by Mila Gray
I don’t answer as I’m already walking back into the hallway. Spying the little card buried in the bouquet, I fish it out and tear it open.
Didi,
Thinking of you,
Zac x
My heart does a little splutter and I stare at the card for several seconds, dumbstruck. Zac? Why on earth is he sending me flowers? I haven’t heard from him in close to three months.
‘Hi, darling,’ my dad says, coming up behind me and startling me. He’s wearing his glasses halfway up his forehead and carrying an armful of files. ‘Who’s the lucky man?’ he asks, nodding at the flowers.
‘They’re from Zac,’ I say, turning to him, shock making me feel a little faint.
‘I thought you two weren’t a thing any more,’ my dad says.
‘We never were a thing exactly,’ I say, shaking my head in confusion and following my dad in a daze back into the kitchen.
‘Our daughter has an A-list admirer,’ my dad informs my mom.
‘Well, of course she does,’ my mom says, smiling.
I watch my dad dump his files on the table and then walk over to my mom. They’re roughly the same height, but while my dad is a pencil-drawn straight line my mom is a curve drawn with a highlighter pen. My dad puts his arm around her waist and kisses her full on the lips. I turn away and ignore the wet smacking sounds.
‘Are they from Zac or is another Hollywood star trying to court you?’ my mom asks once she has disengaged from my dad and come up for air.
‘No. They’re from him. I just don’t know why. And courting? We’re not living in the eighteenth century, Mom.’
I grab my bag of dirty clothes and head through to the laundry room, my heart still doing a wild skittering dance.
Zac Ridgemont, recently voted into the top ten actors under thirty, just sent me roses. There are armies of teenage girls and probably a sizeable cohort of middle-aged women who would kill to be me right now. As I empty my dirty clothes into the washer, I ponder what these flowers, sent out of the blue, might mean . . .
‘Excuse me.’
I turn and almost spit out my mouthful of champagne.
Zac Ridgemont. It’s Zac Ridgemont. The Zac Ridgemont. Standing in front of me.
‘I was just trying to get something to eat.’
‘Oh,’ I say, as my face flames red hot. Of course he didn’t come over here to talk to you, Didi. You’re just blocking the cheese table.
I move out the way and Zac starts perusing the cheese.
‘No one ever eats at these things, have you noticed that?’
Is he talking to me? I glance around but we are the only people in this corner of the room. Everyone else is networking as though their lives depend on it, including Jessa, my ‘date’ for the night.
‘Um . . .’ I stammer, my mouth as dry as sand. ‘Er, no. This is my first time at one of these things.’ These things being Hollywood industry parties.
Zac turns around, holding a cracker laden with Brie. His skin is so smooth and so perfect that I have an urge to stroke his cheek and check if he’s real. He looks like he could be made out of plastic and fairy dust.
‘But if they have cheese tables like this at all of them, it won’t be my last,’ I blurt. ‘I’m going to become a more regular attendee than Lindsay Lohan at rehab.’
Zac flashes me a grin that reveals his dimples and makes my stomach twist into a fisherman’s knot. ‘You’re funny,’ he says.
‘Thanks,’ I answer, because I’m not sure what else to say.
‘Are you an actress?’ he asks next.
I shake my head. ‘God, no. Though I did play the role of a manservant in a school production of Hamlet once.’
Zac cocks an eyebrow.
‘I went to an all-girls’ school,’ I explain.
‘No,’ he says, ‘I was just wondering how you managed to convince anyone you were a manservant.’ His gaze falls briefly to my chest and I feel momentarily self-conscious before I realize that Zac Ridgemont – the Zac Ridgemont – is checking me out!
‘I was a late developer,’ I answer, feeling my skin start to warm under his gaze.
‘Who are you here with?’ he asks.
‘Um, Jessa Kingsley,’ I say. ‘She’s my best friend,’ I add, then mentally slap myself for sounding like a five-year-old.
Zac nods and takes a bite of his cracker. I might be mistaken, but his gaze seems to flit over my body again. I throw back my shoulders and suck in my stomach.
‘Awesome,’ Zac says. ‘You want some cheese?’
I nod, words temporarily deserting me.
‘Let’s try the Camembert,’ he says.
‘Didi!’
My mom appears in the doorway. ‘What are you doing? I’ve been calling you. Dinner’s on the table.’
I start. I’m standing over the washer, staring into space, remembering that first night with Zac.
‘Coming!’ I say, and in my fluster hit the ‘on’ button before remembering I’ve forgotten to add detergent.
We talked for most of the night, standing beside the cheese table, and then, when I left, Zac asked for my number. He called two weeks later, after I’d given up on ever hearing from him and had resolved that that night would just be filed away as a story to tell the grandchildren.
He took me to dinner the following night, and the week after that we went to the movies together and kissed in the back row while on the big screen Channing Tatum saved the world. I felt as giddy as a teenager – couldn’t eat, kept checking my phone every three seconds to see if he’d texted, bored Jessa senseless debating every single look and word that we’d exchanged and what they might mean, even let my imagination leap ahead to red carpets and the moment he’d introduce me to his parents.
On our third date he invited me to his place for dinner – Chinese take-out – and I slept with him. I never heard from him again.
I gave myself a stern talking-to about not allowing myself to fall either for a guy or into bed with a guy ever again, not until I knew beforehand whether I could one hundred per cent trust him. Because the fact is I don’t want one-night stands. I want something more meaningful than that. I want a relationship, but you’d think that I was asking for the moon. Most guys I meet just want sex with no strings.
I’ve pored over every detail of the last night Zac and I spent together, wondering where it all went wrong. I’ve worn the memories thin examining them, from the moment he opened the door – barefoot and holding a bottle of champagne – to the moment he took me by the hand and led me down the hallway to his bedroom, to the moment I stood in front of him in my underwear, shaking with nerves and buzzing from the champagne, and he pulled me down onto the bed, to the actual deed, which was good but not mind-blowingly, head-board-breakingly good or anything. And, if I’m being totally honest, over a little fast and less than satisfactory on my part. But it’s never like it is in the movies, and it also was our first time together, and what percentage of women have an orgasm with a partner the first time anyway?
I actually know the answer to that. It’s in one of my mom’s sex books. It’s eleven per cent.
‘What are you thinking about?’ my mom asks as I sit down at the table.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I say quickly, reaching for the bread.
‘How did it go today?’ she asks.
I shake away the image of Zac smiling up at me from his bed.
‘Not so good,’ I sigh, the images of Zac bursting like bubbles as they’re replaced by images of Walker yelling at me to get the hell out of his room. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, stuffing a hunk of bread into my mouth. ‘I just feel like I kept putting my foot in it all the time. By saying things like that to people with no feet, for example.’
My mom and dad nod their heads thoughtfully in unison but don’t say a word. They remind me of those nodding dogs you sometimes see on car dashboards.
‘In fact,’ I say, ‘I think I really messed up with one patient.’
‘Which one?’ my dad asks.<
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‘His name’s Walker.’
My dad reaches for his wine and takes a sip. ‘Ahhh yes, Lieutenant Walker.’
I wait a few moments but he doesn’t continue.
‘What’s his deal?’ I ask, taking a sip of my wine.
My dad looks up and gives me a wry smile. ‘You know I can’t discuss my patients with you.’
‘So he is your patient,’ I say. I’d been curious to know. My dad only deals with the most serious cases at the centre: those on suicide watch or who are dealing with psychosis or other extreme symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘I assess everyone when they’re brought in,’ my dad says. ‘You know that. But yes, I’m still seeing him a few times a week.’
‘Does he talk about it? About what happened?’
My dad shakes his head. ‘No. Not so far. He’s what you might call a recalcitrant patient.’
I nod. That’s an understatement. Does he yell at my dad too, I wonder?
‘What’s his story?’ my mom asks.
‘He was in an ambush,’ my dad answers. ‘Helmand Province, I think. His whole unit was caught up in a gunfight. It was on the news about six weeks ago, do you remember? Five marines were killed.’
‘Oh yes, I remember that,’ my mom says, shaking her head. ‘So terrible.’
I chew my food. I hadn’t put two and two together, but now I remember the story: the photographs of the five dead marines, all in their Dress Blues, the shots of the funerals, the flag-draped coffins, a still image of the charred and twisted metal ruins of the car, a photograph of the heroic survivor who dragged his team member to safety. That was Walker. It’s hard to reconcile that image with the man in the hospital bed.
‘How do you even start to help someone heal from that?’ I ask, shaking my head in bewilderment.
My mom reaches across the table and takes my hand. ‘By listening, darling. By being kind. And patient.’
‘Every mistake is a chance to learn and improve,’ my dad says – something he’s been saying to me since I was a kid and accidentally burned down the kitchen trying to make my parents breakfast in bed on their anniversary.
I look between my mom and dad, feeling overwhelmed by all the advice but also grateful. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed their company. Being away in LA at college I don’t get to see them that often any more.
I exhale loudly. ‘It’s just so much harder than I thought it was going to be.’
My dad smiles at me. ‘Darling, you’re not there to fix them. You’re just an intern. It’s my job to help them get better. You’re just there to observe and learn.’
I open my mouth to protest. I don’t want to just observe and learn, I want to help – but I remember my mom advising me just now on the need for patience and shut my mouth.
‘How’s Zac?’ my mom cuts in. ‘Did you speak to him yet?’ Though she tries to keep her tone and expression neutral, I know there’s a judgement behind it. She’s wary of Zac because she doesn’t think he behaved in a gentlemanly way. Respect and honesty are big buzzwords with her.
I reach for my wine.
‘What? Why are you rolling your eyes?’ my mom asks.
I take an exasperated breath and pull a face at her. ‘I haven’t called him yet.’
‘Well, if you need to talk about sex, or anything else, you know my door is always open,’ she reminds me.
Walker
Sex. I miss it. Or rather, I miss closeness. I miss touch. I don’t miss Miranda per se, but I miss making love. Was it ever that, though, with her? I don’t know. Maybe it was just sex and I was kidding myself all along.
I think back to the last time with Miranda, six months ago, even though dredging the memory up is like necking a bottle of tequila: an exhilarating rush of fire flows instantly through my veins, making me feel alert and alive, but I know that if I keep going – keep remembering – I’m going to regret it in the morning. Like an alcoholic, though, I can’t stop myself from reaching for the bottle.
She flew out to California to see me before I shipped out. We spent the whole weekend locked in a hotel room.
I push the memory away. I don’t want to think about Miranda. When I think about her, about sex, I remember that I’m never going to be with a woman ever again. Who’s going to want a blind cripple?
I remind myself what Doctor Monroe said about not allowing negative thoughts to take hold, but trying to stop them is like trying to stop an avalanche with a feather duster. The fact is as obvious to me as the darkness I’m shrouded in. No one is ever going to want me again. I’m on my own from here on in.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and slam my fist into the mattress. The goddamn darkness. I can’t get away from it. It’s like being slowly buried alive. Every day another shovelful of dirt gets thrown on top of me.
The corridors are silent, apart from the odd echoing footstep when the medic on duty does his rounds and the muffled sound of a radio playing at the nurse’s station down the hall. It’s nighttime. The only difference for me between night and day is that at night I hear the sobs coming from the room at the end of the hallway – a guy called Dodds who had his legs blown off in Fallujah. He gets nightmares too, apparently. No shit.
I think about fumbling for the button on the bed that summons the nurse and begging a sleeping pill, but the pills seem to amplify the dreams, so I don’t. I can’t deal with the dreams right now.
So instead I zone out to the sound of the radio – it’s José on duty, pulling a night shift for the extra money – and for something to focus on, other than the images in my head, I start counting down the number of times I’ve been touched in the last six months.
After Miranda, there was my mom and my dad, both hugging me goodbye at the unit’s send-off. There’s a picture my dad took of me with my arm around my mom. I shook the hand of Colonel Kingsley that day too. My mom probably has a photo of the occasion framed on the wall at home. There won’t be any more photos like that.
Then there were the four months in Afghanistan living in a tent with twelve guys passing wind and jerking off all around me, no physical contact with anything except my rifle and body armour. After that it was Sanchez. I can still remember the dead weight of him in my arms, the stabbing pain in my shoulder and the sheering agony in my knee as I stumbled blindly for what felt like miles, trying to get away from the blast zone and the flames and the bullets. I needed to save one person. At least one. That was all that was going through my mind.
I did, I remind myself angrily. I saved Sanchez. But does he thank me for it? Would he rather I’d just left him to bleed out in the dirt? I haven’t asked him. But I know that if it was me, I’d rather have been left to die.
The memories are muddled after that – jumbled and in pieces. I remember the doctors and the nurses at the combat hospital at Camp Dwyer holding me down, forcing needles into my arms; the reassuringly deft touch of a nurse who squeezed my hand as the anaesthetic crept like ice through my veins; the chaplain visiting me as I lay recovering in my bed, taking my hand for a brief moment before I snatched it away and told him where to stick his prayers; Major Foster patting me on the shoulder after coming to my room to tell me about the medal for bravery they were awarding me, not a scratch of sarcasm in his voice; the C130 pilot strapping me into my seat for the journey back to base; the orthopaedic surgeons here at Pendleton examining my leg; the opthalmologist peeling the bandage off my eyes and running a battery of tests; José helping me to the bathroom and off with my clothes so I could shower that first week when I was little more than a zombie; my mom, smelling of breath mints and perfume, hugging me when they came to visit; my father’s contrasting dry, formal handshake.
A scream jolts me suddenly upright in the bed. My heart rams into my ribs with the force of a pickaxe slamming into rock, and in an instant I’m back there. Back in Helmand on that dusty road, bullets flying overhead, staring at Bailey clutching his leg, writhing in agony and screaming, the sound piercing straight through
metal, straight through bone, rattling around my head like a dummy bullet.
The scream cuts out and becomes a hacking sob – and I flop backwards against the pillows, breathing hard, remembering where I am.
It’s just Dodds. I’m in the hospital. Or rather, ‘The Centre for Hope and Care’. An ironic name if ever there was one. There should be a sign over the door saying Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
My heart rate takes a few minutes to settle back to normal. I listen to the sound of José’s voice stretching along the corridor. He’s talking gently to Dodds, sounding like a father soothing an upset toddler back to sleep.
I fumble blindly on the nightstand until my hand closes around the TV remote and I smack a few buttons on it until the TV blasts on. Fox News. I can’t figure out how to change the channel, so I’m stuck with it. A story is playing about an eleven-year-old girl who’s fighting her school over a Chapstick ban. I settle back and listen. Anything to keep the nightmares at bay.
Didi
I press my lips together and blot my lipstick before stepping back to check my reflection in the mirror. This morning I’m wearing a pencil skirt and a white silk shirt, buttoned high. I’ve also borrowed a pair of my mom’s heels. I look the part of a professional. I just wish I felt like one. In reality I feel like an actress in a movie, wearing a costume and rehearsing my lines in the bathroom before the cameras roll into action.
I’m ready to go out onto the corridor when my phone rings. I pull it out. The number is undisclosed.
‘Hello?’ I say, putting the phone to my ear.
‘Hi, beautiful.’
It’s Zac. My heart rate doubles and I have to lean against the sink to steady myself. ‘Hi,’ I say.
‘How are you doing?’ he asks.
‘I’m great.’ I glance up and catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. Two bright spots of colour have appeared on my cheeks.
‘You got the flowers then?’ he asks.
‘Yes, they’re beautiful. Thanks. Did you get my text? I would have called but I wasn’t sure if it was the middle of the night where you were.’ I pause. ‘Where exactly are you?’