Joyce reached out to her, grabbing her hand. “And I know exactly how to do it, too. We are going to celebrate. Why don’t you go ahead and get changed? And do something with that hair, too. Look presentable.”
“I’d like very much to do that, but . . . where in the hell are my clothes?”
Joyce stopped, picking up the phone. “They’re packed and in your closet. I didn’t think you were coming back.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Swell, I’ll go get ready.” Cal started to leave.
“And look good!” Joyce began to dial the phone. “Hey, it’s me . . . Cal’s back.”
^^^^
Fort Bragg, NC
“Jake!” Chuck called out his name as he ran into his house. “Jake!” Excitedly he ran up the steps and into Jake’s room. He watched his big friend frantically run around the bedroom, opening drawers, taking things out. “Jake, I’m glad you made it back.”
“Thanks.” Jake kept moving.
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Sorry.” Jake turned around and shook Chuck’s hand. “Hey, Chuck.” He returned to what he was doing.
“What’s going on? Where’s Cal? Is she coming down?” Chuck asked.
“Yep, she’ll be here tomorrow. That’s what I’m doing, making room for her. I figured out how much she’ll need. Of course, I’m going to have to put another dresser in here. But then again, that’ll be more for her to mess up. She’s messy, Chuck.” Jake didn’t face his friend.
“Man, you must love this woman to put up with something as repulsive as being messy.”
Jake finally turned his head, but only to glare.
“Anyway, when’s she getting here?”
“Tomorrow, I’m leaving as soon as I’m done to go and pick her up.”
“You’re driving? No, Jake, don’t drive. I’ll fly you up. Just pay for the fuel. You my friend have a hundred grand and I am broke.”
“No problem, thanks, Chuck.” Jake continued, neatly taking his items from his space and placing them elsewhere. He tried to close a drawer and it left its track. Instead of taking his time and fixing it, Jake began to get frustrated, his emotions started to give way and he banged the drawer over and over. “Son of a bitch.”
“Jake? Why are you getting pissed at the drawer? Just take it out and put it back on track.”
Jake mumbled as he struggled with the drawer. “I have to get my fuckin’ life on track.”
“What are you saying? Damn, Jake. You should be happy. Your woman’s coming, and . . .” Chuck jumped when the drawer banged loudly and Jake yelled ‘there.’ “Jake, don’t you want her to come down?”
“Of course I want her to come down. I’m fuckin’ going up to get her, aren’t I? Whether she likes it or not, she’s coming. I can’t believe she fuckin’ did this to me.” Jake moved to the closet. He flung open the door. “Fuck.”
“Jake?” Chuck stood up from the bed. “Why am I getting the feeling she doesn’t know you’re coming up to get her?”
Jake just turned around from the closet with his jaws clenched, his face harboring an angry scowl.
“Oh, boy.” Chuck let out a breath. “What are you planning on doing, Jake, just going up there and taking her?” He didn’t get an answer. “You are.” Chuck ran his hand over his hair. “Want to tell me what happened?”
“Nope.” Jake moved things over, lessening the perfect two inch space between hangers to one.
“Can I give you some advice? You can’t go up there with this attitude. This angry shit you’re giving me.”
“Why? She pissed me off. She’s being fuckin’ stupid. I’m going to make her see that.”
“Then you’ll come home alone. Whose idea was it that you two aren’t together right now? Obviously, it was not yours. So you can’t go up there and give her the Jake, my way or no way attitude. You know, Jake, maybe you just got the wrong idea of how things were. Maybe you saw more into what was there.”
“Fuck you, Chuck, you don’t know what we had.”
“Do you?” Chuck moved closer to him. “Do you even know what a relationship is? I’ve known you since boot camp and I never saw you involved with a woman. To be blunt with you as your best friend, you’re mean, you’re cold, and you’re bitter.”
Jake, stunned by the lack of niceties from his friend, clenched the hangers he held tightly in his hand. “She said she loved me.” He threw the clothes on the floor and went over to the bed.
“Jake?” Chuck looked down. “You just dropped your clothes.” He watched his friend sit down on the bed, place his elbows to his knees and bury his face deep in his hands. “Jake, come on.”
Jake ran his hands up his face and over his head to his neck. “I love her, Chuck.” He lifted his head, a look of desperation on his face. “What am I going to do? I’m going crazy here.”
“OK.” Chuck reached for a desk chair and slid it over to face Jake, straddling it backwards. “Let’s talk rationally here. Tell me why she isn’t here.”
“She doesn’t think we can make it outside of the experiment. She’s . . . afraid of me.”
“Whoa.” Chuck leaned back. “Let’s look at that. Now risking getting decked, I can see why she’s afraid of you.” He saw the look from Jake. “You’re the stern Major Graison. You aren’t going to be the same guy that was running through the woods fighting wolves with her. Everyone fears you, yet respects you. You live for your job. You live for the Army. She knows that. Now, can you, Jake, separate the two, can you be in a relationship with this woman outside of the experiment? Not only for your job, but can you live for her, too?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Then you tell her that. And it won’t fail. Because you my friend, never let anything fail without a fight.”
Jake felt better, his whole body raised higher. “OK, let’s go.” He stood up.
“You really want to go up there right now?”
“Yeah, why? Shouldn’t I?”
“You’re emotional, she’s emotional, probably. Get some rest, Jake, and figure out exactly what you are going to say to make her come down here. And make it good and official like. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.” Chuck nodded.
“Official, I can do official.” Jake walked over to his clothes on the floor and picked them up. “So meaning official, do you think I should ask her to marry me, Chuck? I’d like to marry her. But I don’t want it to be too much. You know, with me coming up there and all.”
Chuck flubbed his first few words. “Ask her, then. What the hell. You’re laying your cards on the table. Besides, chicks love marriage proposals and big rings.”
“How big?”
“With a hundred grand, you’d better be obnoxious.”
“I can do that.” Jake shut the closet door.
“Good, grab your check book. I know you have the money so let’s go make some sales clerk at the mall really happy. Then we’ll grab a pizza.”
“Real fast though, I have to get back here and write down what I’m going to say.” Jake opened his desk drawer and grabbed his check book.
“You aren’t going to read it to her, are you?” Chuck saw that thought had to have crossed Jake’s mind. “You were? Man, are you sure you can do this? Do I have to open the Chuck school of women for you?”
“Chuck.” Jake stopped before he walked out. “If you’re such the Einstein of women, why am I the one who’s getting ready to propose and you’re the one hanging with me on a Friday night?”
Chuck opened his mouth, mind searching for the perfect comment, but he failed. “You have a point.”
^^^^
South Side of Pittsburgh
Walking past Aldo’s limousine parked out front of the small but loud bar in the city’s most alive section of town, Cal started to sense it. “Who all is coming?”
“Oh . . .” Joyce stopped trying to peek in the limo. “Surprisingly, a lot of people are. More people like you than you think. You’re home.” Joyce put her arm around Cal p
ulling her close. “Of course, they’re my friends.”
Cal’s senses were right. As soon as she started to pay her cover, which she was told a gentleman had covered for everyone for the night, she knew. That was the sound that only he could produce. The guitar lead with sang with style to her as she walked in the door and only David could make a guitar sing like that. She looked to Joyce. “Is it David’s band?”
“I kind of thought since you were down, seeing David would do one of two things. It would make you see that what you felt for the Major was confined to those hills, or see what you should really do.”
“You’re right.” Cal stepped into the bar. From the back of the crowded room, over the heads and lingering smoke, she saw him. He was dressed like he always did in jeans and a tee shirt. His eyes were closed as he played. She moved closer to the stage and saw David’s head flung back, yelling something to the bass player, and then he turned to look ahead. He saw Joyce and his eyes immediately shifted from her to Cal. He lit up, which made Cal feel good. And then David did something Cal had never seen him do before in the entire time she watched him play, David set down his guitar in the middle of the song. Never taking his eyes off Cal he stepped from the two foot high stage.
“Cal.” He ran to her, meeting her as she walked to him. David looked stunned, stunned to see her standing there. He moved closer to her, smiling that bright smile that Cal always loved. His hands held her face. “You look incredible.” He placed his hands back on her face and he kissed her. Ignoring everyone else in the room, he kept kissing her. With a shuddering breath as his lips pulled from hers, David embraced Cal, lifting her from the floor as he did. He held her tight, arms wrapped completely around her, his hand not letting go of her head that he kept pressed to his cheek. He held her so tight that Cal could barely breathe.
The noise in the room seemed to disappear as Cal let David hold her while she held on to him. And she accepted the revelation that came to her on that floor, crowded room and all. The moment David touched her face, kissed her, held her, Cal knew. She knew where she was supposed to be.
^^^^
Cal laughed and her smile was wide as she nearly tipped over her drink while stepping over all twelve people who had gathered that late night in Joyce’s living room. She tried to make it through the maze to Aldo, who appeared to be having the time of his life. “I can’t believe you guys are actually watching this stuff.” Cal spoke up loudly to be heard over their comments as they watched the video tapes of the highlights of her seven months. “Now, you remember I’m not forcing you to watch, so I don’t want to hear that you told people you were bored watching Cal’s videos from her masochistic vacation.” She continued to try to get to Aldo, smiling at him. She was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol now and she let herself. Cal felt good, a part of her felt free. Just as she reached center of the room, stopping at the coffee table for a chicken wing, the loud whistles and ‘whoa’ screams caught her attention. She turned to see what they were watching and horrified ran to cover the screen. The screen showed Jake pinning her against the wall, kissing her, her legs wrapped around him. “Oh, my God.”
“Cal, move your ass,” Joyce shouted. “I want to see.”
Peter tried to see. “Move, Cal.”
Joyce grunted. “I’m missing it because her ass is in the way . . . move!”
“Fine.” Cal threw her hands in the air. “It’s a good thing David’s not here yet. He would die. So don’t show him. And you people aren’t going to see anything anyhow.” She pointed.
“Oh, yeah?” Joyce shouted. She got loud when she was drunk. “Why is the Major on his knees?”
Cal covered her face, ignored the hooting and sat on the floor next to Aldo. She watched Jake walked to the camera wiggling his fingers before blocking it out. Cal smiled when she saw that, and even gloated when the room filled with angry yells of ‘oh, no.’
“You look happier now, Cal.” Aldo rested his hand on her knee.
Cal smiled back at Aldo and sipped her drink. “I am. My mind was foggy when I came home. Everything is clear now.”
Aldo lowered the glass she had raised to her lips again. “You sure it’s not the booze?”
“Positive. Things were cleared before I took my first drink tonight.” Cal took a deep breath and turned back to watching the screen.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
New Eagle, PA - March 5th
Jake took a deep nervous breath as he stared down at his watch. He raised his eyes to Joyce’s place, two houses down from where they had parked the rental car. “That’s her house up there, 2717.”
“You want me to pull up?” Chuck asked.
“Nah, I’ll walk.” Jake cleared his throat and straightened his tie. He was dressed, officially, in his full uniform, hat and all. “Let’s go.”
“Jake, I have never seen you this nervous. You’ll do fine. I know you will because I heard what you’re going to say to her a million times on the trip up.”
“I had to practice.” Jake opened the car door, stepped out and waited at the hood of the car for Chuck. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it.”
Jake gave a closed smile at Chuck and they began to walk at a steady pace, side by side, toward Joyce’s house.
“Jake.” Chuck nodded his head to Joyce’s porch. “Who do you think that guy is coming out?”
Jake looked up and as soon as he saw him, Jake knew him. Oh, my God, does he look like Carlos, Jake thought. He could have sworn it was Carlos. He knew that had to be David. “Don’t worry about him.” Jake kept walking head high. His stride and pace only slowed once, that was when he passed David in the driveway. Jake swallowed nervously. His jaw clenched and his nose twitched.
David merely nodded his head to Jake, smiled and kept on walking, hands in his pockets.
“Jake?” Chuck nudged him as they walked up the steps. “Was that him, the guy you were telling me about? Kind of early don’t you think to be paying a visit? Hey Jake, you don’t think he spent the night here do you?”
With a disgruntled breath Jake looked at Chuck before he knocked on the door. “Why do have to say shit like that?”
“Observing?” Chuck shrugged.
“Observe the bushes or something.” Jake knocked on the door.
Joyce, thinking it was David forgetting something, opened the door for them. “Oh,” she said surprised, and widened the screen door. “Come in.”
Jake cleared his throat as he tucked his hat under his arm and stepped into her entrance hallway. “Ma’am, Major Jacob Graison to see Ms. Cal Reynolds. It’s very important and if she isn’t home I would appreciate you letting me know where I can find her. If not, I would like to wait here.”
Joyce wanted to laugh at the seriousness of him. “She’s up the steps all the way to the top.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Joyce, head shaking, swung to Chuck. “Hi, Chuck, what is up with his get up?”
“Oh, he’s being ridiculous. He wants to be official and all. He takes things to extremes.”
“I’d say.” Joyce could hear Jake as he took the steps two at a time.
“Hey, Joyce.” Chuck moved into the hall. “That guy, did he . . . spend the night?”
“Yeah.” She saw the concerned look on Chuck’s face. “But not like you think. We had one hell of a party last night.”
Cal looked around her attic bedroom as she tucked her shirt in her jeans. She stopped by her dresser mirror to check out her reflection and pick up her brush. “I look bad. This isn’t . . .” Her head turned to the knock on her door. “Yeah.”
“Cal.” Jake called her name as he stepped into the room the moment he opened her door.
The brush fell immediately from her hand when she heard his voice. “Jake.”
“Cal, listen.” He walked inside. “Before you say anything . . .” He felt her arms fly tightly around his neck. He closed his eyes as her body pressed to his, dropped his hat and wrapped his arms around
her.
She released her grip and set her feet back on the floor. She stepped back to look at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I have to talk to you. I need to tell you something.”
“I need to talk to you, too. I can’t believe you’re here. Jake, I . . .”
“Cal, please. Let me say what I have to say. Then you can talk. Please? Sit down.” He led her to the bed, and then he stood before her. He closed his eyes and rolled his head around, preparing. Then with a deep nervous breath, he looked at her. “Cal . . . I’m going to screw this up . . . I’ll start again. Seven months ago when I met you, I knew there was something about you. You were and you are what I need in my life. I never knew what love was. I do now. Cal . . .” Jake stepped closer to her. “I woke up this morning and I was alone. For the first time in seven months, I was alone. I don’t want to wake up another morning without you by my side. Now, O.K, I admit I have a lot to learn. But work with me so I can learn them. I’ll try my best. I will. Whatever it takes, just give it a chance. Please. And besides all that mushy stuff, you promised me you would be there when I was promoted. Well . . . I am getting promoted Monday and damn it, you better be there.”
“Jake!” Cal said her voice full of excitement. “I’m so proud of you.” She started to get up from her seat, but Jake stopped her.
“Cal.” Jake knelt before her and grabbed her hands. “Come home with me. We can do this thing. We can. Hell, it’s not even going to be as bad as it was up there, you won’t have to see me every single minute.” He nervously played with the hands he held and stared at them. “I want you to live with me. In fact, I’d prefer it if you and I did things properly, did things right, and got married.” His eyes lifted to hers.
The Iso-Stasis Experiment (The Experiments) Page 43