’t been enough. He walked right up to her.
    “What…is it?” Janie leaned back against the cold tile wall to steady herself.
    Buddy flipped around a piece of paper that read SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM NOTICE OF CLASSIFICATION.
    “Doesn’t look good, Babe.”
    Below the official seal, Janie’s eyes dropped to the RANDOM SEQ. NUMBER box and his number.
    “Nine?”
    Buddy shrugged. “Yep, that’s it.”
    The lottery, as it was called, was determined by the date of birth. Buddy’s birthday, January 17, 1952, had awarded him number nine.
    Her parents had liked Buddy well enough, they were just concerned with his apparent goal in life…to attend concerts.
    “But what about college…or even a job? What does he want to do with his life? Is he going to work in a garage forever?” her dad had asked.
    Reasonable enough inquiries, Janie thought, but who really knew the answer to the “what do you want to do with your life” question?
    “I don’t know, Dad. He’ll figure it out.” Janie mentally winced, knowing full well that Buddy’s lack of motivation to do much of anything leveled out to be around sea level. Since they’d been together the two of them had seen Elvis, Led Zeppelin, The Who (twice), The Allman Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and the new kids on the block, ZZ Top.
    Janie had to work hard to keep her grades up. Buddy didn’t try and his GPA sucked. Unless his draft number was really high, they both knew the odds of him not being called to active duty weren’t good. And nine was a heartbreaker to Janie.
    Buddy had worked at his Uncle Bob’s garage after school since he was fourteen and seemed perfectly happy with the vocation, more so than keeping up his grades to avoid the draft. He certainly didn’t seem to be as bothered by the low lotto number as Janie.
    That day, last December, after Buddy boarded the plane at Hobby Airport, Janie had tossed Weight Watchers off her to-do list, which meant the weight and Girl Scout cookies were back in. It didn’t take long for the hot pants and miniskirts to be a thing of the past.
    She’d been a social officer in the school drill squad her senior year, which had kept her mind occupied. Thank God for the Social Office, which meant she didn’t have to attend the outdoor practices before and after school. Besides the heat, anyone living in Houston knew humidity was the enemy for someone with curly or frizzy hair. And she curbed the market on frizz, like Lucille Ball after giving herself a home perm.
    When Frannie wasn’t “required” to be with her boyfriend, and Dena didn’t have some new “guy of the week,” the three of them spent a lot of time together. Since Dena had a car, many times they spent hours driving around the neighborhood, the same route every time, checking out the houses of every boy they’d ever liked, and always ended with a stop at Minute Man, the hangout next to the high school.
    Letters to Buddy went out via airmail every six to seven days. About every three weeks she’d get a letter back. He never talked much about being in Nam, which had been understandable. From the newsreels, Vietnam looked pretty much like a hellhole. Although the letter conversations were pretty superficial, after a while Janie noticed a change. His letters were shorter and he wrote less often. His handwriting, though never great, became almost impossible to decipher. She could barely make out the scribbled “Love, Buddy” at the bottom of the letters, which then was shortened to just “Buddy.” The whole effort of writing appeared to be a chore for him. Either something really bad was happening over there or he’d lost interest in her. Whatever the reason, the result was a Dear John/Janie letter she’d received about a month before she headed off to college.
    “Who does that?” she cried. Dena and Frannie came over as soon as they