Poked

by Naomi Niles

  “Oh.” Renee turned and looked sadly into the distance, blinking once or twice. She said in a faint voice, “Okay. Cool.”

  It was the tone of voice Renee used when she was performatively offended, and it raised my suspicions immediately. “Wait, are you mad about something?”

  “No, it’s cool,” she said, in a tone that clearly conveyed the opposite. Reaching for the pepper shaker in the cabinet, she sprinkled it over the eggs with alarming energy.

  “Are you sure you’re not angry?” I asked again as I watched her take out the salt shaker and shake it with equal force.

  “No, you go and have fun on your trip,” said Renee. “Don’t mind me, just sitting here in this apartment by myself, recovering from a nasty and unexpected breakup. Don’t let my sufferings ruin your Texas vacation.” By now she must have emptied the salt shaker, for on saying these final words she turned and threw it at the garbage bin in the corner with all her might.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to run out on you.” Perhaps I ought to have been angry that she was acting so childish, but all I could muster was a feeling of sympathy. “I wouldn’t have gone if Zack hadn’t insisted on it. He wants me to meet his family.”

  Renee stirred the eggs aggressively. “You’re already further along in your relationship than me and Max. When he went home to Wisconsin last Christmas, I asked him if I could go with him, but he told me it would be too cold. Like I couldn’t just wear a coat or something!”

  I sat there quietly for a minute, thinking. It was hard to ignore the feeling that Renee was jealous of my relationship with Zack. Not that she wished she was dating him instead, but that she wanted the sort of intimacy and easy closeness that existed between the two of us.

  “Renee,” I said. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I think you would be happier if you broke things off with Max. Instead of waiting around for him to break up with you and then being miserable, you ought to take control of the relationship.”

  “Maybe so,” said Renee quietly. “I didn’t want it to have to come to this, but you’re probably right. It just sucks that I’ll be doing it when you’re down in Texas, and I won’t have you here to console me.”

  “We’ll make plans to Skype while I’m down there. I don’t like the thought of you being up here all by yourself.”

  “I wish I had a cat,” she said sadly. Renee loved cats but had never owned one because I was allergic. Sometimes I got the feeling she still blamed me for that.

  I continued to brood over my sister’s recent romantic struggles on my way to work. Since we were kids, it seemed like there had never been a time when we were both happy and at peace with the world. One or both of us was always on the verge of a breakdown, perhaps because we were so sensitive by nature, and the petty slights and cruelties of others, that the rest of the world seemed to shrug off so easily, left permanent scars. Sometimes it felt like our lives had been nothing but scars and heartache.

  I left the apartment with a few minutes to spare, but an accident on the subway—someone had thrown himself in front of the train—made me ten minutes late. By the time I reached the basement at a quarter past eleven, the rest of the team was already going through the morning briefing. Despite this, Dennis was wearing his headphones, blasting “Everybody Hurts” at full volume.

  “Aren’t we having a meeting?” I asked as I sat down. “Couldn’t you tell him to turn that down?”

  “Already tried,” said Evan. “He couldn’t hear me.”

  “I’ll text him,” I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out my phone.

  Within moments, Dennis’s phone dinged. He picked it up, took one look at the text, and set it back down.

  “As I was saying just before you walked in,” said Evan, “Shelley was present at the awards banquet yesterday and heard some rather interesting information. Shelley, do you want to tell us about it?”

  Shelley held onto her notepad with both hands and smiled. “I stationed myself near the refreshments table during last night’s dance and heard several SEALS talking. Apparently, the rumor is that one of them is thinking about writing a book detailing his time in the service, which I think would make for an interesting story in itself—Kelli, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t come to the banquet.”

  “I was there.” Both Shelley and Evan stared at me blankly. “Guys, I was literally there the entire time.”

  “Anyway,” said Shelley, “there have been insider accounts of the Navy before but from what I understand the top brass frowns upon these memoirs because they threaten to expose the military’s internal workings. It will be interesting to find out whether the author intends to write a sanitized account of his time in the service—I’m assuming it’s a man; if it’s a woman, all bets are off—or whether he plans to throw caution to the wind and write a gripping exposé of Navy life.”

  “Kelli,” said Evan, tapping a pen on the desk, and I felt an ominous feeling even as he said my name, “I think I would like you to cover this story.”

  “Me?” I asked, feigning surprise. “Why?”

  “Because you lived with these guys for over a month,” he replied. “You know them better than anyone else in this office, and if the author would be willing to confide in anyone, I think it would be you.”

  A laugh escaped my lips before I could suppress it. “I think you overestimate how close I was to these guys. Most of them didn’t want anything to do with me even when we were living together, and they only spoke to me yesterday out of politeness and because my boyfriend would have murdered them if they hadn’t. They already see me as the Rita Skeeter of New York City, and the fact that I wrote an exposé on life in the Navy didn’t help that.”

  “That expose is why I think you would be the perfect person to write this next article,” said Evan, sounding a little frustrated. “You ought to at least call the guy and see if he’ll talk to you. I’ll tell you what: if you can land this scoop before anyone else does, then I will make you a lead editor.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said without much conviction. “What’s his name?”

  Evan turned to Shelley, who read the name off the front of her notepad. “His name is Zack,” she said. “Zack Savery.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zack

  When I went up to Kelli’s apartment the next morning, I expected her to come flying out with her usual hug and tackle. But when she opened the door, she looked like she had just gotten out of bed. She hadn’t bothered to put up her hair yet, and dark circles lined her eyes.

  “Hey,” she said. “You wanna come in?”

  I pulled out my phone. “We need to get going in about twenty minutes. You almost ready?”

  Kelli looked annoyed at the question. “Yeah, I’ll be ready.” Without offering me a drink or anything to eat, she turned and walked back to her room.

  I figured she was just stressed from packing and traveling and resolved not to antagonize her. I hadn’t eaten anything but a granola bar on my way out the door because Renee had a habit of feeding me anytime I came over. But this morning, Renee was nowhere in sight. Her absence added to the feeling of tenseness in the room. I thought back to Kelli’s unusually unkempt appearance when I had first come in and wondered if they had been fighting.

  I snuck a cookie from the jar on the table and waited for Kelli’s return. A few minutes later, she came walking back out, dressed in a pair of high-waisted jeans and a Totoro t-shirt with matching Totoro socks. She would’ve looked adorable if she didn’t seem so grumpy. She was dragging along a single suitcase on wheels and carrying a brown leather bag.

  “You ready?” she said curtly, grabbing her keys off the table. Without a word, I rose and followed her out the door.

  We made it through luggage check-in and past security with no trouble, and Kelli’s spirits began to lift a little as we waited at the gate for our flight to begin loading. A group of about a dozen nuns sat by the window chatting joyfully with a couple of teenage girls, one of
whom was holding a large pretzel. Kelli pointed me to a boy a few seats down who couldn’t have been more than six and who was peering eagerly through a pair of binoculars, as if afraid he would miss the planes otherwise. A young woman in a flight attendant’s uniform with a silk bow in her hair winked as she ran past me.

  “Did you see that?” said Kelli, shaking my arm. “That woman was totally flirting with you!”

  I shrugged and returned to the book I was reading, a James Patterson thriller. “I don’t have time for women,” I muttered. Kelli smiled in disbelief and held onto my arm the more tightly.

  Once we were onboard and safely seated, she asked me to tell her about my family.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Well, what are they like? What are the things I should know before I get there so there won’t be any problems?”

  She threw me an anxious look. I wondered if maybe this was what had been bothering her when she woke up: the fear that she would say something wrong, that she wouldn’t fit in, that the rest of the family wouldn’t like her. It was the fear of my platoon all over again, only now she had projected it onto my family.

  “Maybe you oughtta just go and have a good time and let the river carry you.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling relaxed.

  “You’re not going to tell me anything?” Kelli asked in a sad, pleading tone. It was the sort of tone I had always been powerless to resist, at least when it came to her.

  “So there’s my mom and dad,” I said. “My dad’s in his late sixties, and we’ll be celebrating his birthday while we’re down there. My mom is an old sweetie who loves tea, loves to cook. She doesn’t get offended easily, but there are a couple things—try not to cuss or talk about sex in front of her.”

  “I would never,” said Kelli, shaking her head with vigor.

  “My dad don’t say much, and it’s hard to get him really angry. Just be yourself, and I suspect he’ll like you.”

  “K, k…”

  “Now, my brothers—this one’s tricky because I don’t know which of ‘em are going to be there. Curtis basically lives on the farm, and he’ll probably be in and out of the house while you’re there. Braxton’s been in and out of jail over the past couple years, and it’s anyone’s guess where he’ll be when you get there. Him and Darren have some longstanding feud that I don’t pretend to know the details of, but they’ve been at each other’s throats since they was little. It’s a wonder one of ‘em hasn’t killed the other by this point.”

  “Yikes,” said Kelli. “Sounds dangerous.”

  “It is, a little,” I conceded. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell who Mama is more ashamed of: Braxton or Darren. One of ‘em will probably end up in prison, and the other spends most of his time playing Halo and can’t be bothered to settle down and get married, not that any girl would have him. Compared to them two, Marshall’s done alright for himself.”

  “What does he do?” Kelli asked with genuine interest.

  “Runs a few casinos over in East Sulphur Springs,” I replied. “We’re pretty sure he’s mixed in with the mafia, but I wouldn’t bring it up in front of him, as it tends to set him off.”

  “K, got it,” Kelli said in a low voice.

  “Anyway, that’s my family. Out of all the brothers, I’m the only one who got out into the world and made something of myself. Curtis could’ve gotten out if he’d wanted to, but he enjoys the life of a farmer, and I think he’s mostly happy with where he is right now. I can easily see him and Allie settling down and having a few kids.”

  When we touched down in Dallas a couple hours later, we found the family huddled together at baggage claim waiting for us. Dad and Mom were there, and so was Darren, who came running forward and gave me a high-five.

  “And who’s this woman?” asked Dad, coming forward and shaking Kelli’s hand eagerly. Kelli stood silent, grinning with her mouth half-open.

  “Are you lost?” said Darren. “Do you need us to help you find your real boyfriend?”

  “Kelli, this punk is my brother, Darren,” I told Kelli. “He’s the one we don’t talk about, and this is my mom and dad.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Mama, her eyes gleaming. I knew she was too polite to say anything, but I could tell she was studying Kelli’s thin features disapprovingly and wondering why I didn’t take better care of her. “Every time Zack calls home, he talks about you.”

  “Good things, I hope,” said Kelli, sounding breathless.

  “You ought to hear some of the things he says about you,” said Mama.

  “Do you do that?” Kelli asked in a sarcastic tone, shaking my arms roughly. “Do you say nice things about me?”

  I shrugged. “I think you’re alright sometimes.” Everyone laughed, including Kelli.

  Dad and Mama drove home together while Kelli and I threw our bags into the back of Darren’s truck and piled in beside him.

  “Kelli, I know we’re in Dallas now,” Darren said as we pulled out of the parking lot, “but in a few minutes, we’ll be leaving behind pretty much all vestige of civilization. I hope you’re prepared.”

  “Ooo,” said Kelli uncertainly. “Sounds very spooky.”

  “He just means we’re going into the country,” I assured her, kissing her once where her bangs met the tops of her eyes. As if to emphasize the point, Darren turned up the radio: an old Hank Williams, Jr. song was playing.

  “WOO!” shouted Darren, rolling down the window and sticking his hands out. “Girl, I hope you love barroom dancing!”

  “I’m sure she’ll love it with me,” I replied, with emphasis on the last word.

  “Is he always this excited?” Kelli said quietly.

  “Pretty much always, yeah. You should see him at Waffle House at three in the morning after he’s had three cups of coffee. I have a feeling they got rid of the jukebox because he kept stuffing it with quarters and letting it play all night.”

  “Wow,” said Kelli, in the tone of a teacher praising a child’s scribbles. “Where did you even find all those quarters?”

  Darren beamed proudly; he wasn’t used to having this much attention, especially not from a pretty girl. “Tell you what, it’s been a long time since I was this excited to have one of my brothers home for the week. We are gonna party till the sun comes up.”

  “Darren, I’m an old man,” I said in a world-weary tone. “You asking me to stay up past eleven is asking too much.”

  Darren raised his hands in mock surrender. “Y’all can do what you want. I’m just gonna be over here celebrating having the best damned brother in the world back home in the best country on earth!” He let out another “WOO!” and pounded his fists on the steering wheel while Kelli glanced up at me in delight and alarm.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kelli

  We soon left Dallas behind us and followed a long stretch of highway surrounded by fields on either side. Cows quietly grazed in the long grass; one of them, a long-horned steer, paused and gave us a long stare before returning to his meal. Out back behind a metal toolshed, a large sheepdog was barking at a herd of goats with malice and excitement in his voice. A farmer in overalls who stood ploughing the dirt with a red, rusted plough waved at us as we drove past.

  Darren had been right: this was about as far from New York as it was possible to get. It was hard to believe we were even still in the same country.

  “To be honest, I’m surprised Mama came with us,” said Zack as we passed a fisherman’s supply store. “Not because she don’t like you, sweetie, but because I figured she’d be gettin’ dinner ready.” I stifled a grin as he spoke; Zack had slipped easily back into his native accent and had never sounded more Texan.

  “She’s been cookin’ something in the crockpot for the last five or six hours,” said Darren. “The reason we’re doin’ sixty instead of thirty-five is because I’m anxious to get home and eat. I’ve had nothing for breakfast but the leftover Dairy Queen from last night.”

  “Well, don’t go too fa
st,” said Zack, “or you’ll get home before Mama does.”

  “Neither of you is worried about getting pulled over for speeding?” I asked.

  Zack shook his head, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “Nobody’s going to pull us over on this road.”

  Soon, we turned onto a dirt road bordered by hand-hewn wooden fences and barbed wire. Within another ten minutes, Darren had pulled into a long driveway leading up to a long narrow house with a wooden porch and a large back pasture above which hung a few scattered clouds. Behind a large iron gate, I could see horses and goats grazing, and one very excited black and white Border collie who nearly leapt over the fence in his haste to greet us. Even further back, there stood a tiny house with a pair of small wooden steps leading up to the front door.

  “Well, this is it,” said Darren, pounding one last time on the steering wheel for effect and putting the car into park. “We’re home.”

  “This is where I grew up,” said Zack. “Spent the first seventeen years of my life trying as hard as I could to get out of this place. But damned if it don’t feel good to be back.”

  We got out of the car. It was a blindingly hot day, and the back of my neck was already covered in sweat by the time we reached the steps of the front porch.

  “Y’all ready?” asked Mrs. Savery, bustling forward with keys in hand.

  “I sure as hell hope supper’s ready,” said Darren, patting his belly longingly. “As much as I love Mama’s cooking on normal days, it’s always a hundred times better when Zack comes home.”

  “Is that what you’re all excited about?” asked Zack.

  Mrs. Savery pushed open the door. We followed her into a small, comfortably furnished living room containing a couple of rocking chairs, a sectional sofa that appeared to have been in the family since the 1970s, a hand-crocheted green and yellow rug, and a medium-sized flat-screen TV. Most of one wall was covered in framed sepia portraits of Zack and his brothers as children; Zack stood in the center of one, his hair neatly buzzed, flashing a gap-toothed smile.