A wave rolled in and when it rolled out again there were footprints. Another wave washed the footprints away. You never see the Navy SEALs.
“I missed ’em. Show it again,” a smart-mouth in the back shouted—there was always a smart-mouth in every high school auditorium. When she was in high school, Calhoun had been that guy. He’d have done anything for laughs. Mitzi wasn’t in control of the video, but the boys up in the audio/visual booth did run it again.
It was a good lead-in for Calhoun, even though he wouldn’t be talking about his time with the SEALs. He was Marine Force Recon through and through. And right now he was a Marine Corps recruiter.
The three and half minutes of Navy commercials led into three minutes of Marine Corps commercials. She and Calhoun exchanged places.
“They saved the best for last. Normally Marines are first to fight,” he said. “I’m Gunnery Sergeant Bruce Calhoun, United States Marine Corps. I won’t keep you long, I know you’ve been sitting for a while, and trust me, I remember how hard those auditorium seats get. I want to talk to you today about what it takes to be a Marine. “Semper Fidelis is more than a motto—it’s a way of life. Latin for ‘always faithful,’ it reminds us of our core values, that Marines are held to a higher standard of honor, courage…”
And commitment.
To the Corps. Mitzi tuned out the rest of his speech.
“Becoming a Marine is a transformation that begins with boot camp where you earn your EGA—eagle, globe and anchor. But it can never be undone.
“We don’t accept applications. Only commitments.” He ended with a recruiting slogan.
Calhoun might as well have ended with a couple of hoorahs.
He had the kids lining up at his table. And their parents glaring at him.
“Hey,” Dan said. He was carrying a rolled paper in his hand.
“Hey, there, handsome. Care for a water bottle?” she asked.
He was wearing his Army uniform today, so she thought it kind of cute when he accepted a Navy water bottle from her.
“I have something for you, too,” he said, handing her the document in his hand. “Mike says this is as good as gold to a recruiter.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a list of all my students who’ve taken the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, and their scores. I guess you’ll get the official report on Monday through your downtown office. Just don’t tell your fellow recruiters I leaked it to you early.”
“Wow, Dan. I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“I know it’s not candy and flowers, but what do you give a recruiter who has everything—beauty, brains…”
“Blush.”
“That was next on my list,” he said. “I like making you blush.” That’s because he had a way of making everything he said sound sexy. Especially when he looked at her through his eyelashes with those sleepy eyes.
It must be his hot Latino blood. She felt her cheeks flame.
“What time should I pick you up Saturday night?”
“Can I meet you there? I have a late-afternoon appointment to get my hair and nails done. And I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“And while I have you here, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“There’s our trip to Vail,” he pointed out.
“I meant for dinner,” she said. Still a couple weeks away—it was never too early to start planning. So that the kids could spend Thanksgiving Day with their families they’d leave for Vail the Friday morning after Thanksgiving and return on Sunday.
“Oh, you know us bachelors. Probably Denny’s.”
“No, you have to come by the bowling alley. My dad does this thing every year where he closes for business and opens it up to dinner for the homeless.”
“Oh, so now you think I’m the poor homeless guy.”
“And friends.”
“That sounds kind of nice, actually.”
“I’ll fill you in on the details as we get closer. But be sure to bring your apron.”
A JROTC student stopped to talk to Dan about a homework assignment and wound up asking Mitzi a few questions. Then more students stopped by and she got busy.
When she had a chance to look up, Bruce was behind his table across from hers, with Keith standing in front of it. She couldn’t hear them above the general din of the crowded hall, but Calhoun was shaking his head at something Keith said.
Keith stormed off in her direction. “Would you please talk some sense into him for me?”
Mitzi made eye contact with Bruce, who shrugged as if he didn’t know what was going on.
Later, as they folded the tables to take back to the station, she asked, “What was that about?”
“The usual.”
“Maybe you should just let him enlist.”
“Because he shows up for a run every day?”
“Because he obviously wants to.” There really wasn’t anything else to be said and she hated getting into the middle of it. But she was beginning to see Keith’s point. It must be frustrating for him when his brother talked to his friends about joining the Marines.
Bruce picked up their tables to carry them outside.
She followed with their empty, or almost empty, boxes.
“Damn it!”
She saw it when he did—his USMC mobile had been egged.
“Eggs aren’t going to do that much damage to the paint job in the middle of winter,” she said.
Calhoun was already scanning the parking lot for the vandals. Mike stood by his vehicle arguing with an angry parent. It looked as if the Army’s Hummer had also been egged. And the heavyset woman with the egg carton wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she’d done it. She looked like the lady who’d been escorted from the auditorium.
Calhoun set the folded tables up against his Hummer and went over to Mike. Mitzi set her boxes down, slower to follow. If this woman was intent on causing trouble, someone should just get the school officer.
“You’ve got no business talking to my kid!” the woman was screaming at Mike.
“Ma’am, please.” Bruce stepped into the middle of it. “Just get in the Hummer, Mike,” he said. Ike was already trying to haul Mike off. Between the two of them they got him into the car.
The woman continued to rant at the Army until they drove off. Then she rounded on Bruce.
“What business do you have coming to my son’s school and selling him a load of crap?”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Bruce said with complete calm, “this is a public school.”
“Where you target kids too young and too naive to know any better! You’re no better than a pimp.”
“Don’t you dare talk to him like that!” Mitzi stepped into the woman’s face. Bruce put a restraining hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off. “This man gave his leg for your right to stand there and call him names.”
She took advantage of the woman’s shocked silence to snatch the egg carton from her. When faced with the little spitfire, the bigger woman backed off long enough for Bruce to drag Mitzi away. “I was just getting started,” she said.
“I can see that. You know, you don’t always have to come to my rescue. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, stunned. “I wasn’t aware you felt that way.”
She stopped, while he continued toward his Hummer. She’d had just about enough of him lately.
The first egg hit him between the shoulder blades and stopped him in his tracks. He turned, and the look on his face was priceless. “And this one,” she said, picking out the last egg, “is for throwing my engagement ring into a Dumpster.” She hurled it at him with the full force of her pent-up anger. “Semper fi, Marine.”
“SHOULD I DUCK?” Bruce asked, stepping out of their bathroom/locker room with wet hair and in clean combat utilities.
Mitzi looked up from the paper in her hand. “You need to see this.�
�
Keith’s name was on the ASVAB list.
Which meant he’d taken the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Army was listed as the branch of service for which he’d tested, but the test was good for all branches. Mike was listed as the recruiter.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “Other than he took the test. He’s not committed to any one branch of the service at this point. Or at all.”
Unless it was already too late.
Ninety-six out of a hundred was a hell of a good score. Too good for a ground pounder. Right now Bruce just wanted to punch something. Or someone.
“Bruce,” Mitzi warned as he headed next door. She hurried to keep up with him.
“Mike, what the—” He cut himself off when he saw there were kids present. “Can I speak with you?”
“Sure.” Mike had the nerve to look as if he didn’t know what this was about. Bruce led the way to the back lot.
“You tested my kid brother?”
Mitzi put herself between them.
“Look, Calhoun, before you go throwing that first punch, I tested all the JROTC kids. They get extra credit for it. I haven’t even spoken to him yet. Not that I’m not going to,” Mike said straight up.
Every recruiter in the district would be calling that list.
Some of them as slick as used car salesmen. Now they all had his brother’s information.
And they knew he was interested and he wasn’t just another cold call.
“Are we cool?” Mike asked.
“No, we’re not cool,” Bruce snapped.
Mike exchanged looks with Mitzi before returning inside. Bruce turned toward their own back door and went to sit on the fire stairs. He put his head in his hands.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.
He didn’t know if she was talking about Mike or Keith at this point. In either case she was right. “I know.”
“You need to talk to Keith before someone else does.”
He knew that, too.
BRUCE ENTERED THE OFFICE on Thursday morning behind schedule after a staff breakfast downtown to mark the Marine Corps’ birthday.
Mitzi paused in her career-counseling session with a young woman. “You have someone waiting for you.”
That was a switch. She hadn’t said more than two words to him since Monday. After he’d committed that major faux pas—throwing her ring away where she could find it.
Had she found it? How did she know to look?
According to those bridal magazines, it was his to do with as he pleased. And that meant forgetting he’d ever bought the damn thing. But if she’d wanted it, for whatever reason, why hadn’t she just kept it?
As far as he was concerned she’d thrown it away first.
Bruce didn’t see anyone waiting for him at his desk. “Where?” he asked.
“In the bathroom.”
Bruce went to pour himself a cup of coffee while he waited for his first hot prospect to get out of the head. Unfortunately that gave him time to think about how he’d tortured himself, thumbing through those magazines she’d left behind. Seeing the wedding dresses she’d flagged for their wedding and her comments on each one.
So did a different prospective groom mean a different dress? Or same dress, different groom?
A question better left unanswered.
The bathroom door opened and Bruce looked up to find the coward from the alley. He set his coffee aside.
“Leave now or I call the police,” Bruce said quietly.
The kid extended a prescription bottle he’d been palming. “I wanted to return these. I thought the old guy might need them….”
Bruce took it. “Okay, you’ve returned them.” Bruce rounded his desk and locked up the meds.
The kid still wasn’t moving. “What does a guy have to do to join the Marines?” he asked, looking around nervously.
“Oh, no, we’re not going there. I don’t talk to druggies. Or thieves.”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Not even a little weed?”
“I can pass a piss test.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Bruce said.
“Look,” the kid said, “I moved out of my cousin’s place because of the drugs. And the dealing. I got nowhere to go since my mom’s boyfriend moved in with her.”
Bruce hitched up his pant leg, sat on the corner of his desk and folded his arms across his body. He knew how intimidating he looked. He nodded toward the nearest chair opposite him.
It had taken guts to walk in here. Maybe he was worth saving. “What’s your name?”
“George,” he said, using the Spanish pronunciation for his name.
“Got any dependents that you know of, George?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Don’t waste my time if you’re illegal. You have to be here legally to enlist.”
“I was born here! Third-generation American,” George said, dropping the street-tough accent.
“That’s good, because I’m going to need a birth certificate. And a high school diploma or equivalent.”
“Will a GED work?”
Bruce nodded. Proof of a General Educational Development would do. “And I’m gonna need you to take two tests. A drug test,” he said, counting off with his thumb and then his forefinger, “and the ASVAB—Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test. If it looks like you qualify, we’ll talk.”
He started the kid on a practice test in the back room while he stepped into the bathroom to flush Henry’s meds down the toilet. Pouring them out into his hand, he took a deep breath. Good ol’ OxyContin.
He’d quit the narcotics cold turkey the day she’d left. Mostly because he didn’t want to remember how good it felt to have her all over him while he was high on painkillers. Of course, then he’d self-medicated for a while. Bingeing on alcohol.
But Lucky and Cait had been there to knock some sense into him. Cait, being a pharmacist, had talked to his doctor about alternatives. They’d come up with Neurontin, an anticonvulsant drug that blocked the traumatized and severed nerves in his stump from sending pain signals to his brain. Doctors were starting to use it to treat the very real phenomenon known as phantom pain.
Once the pain was gone, he’d gotten serious about rehabbing his body. And he didn’t even need the meds anymore.
“What are you doing?” Mitzi asked from the doorway.
He saw her concern and realized what it looked as if he was doing. “They’re not mine. They’re Henry’s and I’m flushing them down the toilet.”
“You can’t flush medicines down the toilet. It gets into the water system and back into the drinking water.”
It would have been better if George hadn’t brought the drugs in with him. “Yeah, well, just this once.”
“Is that one of the boys—” Realization dawned. “You need to turn those over to the police.”
Bruce couldn’t do that without sending his first prospective recruit off to jail. He was walking a fine line here. He justified it by telling himself he was taking a kid and drugs off the street.
“Oops.” He flushed the evidence. She shook her head, letting him know he’d disappointed her again. “He’s a good kid. And he deserves a second chance,” he said in his own defense.
George passed the practice test with flying colors and Bruce started the enlistment paperwork. Because he was over eighteen and no longer in high school there was no need for a delayed enlistment.
Bruce made arrangements to pick up the boy the next day and take him downtown for official testing. He’d have George sworn in and shipped out before George’s mother had a chance to kick out her boyfriend.
“I’m sorry,” Mitzi was saying to the young woman she’d been in session with all morning. “I can’t enlist you if you’re a single parent. I wish you’d been up front about your son.”
“Please,” the young woman said. “We’re living with my grandmother. She can take care of him while I’m in boot c
amp. That’s not a problem. I want a better life for him.”
“Really there’s nothing I can do,” Mitzi said.
“I’ll do anything,” she pleaded. “Take any job.” She looked to him for help.
“What I’ve told you goes for any branch of service,” Mitzi said drily.
Bruce handed the young woman a tissue. “All you need is a marriage certificate.”
“If I had one of those I wouldn’t need to enlist.”
She was young. And pretty. And desperate.
“I might know a guy,” he said. Mitzi’s jaw dropped as he scribbled directions on the back of his business card. “Lives in Wyoming. Doesn’t have a phone. He’s angry at the world right now. But he might marry you on paper. If just to get back at Uncle Sam.” He handed her the card. “What’s your name?”
“Angela,” she said.
“Come back after you’ve talked to him.”
“That’s illegal!” Mitzi accused as soon as Angela was out the door.
“Nothing illegal about it.”
“Unethical, then,” she said. “Not only that, you stole a recruiting prospect out from under me.”
“She’s a single mom. You couldn’t put her in,” he said. “You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it.”
“Well, that’s the difference between you and me, Calhoun. I’d never tell a young woman to get married in order to enlist. As if she’s coming back with a marriage license. Hatch is scarred inside and out after Iraq. And you didn’t even tell her he’s as likely to shoot her for trespassing as marry her.”
“We’ll see,” he said smugly. The afternoon mail arrived shortly after that to wipe the smugness from his face. “Mitz, I have a favor to ask.”
“Says the man who stole my recruit.”
“She’s not worth fighting over.” The military still wanted young men, ages eighteen to twenty-four.
“So why’d you bother?”
“I’m a sucker for a sob story. I’m hoping you’ll be, too, once you hear mine.”
“Now you’ve got me curious.”
“Burn this.” He handed her the unopened envelope. “So I can say I never saw it.”
“This is an invitation to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball.” The USMC birthday logo made it obvious to her, as well. “Looks like you made it onto the late invite list.” She opened it and read, “Dress uniform required. Attendance mandatory.”
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