by Lulu Pratt
“A hundred and fifty a month? Christ.” I snag a pack of Oreos for a later snack.
“It’s not bad, really,” Harper insists.
“It sounds terrible,” I tell her.
“You’re just biased against the city,” she says, making a face at me.
I laugh. “Maybe if I lived there I’d start to love it.”
“Maybe,” Harper says.
“Maybe instead of reenlisting, I’ll leave the military and move in, become your roommate,” I tell her.
Harper raises an eyebrow at that and snorts. “I don’t know about that,” she says.
“What? You don’t think I can cut it in the big city?”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head. “I don’t.”
“I got through basic. That was hell. I think I can deal with New York City.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about that,” Harper says.
“Why? What’s such a big deal about New York that I couldn’t handle it?”
“Everyone thinks they can deal with it,” Harper says.
“So how come you can handle it, but I can’t?”
“You can’t really call yourself a New Yorker until you’ve cried on the subway or some other really, really public place, and didn’t even care about the fact that everyone can see you,” Harper explains.
“Sounds a lot like the army,” I say.
“How’s that?” Harper looks at me confused. We start down another aisle.
“Well the goal of basic is to break you down, bring you all the way to the foundation. Then build you back up.”
“I’ve heard that but I guess I never really thought it was a real thing, I figured it was just something you say about an experience like that,” Harper says.
“No, it’s totally legit,” I counter.
“So how do they do that?” Harper steers us to the produce aisle and I try to remember what else Mom wanted.
“The screaming in your face thing isn’t really part of it anymore, but basically, they work you and work you until you’re exhausted, and then you have to work some more. You eat, sleep, shower, everything, on their schedule. If one person doesn’t make it through, none of the group does.”
“I guess I can see that,” Harper says, picking up a cucumber. Almost against my will the filthiest possible thought flits through my head.
“Anyway, after weeks of eating, sleeping, working, doing everything to someone else’s will… you just sort of break,” I explain.
“I have to admit, it does sort of sound like living in the city,” Harper says.
I laugh. “So, see, I could totally make it there.”
“Alternately, I could make it in the army,” Harper counters.
“I wouldn’t want you to go into the army, anyway,” I tell her.
“Oh? Why not?”
I think about that question for a few seconds. “You’d get this kind of… hardness to you. It’s not bad, exactly, but it would change you.”
“Like the city hasn’t,” Harper says, rolling her eyes.
“It’s different,” I insist. “Women in the military are great, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those cavemen guys who think women don’t belong.”
“Good,” Harper says.
“It’s just that by going through that process… you’d have ended up less sweet. You wouldn’t blush anymore, or if you did it wouldn’t be easy to make you blush the way it still is.”
“It’s not that easy to make me blush,” Harper protests.
“It’s easier than it would be if you had to learn to keep a straight face when some commanding officer is going off not five inches from you,” I point out.
“Okay, that’s fair,” Harper says, laughing.
“And your taste in clothes would be different. I like this look you have going on, it’d be a shame to see you all uniform-correct.”
“Are you flirting with me, Zane Lewis? Because there are some people from West Ridge High who would drop their jaws at that.”
“I flirted with you back then, too, you just didn’t notice,” I tell her.
“That’s because you flirted with everyone,” Harper counters. “It doesn’t count.”
“Well I needed someone to practice my moves on,” I say.
“I was your practice?” Harper laughs out loud.
“Of course! I knew I was never going to do anything with you, and I wasn’t going to get anywhere. It was good practice for girls playing hard to get, because you were actually impossible to get.”
We keep going around the grocery store for a while, talking about what we were like in high school. I have to keep reminding myself about what Mom wanted me to get as just talking to this new, grown-up Harper who came from the city is distracting as hell.
I can’t get the image of her stripping out of my mind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HARPER POLSEN
“Are you going over to the Lewises’ place?”
I slide my foot into my sandal and look up to see my mom just outside of the kitchen.
“Yeah, why?”
“Can you bring over the punch bowl and ask Bev if she thinks it’ll be big enough?”
Mom had agreed to let Bev use her punch bowl for the big party the next night, and she’d dug it out of the closet that morning, to judge by the noises that got me out of bed at seven.
“Sure,” I say.
I follow my mom into the kitchen, where I can see the punch bowl. It’s always been a fixture of my family’s parties, deep and wide, made of heavy glass. It’s actually really pretty.
“We were talking about maybe doing a special anniversary punch for the event,” Mom tells me as I heft the big bowl, making sure that I can actually carry it across the yard.
“First of all, don’t the two of you have enough on your plates with what you’ve already got planned? And second of all, what would make it a special punch?” I grin at my mother, setting down the punch bowl and grabbing my purse from where I left it the last time I came in.
“It’s cheaper to do punch than it would be to buy bunch of bottles of different kinds of alcohol for everyone,” Mom points out.
I consider that and nod my agreement. “So what makes it a special anniversary punch?” I settle my purse on my shoulder and pick up the punch bowl once more.
“It’ll be a Champagne punch,” Mom replies.
“Ooh,” I say. “That’s actually kind of impressive. But wouldn’t a Champagne punch get pricey quick?”
Mom shakes her head. “The great thing about it is that it’s actually pretty cost-effective.”
“I guess it would be, depending on how you make it. And of course it’ll be fancy.”
“Of course,” Mom agrees.
She kisses me on the forehead and I’m off, out of the house and walking across the yard to the Lewises’ back patio where Zane is sitting.
He’s in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with the word ‘Army’ on it, and when he sees I have the punch bowl in my arms, he immediately stands up, perfectly correct and at-attention, and holds out his hands to take it from me.
“Can you get the door for me? It’s not that heavy, but my arms are kind of full,” I tell him.
Zane moves to get the back door into the kitchen open for me. Bev is pouring herself a cup of coffee and looks up as I come in, Zane hot on my heels.
“Oh! Thank your mother for me,” Bev says, taking the bowl from my arms and setting it down on the counter before leaning in to kiss me on the forehead.
“She woke me up at seven looking for that, so it better be worth my trashed sleep,” I tell Bev with a little grin to show that I’m not actually all that upset about the situation.
She laughs. “I can offer you a cup of coffee to get you through the morning. You do know that I would like you to attend the family dinner party your parents are hosting later this week,” she says. “As Zane is attending I want there to be even numbers for the table and I already cleared it with your mother last night.”
“I knew I was going to be helping with the fancy meal, but it would be nice to formally attend and not be stuck in the kitchen,” I say. “And yes, the coffee actually sounds heavenly. I already had one, but I’m still barely keeping my eyes open.”
“What about you, Zane? Are you going to have another cup?”
Zane shrugs. “Might as well,” he says.
Bev pours two more cups, emptying the pot. She rinses it and fills it up. As I add milk and sugar to my coffee, she starts a new pot. That’s one good thing about the Lewises’ place, they have at least relatively fresh coffee on from early in the morning until almost nine at night. There was more than once when Zane and I were in high school when we took full advantage of that fact.
We all sit down at the kitchen table and Bev grabs a basket of blueberry muffins from the counter. I snatch one up and eat it between sips of coffee, savoring the sweet, juicy blueberries and the soft cake.
“So what’s on the agenda for you two today? I haven’t seen you spend this much time together since before you finished middle school,” Bev says.
Zane and I laugh at that a bit. She isn’t wrong.
“We were going to play some PlayStation for a while, see where the day takes us,” I say.
“It’s so nice today, you two should be out and about, doing things,” Bev says. “Maybe you could play wingman for each other, or wingman and wingwoman, and get each other dates for the party tomorrow night.”
I roll my eyes.
“Actually that’s not a bad idea,” Zane says, and I raise an eyebrow.
“Go on,” I say, and I feel a little flutter in my chest at the thought of trying to get Zane a date to his parents’ big anniversary bash.
“If we get dates for the party tomorrow, then our parents won’t keep trying to hook us up with other people,” Zane points out quietly.
“That’s actually a good point,” I say in a whisper, thinking about it.
“So, since you two are both now over twenty-one, why not hit up one of the bars in town and find each other someone to bring to the party tomorrow night?” Bev grins at us and rises from the table.
“We need to decide where to go,” Zane tells me.
I think about it.
“First one to win three rounds of Tekken chooses?” I meet Zane’s gaze as I make the suggestion.
“You actually think you can beat me at Tekken?” He raises an eyebrow.
“I think I can beat you so hard that you’ll cry for how badly your character goes down,” I tell him.
“Oh you’re on,” Zane says.
“Three rounds,” I remind him.
“We’ll see,” he tells me.
“No, we have to agree ahead of time!” I can feel my heart beating faster and I’m not even entirely sure why.
“Okay, first one to three rounds wins,” he says. We both get up from the table. I finish my coffee and my second muffin, and we go upstairs to his room, almost rushing each other to get there.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ZANE LEWIS
I hand Harper the controller as I open up my PlayStation and put in Tekken. I can feel that little tingle, that sense of wanting to win, even if the stakes were nonexistent.
“You’re sure you want to go up against me,” I say, closing the console and booting up the game.
“Oh you’re not going to pull that ‘hur hur, I’m a man so I can beat any woman at video games’ thing, are you?” Harper shakes her head.
“No,” I say. “I just know I’m really good at this.”
“Yeah, you think you’re really good at this, but I have played some Tekken,” Harper counters. She grins at me and I make sure both controllers are plugged in properly. I can’t have Harper claiming I cheated.
We both press start and I get into selecting my character, watching Harper in the corner of my eye as she goes through the options herself and picks one. I select Ganryu and Harper picks Kunimitsu.
“Final chance, you can back down,” I say, smiling at Harper.
“Final chance for you, too,” she counters.
I roll my eyes and we both start playing.
I have to admit, Harper is good, and I have to wonder where she learned to play.
“How the hell did you get good at Tekken?” I ask her as the first bout between our two characters draws out longer than I would have thought. Harper blocking me and getting in quick bursts of attacks. Me doing the same to her. We might actually run out the clock on this one and one of us might win it on a technicality, I think to myself.
“College dorm championships,” Harper tells me, not taking her eyes away from the screen at all, not even for an instant.
We play down to the wire, both of us trying to get enough of an advantage that we can quickly get the other one out. In the very last few seconds of the first round of the fight, Harper’s character ducks, and slips back. I go in for the kill attack, but she catches me and gets in a few final hits. I’m the one who gets finished off instead.
“I never saw you play it even once,” I say, as the screen flashes her victory.
“Oh, I played maybe a few times at the arcade. Things like that,” Harper says.
“And then in the dorms, and a lot it looks like,” I counter.
“We had championships once a semester,” Harper explains. “I didn’t do great the first time I went in for it, but I trained, and got in the final ten the spring of my freshman year. I worked my way up a couple of places every semester after that.”
“That is insane,” I tell her.
“I had good reasons, there was a really cute guy who was super into Tekken and I wanted to impress him,” Harper says.
I laugh. “Of course,” I say.
Round two of the bout starts, and as I’m determined to at least make it three rounds for this bout instead of two, I have to tie her. I don’t play around this time. Instead I go in aggressive, hitting hard right away, smashing the buttons as fast as I can.
But Harper doesn’t want to tie me, she wants to take the lead, and I have a hard time keeping up with her. We both get into it, neither of us willing to give an inch to the other. Harper wants to beat me so that she only has to beat me one more time and of course I don’t want to go down so easily.
At the very last moment, I manage to knock out her character, and I almost throw the controller in my hands down onto the floor as I holler my victory. I look at Harper and I have the sneaking suspicion that at the last instant she might have actually let me win. I have to wonder if I might have secretly, in the back of my mind, let her win the first time around, or if I had just not paid attention enough because I hadn’t actually expected her to be that good.
Since she won a round and I won one, there’s one round more between our two characters for the final bout to decide the overall winner. I take a deep breath, crack my knuckles, and pick up my controller again as the third round screen comes up.
I don’t even think about Harper sitting next to me. I want to pull ahead. I pretend it’s the computer I’m up against and just go as hard as I can. I realize halfway through the match that I’m shouting, and that Harper’s shouting too. Both of us almost screaming at the TV as we both try to win the round, throwing everything we’ve got at the opponent, both of us treating this game way more seriously than we should be.
At the last moment, Harper wins again, barely getting in a punch to knock my character out before the clock stops. I groan in frustration. This time I actually do throw my controller down onto the floor and turn to face her.
“You cheated,” I say with a smile.
“I did not,” Harper counters, looking at me like I’m crazy.
“There is no way you could be this good even after, what, two years after graduating from college? Even if you became one of the best Tekken players in your dorm, two years later you shouldn’t be this good.”
“Why not? How much Tekken have you been playing in the army?” Harper puts down her controller and drinks the last of
the coffee she brought up to my room with her.
“A lot, actually,” I tell her.
“That explains it,” Harper says.
“Explains what?” I look at her, confused, as the game transitions from the bout screen to the character selection screen.
“Why you’re so offended that I beat you,” Harper said, grinning.
“I’m not offended,” I smirk.
“No, you’re definitely offended the book-reading girl with the nerdy job beat you at your own game,” Harper said. “And I’m about to do it again.”
“Okay, but we have to change characters this time,” I say.
“Fine by me,” Harper says with a shrug.
We pick different characters and settle in for the next bout. I focus down, for some reason I just can’t bring myself to let Harper win, even though I know it doesn’t really matter where we go later. I don’t even have anywhere in mind. But I throw myself into the game nonetheless, determined to prove that I can beat her soundly at it.
The first round goes to me, and we’re even. The second round we’re both going at it full tilt, absolutely pounding on the controllers, and I can see Harper in the corner of my eye, leaning to the screen just like I am, shouting at her character just like I’m shouting at mine. We run out the clock, and it ends in a tie.
The final round is on us and I look at Harper. Her cheeks are lit up bright pink, her eyes are shining and she’s breathing heavy. All of a sudden all I can think about, even if it’s only for a second, is that she would look like that during sex. I push the thought out of my head as ruthlessly as I can and dive into the game.
We both go at it, and for a while it seems like we’re going to tie again, the clock counting down and neither one of us getting ahead. But I get a quick ‘in’ and knock a few health points off Harper’s character, and manage to dodge her next attack on me. I’m about to launch my final attack, to really knock her character out before the clock runs out, but I catch myself just a fraction of a second too late. I’m wide open.
Harper’s character catches me, and it’s one hit after another, with no space or time for me to block. I yell out as my hit points go down steadily until my character’s health bar matches hers, and then she’s got me trapped under another volley of hits. I’m out. I drop my controller and look at her with a sigh.