The Last Post

by Renee Carlino

  Jeremy shook his head, but there was something in his pause before he actually spoke. “He’s got this.” I tried to read his eyes, but he was wearing sunglasses.

  As soon as Cameron rounded the sharp edge below, I blinked. He was gone. There was a loud sound, like lightning striking a tree branch. Where did he go? Then silence. Not even the sound of the wind could pierce my shock. Where did he go?

  Moments later, I heard yelling, saw people racing toward the cliff edge. The cameramen were no longer filming. I followed them, walking dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, but Jeremy grabbed my arm. “No, Laya.”

  “I have to see,” I mumbled.

  “No, no you don’t.”

  I yanked my arm out of his, inched forward, and peered over the top of the cliff face. My heart stopped. “What is that?”

  Jeremy didn’t answer.

  “What is that?” I repeated in a higher pitch, but I knew. I just knew.

  * * *

  WHEN WE’RE TOLD “He or she died on impact,” it’s supposed to make us feel better, to stop our thoughts about our loved one suffering, alone. But is there a second just before the end that is full of agony and hell and hopelessness? If there is, I hoped Cameron didn’t feel any of it.

  In bed, when we close our eyes, sometimes we know we’re about to fall asleep, but we still fight it. Like when you’re watching a good movie and you don’t want it to end, but you’re so tired. Then you wake up in the morning and you can’t recall the exact moment you actually fell asleep. For Cameron, I hoped it was like falling asleep without knowing you’re falling asleep—a blissful moment and then you’re dreaming about making love. About kissing, about touching your lover’s body, about watching the sun set over the ocean . . . about promising eternal happiness with the person you’ll end up being with for the rest of your life . . . his life.

  2. Unmanned

  LAYA

  If you told me five years ago I’d be a widow at twenty-nine, I would have laughed in your face. Not because there’s anything funny about witnessing your new husband die, but because I never thought I’d be married at twenty-nine in the first place.

  My plan was simple. I’d finish medical school, become an orthopedic surgeon, buy a house on the coast with a lap pool . . . maybe get a dog. Simple, solitary, gratifying, and complete.

  I lost my mom when I was three. My dad raised me alone. And he was alone in every way imaginable . . . still is. I had no model for romantic relationships, typical family life, marriage, or motherhood, so I didn’t desire that lifestyle as an adult.

  Though I was well cared for, and my father well commended by many for his ability to raise a grounded young woman on his own—the truth was, he did it with few words and even less affection. He was a broken man. I wanted badly to put all the wounded pieces of him back together with screws, bolts, and titanium, but he never let me get close enough to try. He devoted most of his energy to building a large architectural firm in New York City, where I grew up.

  I only have one strong memory of my mother and father together. They were dancing in the kitchen to the song “Sweet Melissa” by the Allman Brothers. My mom had been cooking pasta sauce at the stove while I was at her feet. The smell of tomato, garlic, and basil took up the whole house.

  She told me, “It has to cook for a long time, Laya. Good things take time and patience.”

  My father turned their old record player up, my mom smiled, he swung her around, she laughed, and all of a sudden no one else in the world existed but the two of them. What stuck out to me at only three years old, as I toddled around their feet, was that they were truly happy doing something basic. That was the only definition of love I knew. You create a tiny secret world inside a simple embrace while you’re dancing in the kitchen. If that was all there was to it, I didn’t need it. Beautiful, but unnecessary. Maybe because that realization came right before the moment I learned how quickly love could morph into excruciating pain.

  That evening I had tugged at the hem of my mother’s shirt to finally pull them apart. Three-year-olds are selfish. Later that night my mother had an aneurysm and died. I wished . . . I wished I hadn’t pulled at her shirt.

  My father wouldn’t allow me at her funeral. My aunt, his sister, told me later it was less about me seeing my mother’s urn and more about not seeing my father broken. But I did see the urn, and I did see my father broken. So, when I learned there was a profession where you got to put people back together with nuts, bolts, screws, and titanium, I was in.

  Marriage was the last thing on my mind. But then I met Cameron. I thought he would prove me wrong despite all the risks he took. He convinced me he’d always be there. I was dumbstruck in love for just a little while. And then he, too, was gone, and I found myself alone once again, doubting that love could ever possibly be worth the pain.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  3. Architectural Symmetry

  MICAH

  You know those things we do to ourselves, where we challenge God, or our own existence? Like when you say I have to reach the door before it closes otherwise someone I love will die . . . or I’ll die? My therapist said it was normal, a common game we play to convince ourselves we have control over our destinies. There was nothing normal about the way I played, though. I always added a twist to raise the stakes.

  Sometimes, during lunch breaks, I would wander into an empty conference room and look out the window onto Sixth Avenue below, pick out a pedestrian, and think, If that woman doesn’t reach the curb by the time the light turns green, something bad will happen to someone I love. I know now it’s a sick and demented thought. I also knew my therapist was a quack.

  Theoretically, after years of playing this mind-fuck game, I should have had no living loved ones left whose survival I could toy with, but I did. Which is how I was able to constantly up the ante. My creepy little omens never worked, thank god. I had no control.

  In fact, I hadn’t lost anyone I was close to. The only funeral I had been to was for my eighty-three-year-old great-grandmother, whom I didn’t know and who didn’t know me because she’d had Alzheimer’s since before I was born. So that didn’t count.

  Now at my cubicle, I stretched my arms and blinked away the dryness in my eyes from staring at my computer screen for so long. My focus settled on the picture frames by my desktop. My twin sister, Melissa, was fine, living a granola life in Maine with her granola boyfriend. My parents were still happily married, living on the Upper East Side in a family apartment that had been passed down from generation to generation.

  Lesley and Peter Evans took the meaning of retired to a new level. They got involved in the community, played tennis, had dinner parties, and knew way too many people who worked at Tavern on the Green. I wished I was closer to them like my sister, but I had always been an introvert with difficulty welcoming commitment or intimate, close relationships. At least that’s what my therapist had deduced from the months we’d spent together analyzing my quarter-life crisis.

  As if my family knew they were in my thoughts, my phone lit up, showing that Melissa had sent something in our group chat. Melissa was the only person I ever opened up to. I guess when you start growing in a tiny bubble and there is one person beside you, growing in her own tiny bubble, you get a built-in best friend. I wondered if we smiled at each other from our little embryonic sacs. Even if she often spent her free time thinking of new ways to torture me, I knew she’d always have my back. She tried to encourage me to be more expressive and less inside my own head, but I was never sure exactly how to do that.

  My mother used to say I didn’t like being held as a baby, and as a teenager I had difficulty expressing love. Every day she would ask, “Have I told you today that I love you?”

  I would automatically reply with an, “I love you, too.” It was her way of getting me to say the words out loud. When you grow up in a family like mine, it should be easy to replicate the kind of openness and unconditional love you’re shown as a child.

 
; My sister had no problem saying how she felt. She was extroverted and demonstrative. I didn’t understand how she and I could be so different. Fear of rejection was ingrained in me for no apparent reason. I didn’t even know it was a fear until I was much older. It made me wonder if I would ever find a person I could share my life with . . . a person I wasn’t afraid to express myself around.

  By the time I hit twenty-nine, being an eternal bachelor sounded like a nightmare. I hoped I wouldn’t always be alone, but my life was currently at a standstill.

  Years after I had graduated from college, I was still twiddling my thumbs, bored at my desk at Marston, Winthrop and Galem. The once successful architectural firm turned soul killer—its sad state mostly Winthrop and Galem’s doing—made me regret spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Harvard education. Every weekend was just a new excuse to go out with the guys at work and have banal, meaningless conversations with female clubgoers.

  I doubted if I would ever have the confidence to pursue more for my life and to get out from underneath the grips of what had become a dead-end job. Had I embraced my family and social life as it were, would I have been more successful or more determined to find love and take hold of the reins in my career?

  I knew I had to get a grip, but it still felt like there was something missing . . . or someone.

  I hated Shelly Winthrop, and I hated Steve Galem. “Hate” is a strong word, but when you work for moral criminals, you grow to hate them. They didn’t break laws, but they took credit for many of the jobs they had nothing to do with.

  As for Jim Marston, he started the company, was now in his sixties, and was nearing retirement, so he was hardly ever there. He was the only one I liked and admired, a good person, unlike Winthrop and Galem. Steve Galem had stolen four of my designs in the last year, and his wife, Shelly, had made a career of sexually harassing me on a daily basis. They assigned me the stupidest jobs and, on top of all of it, I was grossly underpaid. On the rare occasion Jim Marston would come into the office, Steve and Shelly would pretend the company was killing it on the architectural scene, but it was all a facade to keep Jim quiet.

  I wanted to tell him what his partners were doing to the once amazing company he had built, but I thought if I said anything, it would diminish what he had accomplished back then. His legacy. He had dreams of his daughter, Laya, taking over, but she ended up in medical school instead. So, he left the firm in the hands of two people intent on running it into the ground through sheer complacency and shady business practices.

  Getting up to walk to the break room, I noticed my friend and colleague Devin was at his desk in his cube, staring at his computer screen. In all the years I had known him, I had never seen a hair out of place on Devin’s head. It was cartoonish. He was always clean-shaven and wearing perfectly tailored slacks and a dress shirt with crisp, ironed-in creases.

  “What do Ding and Dong have you working on today?” I said to him.

  He swiveled his chair around to face me. Squinting, he said, “Are you growing a beard, man?”

  I ran a palm over my rough jaw. “No, I just haven’t shaved.”

  Devin and I had gone to Harvard together. It supposedly has the best architectural program in the world, so why we were still jerking our dicks with Steve and Shelly, the two s-holes, I’ll never know. I guess it was because Jim was still there and he was genuine and kind. In the beginning I thought Devin and I could swoop in and turn things around, but that dream was quickly fading.

  I was twenty-nine, single, and barely able to afford the Brooklyn apartment I shared with Jeff, another friend from college. Everything was getting old: going out, drinking, one-night stands, my job, the two hundred grand I owed in student loans. I’m sure anyone could see why I’d found myself too often sitting around playing Kill Your Loved Ones instead of doing anything productive for the firm. I hated that about myself. It made me feel like a bad person when I knew I wasn’t. I was just in a rut and overthinking everything.

  Devin said, “I was sketching for a while in the studio and then Shelly came in and started rubbing up against me, asking how my day was. You know she had breast cancer, right?”

  “That’s terrible. I didn’t know.”

  “She wanted me to feel her breast implants; she said they finally felt normal. I actually felt bad for her, but I wasn’t about to fondle her in the drafting room.”

  “Why?”

  “Really, Micah? Because there were seven architects in there, including fucking Freedrick . . . hail Hitler Freedrick.”

  “That’s actually not funny at all. What did you tell Shelly?”

  “I said I couldn’t touch her . . . that I was mammary traumatized because my mother breastfed me until I was eight.”

  “Is that a real thing, mammary trauma?”

  “No, but after a while you get creative with Shelly,” Devin said, smirking.

  “Yeah, true. You want to head out and grab lunch?”

  “No way, man. Marston’s coming in . . . and Laya’s in town. He’ll probably bring her. You’ve seen her, right? The gorgeous surgeon? Nice body, too; I wish she’d operate on me,” Devin said.

  “I saw a picture of her on Jim’s desk. I wonder why he never talks about her.”

  “I don’t know, Jim’s kind of a private person. He used to talk about her more. Do you think she’ll go out with me?” Devin asked.

  “No,” I said straight-faced. “Anyway, it’s your boss’s daughter and she’s a doctor.”

  He stared at me. “Yeah, and I went to Harvard, dipshit.”

  “Oh right, I always forget that.” I smiled and walked away.

  Devin was from Los Angeles, an only child with a very large and wealthy extended family. His parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all doted on him. His sense of entitlement knew no bounds, and needless to say . . . neither did his bank account.

  New York had always been my home, other than the four years I spent at Harvard. Growing up, I went to private schools all over the city. I didn’t have childhood friends or exes, really, but I still loved being in New York. I loved walking alone and staring at all the buildings I wished I had designed. I didn’t mind sitting next to strangers on the subway or eating alone. But at the same time, the thought of being alone for the rest of my life scared me.

  Later, on my way to the break room for more coffee, I noticed Shelly Winthrop heading toward me, so I slipped into Devin’s cube again. “Still waiting for Laya to come in?” I said, hovering over him and trying to be inconspicuous.

  “Why are you leaning over me?” he asked.

  “Trying to avoid Shelly. She’s coming this way.” Thankfully she passed us.

  “Of course, I’m still waiting for Laya to get here. I’m also planning where we’re headed tonight.”

  “You and Laya? You’re that confident?” I asked.

  “I think the odds are in my favor.” He laughed, and when I didn’t crack a smile, he said, “No, I’m kidding. I was actually thinking about us and the boys . . . what club to hit up tonight.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m going out. I think I have an ear infection or something. I might stay late and put some time in on the Glossette model.”

  “Why do you help Steve? That’s his deal, not yours. We’re not his minions, we’re architects.”

  “We still work for him.”

  “Are you prepared for Shelly’s Friday night routine?”

  “You mean how she always comes back to the office drunk?”

  “Yes, and how she flirts with everyone in here.”

  “I can deal with Shelly,” I said.

  “You should deal with her. You should sleep with her and get it over with. It’s been a while for you.”

  “Shhh! No, I’m not sleeping with her, and no, it hasn’t been that long. I’m just tired of the same type of women, standing in lines for watered-down drinks, my ears buzzing from the shit music until four in the morning. Tired of the whole scene. And honestly, if you plan on g
oing out with Jeff, you guys should take it back to your place, not ours.”

  “Yeah, I thought you seemed a little peeved last weekend.”

  “I don’t know who she belonged to, you or Jeff, but there was a naked woman in my shower when I walked in to take a piss. She screamed and threw a bar of soap at me in my own bathroom. So, yeah, it’s getting old.”

  “Something’s going on with you. I never thought I’d see the day where Micah Evans would be complaining about having a naked woman in his shower. You were the man in college.”

  “I wasn’t the man, I just didn’t take dating seriously. The revolving door of women in our apartment never bothered me before. But that was college. I don’t want to share my bathroom with naked women I don’t know.”

  “Why not? That sounds amazing.”

  I shook my head.

  Things were changing. I didn’t mention to Devin that after the soap flew at me, I still brazenly peed in front of the woman while she tried desperately to cover herself with the plastic shower curtain. I smiled at the memory and laughed. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t expect to feel this way either.”

  “Three weekends in a row now you’ve stayed home.”

  “I’m in a funk. You guys have fun.”

  I overheard Jim’s voice in his office, talking to Steve and then a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. “How are my boys, Steve?” Jim asked.

  “Come and see for yourself.”

  I turned around to see them walking down the hall in our direction. You know those moments where you think, I know I’ve never met you, but we know each other? This was one of them. From Jim’s office doorway, Laya emerged, walking behind Jim and Steve. I was transfixed. Frozen in motion and expression. I couldn’t even smile.

  Jim said, “Micah, come and meet my daughter, Laya.”

  My eyes locked on hers. Tunnel vision. I took her in. She had long brown hair resting in silky curls over her shoulders, insanely green eyes, full lips, and long eyelashes. She had on cute high-waisted jeans with a tattered NASA T-shirt tucked in at the front. My eyes traveled downwards to her feet . . . Converse.