Pride and Joy

by M. L. Rice

  Which was pretty much what it was. She hated this place. The bare walls reminded her of everything she had lost, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything with it. The sparse and ugly surroundings suited her current frame of mind.

  Bear meowed and rubbed his head clumsily against her chin.

  “I know, I know. I’m getting up. I just didn’t know how to fit anything else into my busy schedule, you know?” She scratched between his ears before picking him up and placing him back down onto the couch in her place. When she looked around the room, her heart sank. She had zero attachment to this nondescript box of an apartment, and it showed. She’d really let the place go, too, which did nothing to perk it up. “What do you think, Bear? Daft Punk or ’80s to get us in a cleaning mood?”

  Bear meowed, lifted his back leg into a yoga position, and proceeded to lick his belly.

  “You’re right. We need some energy around here. Daft Punk it is.”

  Grabbing her cane, she began by opening all the windows and letting the crisp Seattle fall breeze air out her stuffy hovel. It reminded her of being out on the open water, and although it saddened her, it brought back happy memories that helped to rejuvenate her. She was going to have to try harder for her friends. She didn’t want to let them down.

  *

  “Bryce! How in the world can you swim in this weather?” Arati’s muffled voice came from a tiny hole in the blanket that was wrapped around her whole body. She looked like a shivering cocoon on the lounge chair next to the hotel pool.

  “It’s heated! It feels great! You should join me!”

  “My ass! It’s like negative a million degrees outside!”

  “We’ve been in colder pools on the swim team and you know it.”

  “Colder pools maybe, but they weren’t outside in the Arctic!”

  “Seattle is much farther south than the Arctic, Arati.” Jennifer’s reply floated lazily over from amidst the steam of the hot tub where she soaked with Leah and Hannah.

  Although she couldn’t see her face, Bryce knew that Arati had just rolled her eyes.

  Bryce pulled herself out of the pool and goose bumps erupted angrily on her skin as the frigid air made contact. Arati rushed over to hand her the cane that was now her constant companion and Bryce thanked her with an apologetic look. She then made her way slowly over to the hot tub to join her friends, Arati following behind in her tightly wound bundle. At least the cold weather meant that no one else at the hotel was brave enough to be outside at the pool. Bryce was still struggling with being seen in public. The leg and cane were one thing, but she could do absolutely nothing to hide the hideous scar that had altered the landscape of her face.

  She lowered herself carefully into the water and Leah put a friendly arm around her trembling shoulders. A long sigh escaped her lips as the hot water washed over her cold skin.

  “So, Bryce,” Jennifer began.

  “So, Jenn,” Bryce replied.

  “We wanted to talk to you about the benefit.”

  “Not that again.” Ever since her friends had found out about the invitation Bryce had received a month ago to attend a charity fund-raiser benefiting a disabled veterans’ association as one of the five guests of honor, they had insisted she accept. The fund-raiser wanted to have a veteran from each branch of the military who had been disabled in the line of duty there to represent their service. Bryce could think of nothing worse than to be paraded around like a broken china doll in front of hundreds of the Pacific Northwest’s elite. Bryce involuntarily lifted her fingers to her drooping left eye. “I’m not going, Jenn, and that’s the end of it.”

  “We all think you’re missing out on a great opportunity.”

  Arati joined in. “You’d be doing a really good thing for the charity, Bryce. You know firsthand how hard it is for disabled veterans in this country. You should support your fellow service members.”

  Bryce was starting to get irritated at this conversation. It had come up at least once a day since her friends had arrived four days ago. She had accepted the invitation in a fit of positive thinking, but as the date drew nearer, her feet were getting more and more mired in a giant block of ice. “I don’t…I’m not…I can’t handle it, guys.”

  “Is it the scar?” Leah asked.

  She sighed. “That’s part of it, yeah. And don’t y’all tell me that it’s not that bad. I know there are people out there who have it way worse than I do, trust me. I’m not delusional.” Her tone softened. “I saw what war can do to the human body and mind in the VA. None of it is pretty. But what happened to me bothers me anyway and I can’t help it.” She shrugged. “I’m selfish. Yes, I’m embarrassed of the scar and my ugly face. I’m not proud of how I feel. It’s just…I’m just struggling with it. You guys don’t know what it feels like to have people stare at you with pity or revulsion or both.”

  Leah removed her arm from Bryce’s shoulder, reached into the water to take her hand, and turned to face her. “Bryce. Listen to me carefully. Yes, you have a pretty impressive scar on your face.”

  Bryce winced.

  “Yes, you have to use a cane most of the time. But you are still the same beautiful, intelligent, and amazing person we have always known and loved.”

  Bryce looked at the faces of her friends surrounding her. Arati had even poked her head out of her blanket to smile kindly. “It’s not just that stuff, guys. I mean…who am I now?”

  “What do you mean?” Arati asked.

  “I worked so hard to get into the academy and to prove that I could be a good officer, but what do I have now? I have no job, I’m living off retirement and disability, I’m afraid to leave my cramped little apartment, and I have no idea what to do with my life. I feel lost.” She slumped deeper into the roiling water.

  Jennifer took her other hand. “Bryce, you’re scrambling for a foothold, but I know you. I know how determined you are and what a good heart you have. I honestly think this fund-raiser will be an amazing opportunity for you to help others. That’s why you joined the Coast Guard in the first place. You said it yourself, you’ve seen the damage that can be done to those in the military. Maybe this is your calling. Maybe going to this thing will be good for you as well as being beneficial to your fellow servicemen and women.”

  Bryce sat pensively for several minutes before saying, “I don’t know, guys. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “You can do it. And we’ll be with you.” Jennifer squeezed her hand and smiled.

  “You can’t come! The tickets are three hundred dollars a plate!”

  Jennifer waved her hand dismissively. “Come on. What’s three hundred dollars compared to being there to support our best friend?”

  “Besides,” Arati began, “there are going to be tons of hot military guys there!”

  Bryce couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed like she and her friends were still in high school: talking about boys, supporting each other, making jokes to make each other feel better. They were the only good left in her life. Her parents had proven they wanted nothing to do with her, so her friends had become her replacement family. She had no strong ties to anyone in the Coast Guard or in Seattle, so the feeling of safety she got from her friends’ visit was not only welcome, but needed.

  *

  Bryce took a deep breath and looked in the mirror. Her hair had grown long again since the accident, so she had it up in a tight bun. She wore her formal dinner dress whites and she had to admit to herself, even with the cane, she cut a dashing figure. Her medals hung proudly on her chest and the gold buttons running up the center of her coat were at a high shine. Her friends had pitched in and bought her a pretty black cane with a silver pommel that looked much nicer than the standard-issue gray one she had gotten from the hospital. She admired herself until she got to her face, then any confidence she had gained was immediately destroyed. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Ohhh no you don’t.” Arati rushed to her side, trying not to trip on the floor-length skirt that was too
long without her heels, and dabbed at the corner of Bryce’s eyes with a tissue. “You’re not going to ruin that mascara right before you get to the ball.”

  “I’m not going,” Bryce said quietly.

  “Yes, you are.” Arati replied as she reapplied concealer to the top inch of Bryce’s scar.

  “Stop it, Arati.” Bryce pushed her hand away. “That stuff doesn’t help anyway. It doesn’t hide the ugliness.”

  Just then Jennifer walked into the room with Leah and Hannah. Leah and Jennifer both wore cute black strapless dresses and Hannah had on an elegant pantsuit. “Bryce Lee Montgomery, if I hear you badmouth yourself one more time, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Jenn?” Bryce snapped. “What could you possibly do to me that will make me feel worse?” She sighed when she saw Jennifer’s hurt face and bowed her head. She was angry, but it wasn’t fair to take it out on her friends. She knew they were trying desperately to help her. “I’m sorry. I’m just terrified of going to this thing. I don’t want to be seen and I damn sure don’t want to be a poster girl for wounded veterans.”

  Leah approached and tilted Bryce’s chin up. “Do we really have to go through this again? Do you know how many people you’ll be helping tonight? Besides, it will be good for you to get out there, talk to people, remember that you’re still alive and important to all of us.”

  Bryce pinched the bridge of her nose and resigned herself to her fate. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “Bryce?” Hannah rarely spoke to Bryce directly because she was even more shy than Leah had been in high school, so Bryce looked at her curiously. “You look…really hot in that uniform.”

  Simple flattery or not, Bryce smiled, blushed, and turned to leave the room, considerably more hopeful about the evening.

  *

  The muffled sounds of upbeat music drifted through the walls of the waiting room in the downtown hotel where Bryce and her fellow wounded veterans sat quietly, waiting for their turn up on the stage. Next to her sat a Marine who absentmindedly fingered the folded-over portion of his uniform trouser where his lower leg used to be. Across the room, talking excitedly to a sailor whose head and neck had been severely burned, stood a handsome airman gesturing with his prosthetic arm. The only other person in the room was a soldier who sat with her back to the wall, holding the evening’s program close to her chest as if it were a shield. Occasionally she wiped nervous sweat from her brow.

  What a fine lot we are, Bryce thought sarcastically. All five services sitting in one room, waiting to show a ballroom full of philanthropists how damaged we are. What do we have, folks? One hundred dollars for a bum leg! Three hundred for no leg at all! Three fifty for no arm! Do we hear five hundred for PTSD? Dig deep into your wallets for a horribly disfigured, burned face!

  The music from the other room grew louder as a great chorus of people ended a song she vaguely recognized on a wall-shaking chord. Bryce glanced down at her program and her eyes fell to the entertainment portion of the evening. The touring cast of a revived Broadway musical had apparently just performed their show’s big number for the benefit.

  “Damn. I would’ve liked to have seen that,” she said to no one in particular. The Marine to her right made no indication that he had heard her. They had all been invited to sit in places of honor for the whole evening, but when the female soldier and the Marine had declined, preferring to stay in the room across the hall until the last possible second in order to shorten their public appearance time, Bryce, the airman, and the sailor had stayed with them in solidarity.

  Just then one of the benefit’s volunteers opened the door and let them know that the speeches, and therefore their time to shine, were about to start. Bryce’s heart immediately pounded and she felt on the verge of passing out. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand the scrutiny of all of those people. Panic seized her. She searched for a way out of the situation.

  Before she could take any rash action, the door opened again and her eyes popped as she saw Chaplain Davis enter the room. As soon as he saw her his face lit up in a smile. He was wearing his Navy whites and looked extremely handsome. All of the service members in the room struggled to their feet at his entrance, but he just told them to be at ease and pulled up a chair next to Bryce.

  “So, Lieutenant, how are you feeling?”

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up all over those pretty white pants…sir.”

  He bellowed with laughter. “Thanks for the warning!”

  “You asked.” Bryce grimaced and tried to get her breathing under control.

  “Listen, I came back here to hopefully help you through it. Should you need me.”

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Of course you can! You’re a Coast Guardsman in our nation’s oldest military service. You brave seas that send naval vessels back into port, and as a Navy man, it pains me to say that.”

  She laughed softly, in spite of her choking fear.

  “You protect the country. You save lives every day. What is standing up and waving to a few hundred people for an evening compared to that?”

  Bryce was silent for a minute before replying quietly, “I’m not a Coastie anymore, Commander. This”—she gestured to her leg—“took care of that.”

  Chaplain Davis shook his head sadly. “Do you honestly think that just because you were medically retired you’re not the same brave person you always were? That you’re no longer Lieutenant Montgomery?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Once a Coastie, always a Coastie. Don’t forget that.”

  Just then the door opened again and the volunteer gestured for them to follow.

  Bryce widened her eyes at Chaplain Davis, who nodded and smiled kindly. She took a deep breath and stood with the help of her cane. She was about to take a small boat into gale force winds, but even though she was terrified, she would make herself get through it. Chaplain Davis was right—she’d been trained to handle any situation, and by God, she would handle this.

  *

  Bryce stood alongside the other service members, shaking hands with the attendees and accepting their thanks and sympathy for what had happened to her with a grace and dignity that felt false and forced.

  After an interminable amount of time and handshakes, the stream of people finally ebbed and Bryce was able to break away from the group to sit. Her leg throbbed and the effort she had taken to smile at each guest made the scar on her face itch.

  Suddenly she heard Arati’s voice from across the room. “Bryce! Bryce!”

  She looked up to see Arati trotting toward her, Jennifer, Leah, and Hannah racing to catch up.

  “Bryce! Oh my God, you won’t believe who—”

  Jennifer caught up with Arati and elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Ow! What the hell, Jenn?”

  Jennifer gave Arati an exasperated look before tilting her head toward Bryce conspiratorially.

  Bryce’s brows furrowed. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing! We’ll tell you later. Anyway, are you coming outside with us? The band just started playing. They’re a Journey cover band. You like Journey, right?”

  Bryce continued to look at Jennifer distrustfully. She appeared to be giddy and nervous at the same time. It was odd behavior for their current situation. “Yeah. Journey’s fine.”

  “Well, come on, then! It’s a beautiful night. No rain or anything.”

  Bryce made no move to get up.

  “It’s an open bar!” Arati offered helpfully.

  Bryce rolled her eyes and stood with Leah’s help.

  “I don’t know why we can’t just go home. I did my bit.”

  “And you looked beautiful up there.” Leah smiled.

  “You’re biased, Leah.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe so, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “Come on, Bryce. This ‘dance under the stars’ thing is the last part of the evening. People will expect to see you out there. But don�
�t worry. You can sit with us. You don’t have to do anything but drink champagne and eat those little puff pastries they’re passing out on fancy silver trays.”

  Bryce shook her head. “You guys just don’t give up do you? Fine. Lead the way.”

  All four of her friends smiled and Jennifer gave an odd little nod to Arati, who beamed.

  When Bryce stepped out onto the rooftop terrace she saw a band full of middle-aged men with receding hairlines and ponytails playing Journey’s “Separate Ways,” people milling about the bar area, and white holiday lights strung beautifully above a small dance floor where a respectable number of white-haired officers and their spouses spun each other around with surprising agility.

  A few heads turned to look at Bryce when she and her friends walked to an empty table in the corner, but they just lifted their glasses to her and then turned back to their own friends and colleagues. She calmed a little as she noticed that she was no longer the center of attention. Now everyone just wanted to dance and have fun. The depressing part of the evening was over. She smiled when she saw the burned sailor dancing joyously with his girlfriend in the middle of the dance floor.

  “See? This isn’t so bad, is it?” Hannah asked hopefully.

  “No. Not so bad…I guess.” Bryce still warily looked over the crowd of people. “I think I need a drink, though. I feel completely drained.” Bryce turned toward Jennifer, who was focused on the far side of the terrace. “Jenn?”

  Jennifer’s eyes popped back over toward Bryce, surprise on her face. She shot an unreadable glance at Arati, who rolled her hand quickly.

  Why were her friends acting so strangely? “Jenn? Is everything okay?”

  Jennifer nodded enthusiastically. “Everything’s great! I do think, however, that you should go to the bar to get a drink if you want one.”