The Right Side

by Spencer Quinn

  “Like you to meet a former high-jump star of mine, from back in my California days. Say hi to Gina Torrelli. She knew me when I had a full head of hair.”

  “Hi,” said LeAnne.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Gina Torrelli. “Congratulations. That was some performance.”

  “Thanks,” said LeAnne. Spring of sophomore year, second to last meet of the season. She’d cleared thirteen one, a personal best. The winning trophy was sticking out of the back pocket of her sweats.

  “Gina here is an assistant track coach at West Point,” Coach Adelson said. “Familiar with West Point, LeAnne?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I was telling Gina about your family’s military connections. Your dad’s a Green Beret, I believe?”

  “He was, yes.”

  “And your grandfather served as well?”

  “In Vietnam.”

  “Neither of them as commissioned officers?”

  “That’s right.”

  Coach Adelson glanced at Gina. “Is college in your plans, LeAnne?” Gina said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever considered a military career yourself?”

  “Not really. I haven’t thought that much about any careers.”

  “Care to do a little thinking now?” Gina said.

  “I’ll get that pole,” said Coach Adelson. He grabbed it from LeAnne, grunted his way up the steps, made bumping and crashing sounds inside the bus.

  Gina rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t changed a bit, except for the hair, which was actually way too full, just between you and me. Not that we’d want him to change much, would we?”

  “Um, no,” LeAnne said, although some of the kids on the team didn’t like Coach Adelson, especially when he tried to relate to them by saying “bro” and “dude,” and other stuff like that.

  “The coaches get older, but the kids on the teams are always the same age,” Gina said. “That’s the dilemma.”

  LeAnne nodded. Had Gina just read the questions forming vaguely in her mind and tidied them up a little bit? All at once and for the first time, LeAnne could see herself in college. She wanted to go, came very close to wanting to go at that very moment!

  “But not your problem, LeAnne.” Gina smiled. LeAnne took her first good look at Gina, a real college coach. Hard to tell her age: thirty-five? Forty? Adult faces were tricky. But one thing LeAnne had noticed on many of them was a kind of wariness. Gina’s didn’t have that. Maybe that was what made it nice to look at, even though it wasn’t a beautiful face, or even pretty.

  “Any idea where that thirteen-one would put you on my team this year?” Gina said.

  LeAnne shook her head.

  “You’d be second. I’ve got a junior who’s hit thirteen-three twice and thirteen-two a bunch of times.”

  “Thirteen-three?” LeAnne said. “Wow.”

  Gina looked like she was about to laugh a happy sort of laugh, but if so, she kept it inside. “She’s five years older than you, don’t forget. Who knows what you’ll be clearing by then, if you stick with it.”

  “Oh, I’m sticking with it,” LeAnne said. Any other possibility had never occurred to her.

  “Why?”

  “I love the pole vault,” LeAnne said.

  “What do you love about it?”

  LeAnne had never considered that question. What did she love about the pole vault? “The feel, I guess.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  This wasn’t easy.

  “Take your time,” Gina said. No more bumping and crashing sounds came from inside the bus. Was Mr. Adelson eavesdropping?

  “Well,” said LeAnne, “in English the other day we were learning about three-act plays. And I wondered if the pole vault was like that. First, there’s the setup—that’s the run. Then there’s the complication—getting all the moves down so the pole bends just right. And after that’s the resolution—when you let go and fly.” Gina was watching her closely. “Is . . . Is that the kind of thing you mean?” LeAnne said. “Or something else?”

  “Good enough,” Gina said. “I’ve seen your transcript, by the way. Your grades are in our zone, and if your SAT tracks your PSAT when you take it next year, then it will be, too. What I’m saying is that you have a real good shot of getting into West Point, if that’s of interest to you. Bear in mind that you’ll be on the radar of other schools. And I’m sure some of them will be offering scholarships, although there’s no saying how big. What I can tell you is that West Point is a completely free ride, with the condition of five years of active service duty and three on reserve after graduation. Paid service as an officer, I should add. But you have to understand you’re making a commitment.”

  LeAnne nodded.

  “You said you haven’t given any thought to a career, but you must have a general notion or two.”

  “Not really. But I . . .” LeAnne stopped herself, afraid of sounding silly and immature.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t want to be behind a desk.”

  Uh-oh. Immature for certain—she could see that on Gina’s face. Just then from inside the bus came Mr. Adelson’s booming voice. “Tell her about your goddamn—your family’s military tradition.”

  LeAnne felt her face turning red, but then Gina rolled her eyes again, and the embarrassment went away.

  “Uh,” she said, almost in a whisper, “didn’t Coach already mention that?”

  “Multiple times,” said Gina. She spoke up nice and loud. “He’s not the reticent type.” Then she lowered her voice and looked LeAnne right in the eyes. “But I’d like to hear what the military tradition means to you.”

  At that moment, the team started showing up, everyone munching on snacks, guzzling sodas, fooling around. “My dad says our family’s all about protection.”

  “What does he mean by that?”

  LeAnne knew exactly what he meant, from hearing it so often: The average American’s a pig in shit, too stupid to even realize the wolf’s at the door. Got to look out for them, even if they don’t fucking deserve it. She said, “Someone needs to keep the peace.” Then a brand-new thought struck her and she threw it in, too, feeling strangely grown-up all of a sudden. “Peace doesn’t keep itself.”

  Gina’s eyebrows rose. “Your father says that? Peace doesn’t keep itself?”

  “Sort of,” LeAnne said.

  Two more practice sessions went by before LeAnne and Marci reached the fountain. It still wasn’t running, and the water in the basin was scummy. They sat on the edge, as far away as they could from the only other occupant, a whiskery old guy drinking from a paper bag.

  “We made it,” LeAnne said.

  Marci, gazing at the old guy, wasn’t listening.

  “We made it to the fountain,” LeAnne said. “Step one.”

  “Hey!” Marci called to the old guy. “You!”

  The old guy turned to them, slow and reluctant. Then he got more interested, checking out Marci’s prosthesis, LeAnne’s oversized shades, the prosthesis again.

  “Yeah, you,” Marci said. “Speak English?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Huh?” he said, making a feeble attempt to conceal the paper bag under one arm.

  “You heard me,” Marci said. “What you got in the bag?”

  “You cops or somethin’?”

  “Do we look like cops?”

  He examined them again, prosthesis and shades one more time, but after that more comprehensively. “You’re in PJs. Cops wouldn’t be wearing PJs.”

  “PJs?” said Marci. “What are you? Five years old?”

  LeAnne looked down at herself, saw that she was indeed wearing pajamas. Plus flip-flops. Her toenails were broken and dirty. She tried to think what she possessed in the way of clothes, remembered the MultiCams and body armor she’d been wearing in that moonlit compound—Katie dressed the same way, with the addition of a head scarf—and got no further.

  The old man d
rew himself up, as if offended. “I’ll be fifty-six come June.”

  “You don’t look it,” Marci said.

  “He looks way older,” said LeAnne.

  “That’s what I meant.”

  Had the old man caught this bit of byplay? He didn’t seem to have; LeAnne neither knew nor cared.

  “Happy future birthday,” Marci called over to him. “We’d like to drink a toast.”

  The old man shoved the paper bag deeper into his armpit.

  “But not with whatever swill you’ve got. How far to the nearest liquor store?”

  “From here, you mean?”

  “Fucking Christ,” Marci said. “No, from the moon.”

  “From the . . .” His mouth, mostly toothless, opened and closed.

  LeAnne rose and went over to him, moving more quickly than she had in some time. He shrank back, but way too slow. She snatched the paper bag from him, took out the bottle.

  “That’s rightfully mine,” the old man said. “You got no probable cause.”

  “Zip it. Think we’re not going to pay you?” LeAnne patted the pocket of her pajamas shirt. “Got any money, Marci?”

  “But it’s swill,” the old man said. “You don’t want no part of swill.”

  “What kind of swill is it?” Marci said.

  LeAnne held up the bottle for closer examination of the label. For some reason, the lettering was still unclear. She took off her oversized sunglasses in order to see better, completely forgetting what those sunglasses were for. The old man scuttled back as far as he could without falling into the fountain. LeAnne jammed those fucking sunglasses back on her face and came real close to giving the old man a little push. If he’d been just a bit younger and a bit less decrepit, she would have.

  Instead, she stepped away from him. “I think it’s liqueur,” she told Marci. “The writing’s in German or something.”

  “Hell with that,” Marci said. She held up a twenty-dollar bill. “C’mere.”

  “Me?” said the old man.

  “Fucking hell,” said Marci.

  The man went over to her, almost like a sleepwalker, his gaze locked on the money.

  “Where’s the nearest liquor store?” Marci said.

  He pointed toward the road.

  “How long’s the walk?”

  “Um. In time, or, or—”

  “Yeah, time.”

  He shrugged. “Five minutes?”

  Marci handed him the twenty. “Pint of vodka. Bring it back—unopened. You get to keep the change and on top of that we’ll give back your swill. How’s that for a deal?”

  “Good,” said the old man. “It’s a good deal.”

  “Then move.”

  He went off, leaving his odor behind.

  “Smell that?” LeAnne said.

  “What?”

  “He stinks.”

  Marci sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything. Like actually nothing. Goddamn IED took my sense of smell away.”

  “How would that work?” LeAnne said.

  “Calling me a liar?”

  “No.”

  They sat on the edge of the basin. Time passed. “Maybe he got run over,” Marci said.

  “First optimistic thing you’ve said today.”

  Marci laughed. LeAnne passed her the old man’s liqueur. Marci rubbed off the old man’s cooties on her pajamas sleeve, drank, and passed the bottle back.

  “What’s it taste like?”

  “My aunt’s apple brown betty,” Marci said.

  “She a good cook?”

  “Yeah.”

  LeAnne took a sip, then a real hit. “A great cook,” she said. Did it taste like apple brown betty, or pears, or what? It could have tasted like turnips. LeAnne had no idea. But it was exactly what she needed.

  “Want to tell her yourself?” Marci said.

  “Tell your aunt? On the phone?”

  “I was thinking in person. And stop hogging that bottle.”

  LeAnne handed it back. “In person?”

  “You could come for a visit. Meaning after we get our walking papers out of this joint.”

  “A visit where?”

  “Home. Where I come from. Ever been to Washington, state of?”

  “Nope.” LeAnne took the bottle, helped herself to more. “You married?”

  “Twice so far. But not at present. You?”

  “Never been married.”

  “Got a boyfriend?”

  “Not at present.”

  “But you must have had some. Like plenty.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—don’t bite my head off again—because you look like that actress, and if I wasn’t so scrambled up I’d remember the name.”

  “Let’s cut out the bullshit,” LeAnne said.

  For a second or two, Marci looked angry. Then she said again, “You’re hogging the bottle.”

  They drank. A bird flew down and sipped from the scummy water. A nice buzz started up in LeAnne’s head. The controls of the missing eye switched on, wanting to see. This was a very strange sensation—like she was going to see out of that socket any second now—a strange sensation in which LeAnne lost herself. When she came out of it, Marci was saying, “Whaddya think’s worse? No leg or no eye?”

  LeAnne turned to her real slow. Toppling Marci into the water seemed like a very good idea at that point. Then she was struck by something in Marci’s expression, impossible for her to define although friendliness was part of it, and she let go of the idea, sparing Marci as she’d spared old man. But didn’t someone have to pay?

  “Say again?” she said.

  “Leg or eye—which is worse?”

  LeAnne thought it over. “I don’t know. But it’s checkable.”

  “Huh?”

  “There’ll be different disability payment amounts. I’ll ask Machado the next time I see him.”

  “Who’s Machado?”

  “Shrink,” said LeAnne. “They don’t have you seeing a shrink?”

  “Nope.”

  “How come me and not you?”

  “You must be crazy. I must be sane.”

  LeAnne laughed. “Where in Washington, state of?” she said.

  “The boonies. A nothing little town called Bellville. Rains all the time. Hubby numero uno loved the rain. And me.”

  “And he loved you? Or you loved the rain, too?”

  “Both. But I fucked it up. Numero dos was just what he looked like—a great big mistake.”

  “I can’t picture him from that.”

  “You don’t want to,” Marci said. “I’d like a do-over on that decision—let’s leave it there.”

  “My high school coach always said morons make the same mistake twice and smart people make new ones.”

  “Yeah?” said Marci. “What sport?

  “Pole vault.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “Not bad,” LeAnne said. “Play any sports yourself?”

  “I wrestled.”

  “Against boys?”

  “All the fucking time.”

  “We’re a couple of jocks.”

  “Whoop-dee-shit,” said Marci.

  A silence fell over them, finally broken when another bird squawked and flew down, attacking the first one and taking over the water rights.

  “Any children from these marriages?” LeAnne said.

  “One.” Marci turned to her. “Funny—she was just on my mind this very second. Mia’s her name.”

  “Nice.”

  “She’s a great kid. But what’s her future if something happens to me? That’s my biggest worry.”

  “You’ll have to come up with another one.”

  “Huh?”

  “Because something’s already happened to you, for fuck sake. And you’re still on your feet.”

  There was a long pause, and then Marci said, “Foot.”

  “I stand corrected,” said LeAnne.

  Marci laughed. “You’re lots of fun, you know that? How about some music?”


  “Sure,” LeAnne said, expecting Marci to produce some sort of music player. Instead, Marci simply opened her mouth and sang “Rip This Joint” from start to finish in a strong, on-key voice that chilled LeAnne all over.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Which is worse?” LeAnne said, entering Dr. Machado’s office. “Leg or eye?”

  But Dr. Machado wasn’t there. LeAnne checked the clock on the wall. Zero nine thirty on the nose. Didn’t he know you showed up on time in the army? Then it occurred to her that Dr. Machado might be a civilian; in fact, it was probable. How in hell was a civilian supposed to help her? The right move now was to get out of there and never come back, but just to be contrary, she headed toward his desk instead. She had years and years of contrary stored up inside her, like a smoldering mound just waiting for a blast of oxygen.

  LeAnne checked out Dr. Machado’s desk, a wooden desk topped with a sheet of glass, and under that glass more photos of him and his polo shirt family. A dog appeared in one of the photos, a short-haired brown dog lying on a pile of leaves. LeAnne had never been interested in dogs. Once when she was little, she’d come upon a dog eating its own shit. Didn’t there have to be something wrong with a being that did that? She’d carried that conclusion with her ever since. Now, for no reason, she studied the short-haired brown dog, trying to get a handle on what it was like: personality, character, disposition. She got nowhere. Maybe this dog had nothing inside that was worthy of those labels. Maybe no dog did. LeAnne wasn’t particularly interested in the question. That didn’t stop her—go, you contrary girl!—from raising the sheet of glass, taking possession of the dog photo, and slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. Some clothes had shown up in her room the day before, or the day before that, nice new clothes in her size, including these jeans. They’d made her feel nice and new for several minutes.

  LeAnne slid open Dr. Machado’s top drawer, found a Hershey bar first thing, already open. Chocolate was one of those things—like ice cream, potato chips, cake—that LeAnne just didn’t eat, going all the way back to gymnastics. She peeled back the foil, broke off two squares and popped them into her mouth. Next she came upon Dr. Machado’s appointment book. She leafed through to today, found herself inked in at zero nine thirty. Good to see her memory confirmed. She was locked in, with the program, ready and able. Beside her name he’d written reference conv. with mom?