by E. M. Kokie
parents obviously sold off parcels a while ago, because you can see other houses from their porch.
Lucy leads me in by the hand, showing off the pictures of her all over the place. The mantel. The walls. Pictures of her mom and dad, too. Her uncle and his husband, and it still feels weird to hear her say that.
Her fingers are perfectly entwined with mine. And so smooth.
Her room is in the back of the house, displaying bits of her from every summer. Trophies and camp crafts and fair prizes. If we had met last year — at the station or wherever — would she have even seen me, looking like Mom wanted me to look? Lucy kicks off her sandals and sits down on the side of the bed.
I walk around the room, looking at this picture and that, asking questions, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do and what I want to do and if my stomach is rejecting the pizza and ice cream, or if I’m just freaking out.
“Bex,” she says when I’m getting ready to start lap three. She leans back on the bed, her elbows propping her up, legs slightly spread. I can see the outline of her legs through her dress. The soft curves of her belly and hips. Her breasts, but I try not to stare.
Am I supposed to just get into bed with her?
All my nerves are jangling and snapping.
She slowly smiles and then sits up. Then she stands up. “Want to see if there’s a movie on?”
“Yeah. Sure.” The butterflies calm down, replaced by disappointment, as I follow her to the living room. And then frustration, at myself and what a coward I am.
She hands me the clicker, points at the couch, and says, “I’m getting some tea. Want some?”
“Does the tea have sugar?”
“Yes,” she says, like my question was insulting and stupid.
“Then water. Please,” I add as an afterthought.
I check my phone, trying to ignore the sweat breaking out on my palms and neck and the backs of my knees. Relieved sweat. Disappointed sweat. You’re-an-idiot sweat. I could have gotten into bed with her. Or at least on the bed with her. She probably thinks I’m stupid or a baby. Or not that into her. Which is amazingly wrong.
After she puts our drinks down, she takes the clicker from me and goes straight to the menu option, scrolling fast, until she finds something she deems worthy. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care.
We watch for just a few minutes. Sipping our drinks and then putting them back. I can’t get comfortable on the itchy tweedy couch. She crosses and uncrosses her legs and taps her hand on her knee every few minutes.
Maybe she’s nervous, too. Or maybe she’s bored. Or maybe she thinks I am.
I reach over and put my hand on her hand, just as she was getting ready to tap again. She looks at our hands and then at me. And then she smiles and turns her hand over so we are holding hands. It’s nice, for like five minutes, and then it’s awkward again. And my palm is sweaty. We both lean forward for our drinks at almost the same time, and our hands sort of pull between us. It’s funny and stupid and weird and nice. We both put our glasses back on their coasters and then look at each other. The light from the TV flickers blue-green and then light across her face.
She turns so she’s sort of facing me and mutes the TV.
I wish I had put on more ChapStick.
We both lean forward at the same time, hesitate, and then lean closer. Our mouths hit, and it’s only sort of a kiss. She pushes forward and grabs hold of my hip so we can kiss longer.
When I shift closer, she does, too, and then I can get my arm around her shoulders and she’s leaning into me, and we can relax into each other.
She’s kissing me harder. Her fingers grip and regrip at the sides of my shorts. Too hard. I pull back, to swallow and breathe and find that good place again.
Her hands relax, I turn a little more, so does she, and then it’s like we slot into place. Her chest against mine. I can feel myself smiling at her, at how it feels to feel her pressed against me.
Her face is pink and blotchy from the tweedy couch and my face and my hands, her lips puffy and red. She doesn’t look at all interested in stopping. She pulls me closer until I’m sort of leaning over her, bracing my weight with the arm trapped between her and the back of the couch.
“Wait. Ouch.” She turns, twisting, and I have to grab the couch not to topple to the floor. She yanks on my shorts to keep me with her until we can get situated on our sides, face-to-face. “Better,” she says, and then she kisses me again.
But now we are lying down, pressed together, as much so I don’t fall off as to be close. Her leg is between my knees, and she turns just enough to hook me closer.
She pushes and pulls and breathes into my mouth until I slide my arms under hers and lift her closer. This is very good. All of it. How warm she is where we touch, almost too warm with the summer night and the tweedy couch itching my neck and arm and leg, and the heat coming from her where we are tangled. How her mouth feels. How we take turns being in control and then it’s like no one’s in control, and I’m touching her, her back, her hip, and she’s pushing against my leg, and it’s all very, very good.
Until the bright lights shine through the windows and sweep around the room, a car coming down the drive, and we are scrambling to right ourselves and move apart and turn the sound on and act normal before her grandparents come through the front door.
“What?” I ask, putting my phone down under the table. After weeks of no Mom and preoccupied Dad, I’ve gotten used to texting Lucy as much as I want.
“I said, where were you last night?” Mom asks.
“Out. With a friend.”
“One of those girls?” Mom asks.
“No, I made a new friend, not from Clearview, while you were away, in all my free time between training and work at the station and cooking Dad dinner and doing the laundry.”
She gives me that watch your mouth look, but it shuts her up. And I didn’t lie.
“What did you do, with . . . ?”
Crap. “Stacy.” Crapcrap.
“With Stacy,” Mom says.
“Went for pizza, walked around, got some ice cream, hung out . . .” I shrug as if it’s no big deal. If no big deal is Lucy and me and full-body, all-in kissing.
Lucy would have been too easy for Dad to check out, if Mom pressed him. There aren’t that many girls. And I couldn’t say Karen or Cammie without Dad maybe bringing it up with their dads and finding out they were somewhere else last night, maybe even Clearview. But Stacy only comes sometimes, and her dad isn’t in the inner circle. Hanging with Stacy wouldn’t be impressive enough for Dad to care. At least I hope not.
So far I’ve been able to just dodge Dad, making sure I get home before him once in a while, so he won’t ask where I’ve been. And he’s been so obsessed with impressing Riggs these past few weeks, it hasn’t been hard. But Mom’s not as easy to dodge, at least when she’s here.
“Bex? Get a move on!” Dad yells across the upstairs.
“I’m already downstairs,” I yell back.
“Please,” Mom says, rubbing her temples. She hasn’t brought up wanting to meet any of my “friends.” Dad hinted last night in front of Mom, and she left the hints hanging there.
She’s got to be at war with herself: happy I have friends, worried about who they are, wanting to meet them and make sure they are “the right kind of girls,” kind of afraid they’re not.
Knowing Mom, she’ll make some kind of rule like I have to bring them by before we can go out next weekend. Maybe she’ll say I have to be picked up here, so she can meet exactly who I’m going out with and ask questions. There is no way Mom can meet Lucy. Mom’s not stupid, even if she pretends to be. Lucy would be too much to ignore.
“You could come with us today,” I say, keeping my face blank. “Meet some of the girls, see me train. Some of the other parents might be around. We can wait, if you change fast.”
Do not smile. Innocent face.
She turns around to go pour Dad a cup of coffee, pretending
to think about it.
Do not smile.
There is no way Mom would go out to Clearview, but now it’s on her if she doesn’t want to meet my “new friends.”
My phone buzzes in my hand. Another text from Lucy. My face flames. I shove my phone in my pocket. It vibrates again. I can’t read these in front of Mom.
Cammie gives me the nonverbal signal to advance. I sight around the barrier, check the position of my other team members, and then move low and fast, in an irregular line, to the next obstacle. I scan the area in front, sight on Randy, and then get ready to cover, keeping some space between me and the barrier as if I were holding my rifle. I signal Cammie it’s clear.
She has so easily slipped into command of this team. Without even really talking about it, Cammie, Karen, JoJo, Delia, and I, and sometimes Stacy or Trinny, have become a team. A unit. With Cammie clearly in charge. Sometimes they break us up or some of the guys will be paired with us, and it’s fine. But it’s not the same.
I hold my position as I hear movement, and then Cammie is at the other end of the obstacle, parallel to me. Intensity radiates off her, like it’s not just a positioning drill.
She makes eye contact, and for a second my stomach drops like this is for real. I’d follow her into hostile territory. I’d follow her anywhere. She signals eyes forward, and I realize Randy has shifted position. I adjust my body to keep the barrels and boards as cover from Randy’s sight lines. Cammie adjusts at the other end of the barrier as Randy steps to the left and looks her way.
Cammie checks me and then signals Karen. I can hear Karen advance forward to the set of obstacles behind us, and I cover her, keeping Randy in my sights but my body covered. Cammie waits for my signal, and then I shift to the left to keep him engaged as Cammie advances to the barrier forward and left. I hear movement, probably Delia taking position parallel to Karen.
Then nothing. I want to look back, but I can’t. I’m their cover.
“JoJo,” Karen says behind me, and JoJo advances to take Cammie’s place parallel to me behind the barrier. Karen shouldn’t have had to say her name. And now JoJo is hugging the barrier too close. If she were holding a weapon, it would be pushed up against the barrier. And even then, she’s too close. It’s not giving her any cover from Randy. He tells us to hold so he can correct JoJo’s position and show her how to adjust to targets in front of her but keep the barrier as cover.
“Good,” Randy says. “That’s it for today.”
I relax my body, stretch out my tight muscles from holding position for so long.
We are a far cry from simulations, especially doing anything with weapons or live ammo, but it’s a beginning. Drills going from prone to kneeling to standing. Moving while tracking a target. Actual organized maneuvers. Advance and retreat. Scouting. Eventually, defending against an ambush. Then, in real terrain. Eventually, armed. Cammie and Karen, JoJo, Delia, maybe Trinny or Stacy, maybe even some of the guys. Maybe a squad. Or squads.
This is what I wanted. What we wanted. Each group looks like I feel. Even Daniel and the older guys. Their group actually moved at near full speed, with coordinated communication. They’ve obviously done this before, enough to be beyond basics. But they aren’t looking bored and above it all, like they usually do. Maybe even they can see that eventually we can all do this. They think they’ll be in charge, and we can deal with that later. But we’re moving toward readiness.
And none of the open-carry idiots were here to snark or argue about everything. No Zach or Mark, with their bullshit, trying to show off. The other guys are more focused without them.
The group runs better without them.
But where is Mark? He’s supposed to be here. Dad thinks he’s here.
“Bex,” Cammie says.
“Oh, sorry, I . . .”
“You want to go to the range for a while?” Cammie asks. She never asks. She shows me respect in training, but she’s not friendly. Karen is always the one to ask me to do things. But Cammie asked me this time. Is it because of the drills? That I did well? Or are we actually becoming friends?
“My dad found me a really cool engraved Colt forty-five,” Karen says. “One round each, except for me. I have three to overlap. Loser serenades us at lunch.” Like making her overlap her shots is enough of a handicap. She sees me hesitate and says, “No one’s going to be around. It’s fine.” I hadn’t even thought about that, that I’m not supposed to shoot a handgun, and Delia’s probably not supposed to, either, not without a parent present.
“Seriously,” Delia says. “No one cares.” She nods encouragement.
Riggs does, I’m pretty sure. And maybe Randy. But if Delia thinks it’s okay, maybe. But the real problem is Mom and her sudden need for “family time.”
“I can’t.” Dammit. “My mom’s expecting me home.”
“Next time,” Karen says, but it feels like the others think I’m scared or something. Or I don’t want to.
Maybe Dad would cover for me, say he needed to stay for a meeting.
“Hey,” I say. They turn around. “Let me check if my dad is still in a meeting. If he is, I’ll meet you there.”
“Will do,” Karen says, and Cammie nods. Not a smile, but acknowledgment. Actual reaction. Maybe I can go for just a little while.
I don’t get a signal out by the training ranges, so I watch my phone as I run to the lot, where I’m supposed to meet up with Dad. As soon as I have any signal, I text him. I take a seat on top of a picnic table and watch the lot, and my phone. Then I text him again. And again.
We’re already late. How much worse could it be? I could just text Dad and tell him I’ll be late. He can wait for me for a change.
“Waiting for your father?”
Riggs. Great. “Yes, sir.” He’s coming from the lot, one of those leather notebook holders under his arm, looking even more like a country-club lawyer than usual.
“I thought so. He should be here any minute. We left about the same time.”
Two other members of the executive board continue on to the admin building.
So today’s meeting included Riggs and some of the exec board. No wonder Dad was nervous.
“Want half?”
“Huh?”
He holds out half a sandwich. “Go ahead.”
I accept the sandwich because it feels rude not to, and he takes a large bite of the other half, chewing slowly, like people do in commercials. Like he’s going to turn my way, flash a huge smile, and the voice-over will praise the quality of the bread or the mayonnaise, or maybe some drug for old guys so their hearts don’t explode. That would make me his commercial daughter. Great.
He takes another bite of his half and looks at mine. It’s too late to give it back, and it would be rude to throw it away or put it down on the table. And Dad still isn’t here.
My stomach gurgles. I take a small bite. Not bad. I take a larger bite, then dig my water bottle out of my bag. If it were Karen or Cammie or even one of the guys, I’d offer them a swig from the bottle. But this is Riggs. It’s weird enough to be sharing his sandwich.
“Training going well?”
“Yes,” I say, but it feels like he wasn’t really expecting an answer.
He nods as he chews, swallows, and then says, “Randy and Carl have been very pleased with your efforts in training.”
“Thank you.”
“They’ve actually been very pleased with the entire core group that has been coming consistently. Randy has nothing but praise.” He means about me specifically, I think. “And that means something, coming from Randy.”
Yeah, no kidding.
I shiver as a breeze brushes over my arms and neck.
“How is Mark?”
I choke on my water and sputter to clear it. “Fine.”
“Good.” He takes another bite. Chews. Swallows. “I ask because I haven’t seen him around lately.” Another bite, chewed and swallowed. How long can he nurse half a sandwich? “Darnell said Mark found another job?”
<
br /> What? He’s watching me. “Oh, yeah.” He’s still looking at me. “A good one.” Shut up! Just shut up. I take a huge bite and chew. Chew fast, and then slow down, because he’s looking at me like as soon as I swallow, he’ll expect to hear more about Mark’s good new job.
“I’m glad to hear he’s doing well.”
If Mark’s not working for Darnell, and he’s hardly at trainings anymore, then where is he?
We sit there in silence, but I can practically hear Riggs thinking something while he’s chewing his last bite. He leans slightly forward and clasps his hands, studying the cars and trucks in the lot. I glance at my phone. Dad should have been here by now.
“You’re smart, Bex.” He doesn’t turn his head, but he’s looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I can feel it. “The way you shoot. The way you watch people and take it all in. You think for yourself. I like that.” He turns his head and smiles at me. “We’re trying to build something real here. And sometimes that means working hard to integrate all kinds of people, to form something stronger than the parts.” He measures his next words. “Sometimes we have to give people time to see if they can find a place within the group, and embrace those who choose to stay and commit. Help people fit in where they can find the most satisfaction, for the greater group.”
We are starting to gel. Even better without Mark and them. Is that what he is saying? Is he going to kick them out?
“Not everyone is going to see things the way you and I do, but we have the chance to work to bring them around.” Huh? “And we might not agree on everything,” he says, motioning between us, “but I think we can learn from each other. Or at least listen to each other.”
He pauses. Waiting. I nod.
“Some of the young men believe strongly in demonstrating their commitment to Second Amendment rights. We don’t dictate what our members do when they’re not here, but we discourage the kind of demonstrations Zach and his friends favor. Not because we necessarily disagree with their beliefs but because we don’t believe they are constructive or serve our long-term goals.” He pauses, waves to someone in the lot. “Zach is taking some time to think about whether he wants to be part of the organized training.”