by Naomi Niles
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s this,” I said, motioning to the front of my shirt. “I didn’t want to come out because I didn’t want to embarrass you. I was afraid this was going to happen, because it always happens, because I’m such a screw-up and I can’t seem to go anywhere without embarrassing myself. And I just wish—”
I paused, my eyes drawn to a shiny gold medal pinned on the front of his uniform that hadn’t been there thirty minutes before.
“Zack,” I said, my face burning with guilt and shame. “You didn’t tell me you were getting a medal.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly going to brag about it,” said Zack, though he puffed his chest out proudly. “Anyway, the real prize was the jealous looks on the faces of all those guys when they saw us together. You know when you were down in the Congo, half of ‘em were scheming ways to get you in their beds. But none of ‘em did.”
“So maybe it’s your safety I should be worried about.” I placed my arm in his and led him out of the hall, beginning to feel better. “Why didn’t you invite your family?”
“They couldn’t make it,” said Zack, “but I’m flying back home to Texas in a couple weeks, and they wanted me to let you know you were welcome to come along. We’d have to find a place for you to sleep, but it’s no big deal. My mama would love to have you.”
I nodded eagerly, tears springing back into my eyes but not from sorrow. “Yeah, I’d love to go. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Texas.”
“You think you could get off work?”
“Yeah, I’m sure I can talk my boss into letting me work remotely for a few weeks.”
When we got back to the table I draped one of the cloth napkins over the bodice of my dress. It was a slightly more off-white color than the dress itself, but no one made a big deal out of it, and I spent most of the reception with my body pressed close to Zack’s. We danced some old-timey dances while a brass band played Miller and Fitzgerald.
I drank another three cups of the fizzy drink, and by the end of the night I couldn’t tell if I was floating because of the alcohol or because I was drunk on the lights and applause and music. It felt like one of those nights we had every so often in college where me and a couple of friends stayed out until all hours watching the stars glitter in the night sky and celebrating the fact that we were here for this short moment.
I was reminded of that on the way home as I rested my head on Zack’s arm and stroked his rough skin. I liked the feel of him next to me, his scent and warmth. Every now and then, I was thrilled just to discover anew that he existed at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zack
First thing I did when I woke up the next morning was to text Kelli. I’d started doing it a few days ago, and now it was becoming a morning habit.
Hey doll, I said,
Thanks again for joining me yesterday. I know it took a lot of courage to walk into that room, but I hope it was worth it. Bonus: you made me the envy of every man there. [kiss-and-wink emoji]
She texted back while I was putting in my contacts:
Thanks for that. I’m still wondering if I should have gone. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.
I texted her back as soon as I had finished:
Hey, what are you on about? Any man there would’ve been lucky to have you as a date. You didn’t embarrass me at all, silly. If anything, you made me look better.
I kept the phone in one hand as I brushed my teeth and washed my mouth out with mouth wash. Kelli wrote back:
If you say so. I don’t always know how I come across to others, so it’s nice that there’s someone I can trust who doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot.
To which I replied:
Baby, I think the world of you.
I waited a few minutes to see if she would respond, but she never did.
I was running low on breakfast items, so I made myself a milkshake and fried up the last of the sausages in the skillet. There was no use going out and buying more groceries when I’d be leaving in a few days for my mother’s. They hadn’t always been the greatest parents, but one thing they had excelled at was making sure we were well-fed. I was looking forward to sitting down to another one of her breakfasts.
After my morning workout, I threw on a blue Polo shirt and a pair of khakis and went over to Carson’s apartment.
“IT’S OPEN!” I heard him holler the moment I knocked.
I found him lying on the couch in the living room with a comforter wrapped around his waist; he was naked from at least the waist up. “Cover your eyes for a sec,” he said as he sat slowly up. “I need to throw some pants on.”
“God, Carson, couldn’t you have done that before you told me to come in?” I replied.
But Carson didn’t seem phased by my complaints. “What are you all dressed up for?” he asked as he wriggled into his blue jeans. “You and Kelli about to go golfing?”
“Carson, you and I were supposed to go golfing,” I said, trying my level best not to sound irritated. Being friends with Carson could be exasperating at times. “Remember, we started planning it before we even left Libya?”
“I wish I could go, man,” said Carson, fumbling around in his pockets for his phone and finding it on the coffee table. “I’ve got things I’ve gotta do this morning. You’re welcome to come along if you want.”
“What things?”
Carson glanced around as if afraid of being overheard, despite the fact that the apartment was empty. “So I was making out with some chick last night, and she stole my wallet.”
I stared as if I hadn’t heard him correctly. “She stole your wallet while you were making out? Like a pickpocket?”
“I went out to Murphy’s Bar and met this beautiful girl, Kayleigh. She’s young and funny, and she seemed really into me, and we got to talking and I asked her if she wanted to come back to my place. We came up here and messed around for a bit, and I think she must’ve slipped something into my drink, because when I woke up it was early morning, Kayleigh was gone, and I couldn’t find my wallet.”
“She drugged you?” I shouted.
Carson glared coolly at me, his ears burning red. “Didn’t say I was proud of it.”
“Well, how are we supposed to find this girl? Do you know anything about her, other than her name? If that even is her name?”
“Yeah, I know some things about her,” said Carson, sounding offended. “I know where she goes to school. I think I might drive over there and hang out in the gym until she gets out of class. You wanna come with?”
“You sure this is a good idea?” I asked as I followed him downstairs to his car. “If this girl thinks you’re stalking her, she could call the police.”
“Let her!” Carson shouted. “I’ll tell ‘em the bitch stole my wallet.”
I made a series of quick mental calculations. Carson was going to stake her out whether I came along or not. But at least if I went with him, I could keep the situation from escalating and maybe save him from going to jail.
I didn’t even bother to ask where we were going, figuring we would probably end up at some community college in the Bronx. So naturally I was surprised a few minutes later when we pulled up outside of Fillmore Public High School.
“Carson,” I said slowly. “Carson, I think there’s been a mistake. This is a public high school.”
“Yeah,” said Carson, putting the car into park. “And it’s just about lunch time, so she ought to be getting out of class soon.”
An odd sensation of panic came over me as I followed Carson across the commons toward the gym in the center of campus. Carson hadn’t shaved in a few days, and he looked much older than his twenty-three years. “Hey, don’t you think we need a visitor’s pass for this?” I said quietly, trying not to draw more attention to us than we were already getting.
“Alright, you go to the principal’s office and tell ‘em we’re here to find this girl who stole my money,” muttered Carson.
&nbs
p; I followed along a few feet behind him as he pulled open the door of the gym and went inside. I could hear the scrape of sneakers on the basketball court, and for a moment I was transported back to my own high school days. With a pang of guilt, I remembered how I had turned down Sergeant Armstrong’s offer. If I accepted the position I would be going around to schools just like this one, talking to young men about how they could better themselves by serving their country. Being back here was almost enough to make me reconsider.
Clear at the other end of the gym, a couple of boys were shooting hoops. Carson, who had no sense of shame at all, ran straight up to them. “Hey, you mind if we join you?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” said a lank, mop-haired guy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. “Two against two?”
“Me and Zack against you and your buddy,” said Carson. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Heath.” He motioned to his friend, who was at least a foot shorter but spectacularly built. “This is Tony.”
We got to playing, and I think for a few minutes Carson forgot why we had come, he was so caught up in the game. We’d spent so many hours out on the court in the last year or two that we won the first game, and the second, without a lot of effort. At some point, we stopped scoring and started playing just for the joy of it. Tony and Heath, who had looked annoyed at first, now watched us with a begrudging sense of awe.
“Where you guys from?” Tony asked when we’d been playing for about twenty minutes and had worked up a good sweat.
“We just got back from Libya,” I told him, tossing the ball and sinking it effortlessly into the net. “We’re both SEALS who somehow made it through four years of deployment without drowning or dying of exhaustion or getting our legs blown off.”
“Oh, yeah?” Heath swept his long, wavy hair out of his face. “Were you on SEAL Team Six?”
“Are you one of the guys who caught bin Laden?” asked Tony. Turning to Heath, he added, “Did you know The Rock’s brother was one of the guys who helped catch bin Laden? And The Rock found out about it before anybody else.”
“No way!” Heath exclaimed, turning to look at us with his eyes aglow.
“No, we weren’t with those guys,” I replied. “We were fighting terrorists in the deserts and jungles of Africa.”
“I’ll tell you somethin,’” said Tony in his thick Bronx accent. “I’ve actually been thinkin’ about joining the Navy. I really appreciate what you guys do over there. I heard a SEAL speak recently at a Fourth of July celebration, and it made me feel like maybe I haven’t done enough to support my country.”
“Well, if you stay in school and get a good education,” I told him, “you’ll be serving your country just fine.” Reaching into my pocket and pulling out a pen and a loose sheet of paper, I added, “Tell you what? Why don’t I give you my number, and you call me if you ever need to talk about this?”
I wrote down my number and handed it to him. “Thanks, man,” he said, grinning shyly, as he folded it up and tucked it away in his shoe. (“It’ll fall out of my shorts pocket,” he explained, as the rest of us watched him curiously).
At that point, two policemen entered the gym, having apparently been warned that there were a couple of older guys walking around campus without permission and questioned us for a few minutes before asking us to leave. But even the humiliation of being escorted off-campus by the school police wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits.
“Did you see that?!” I shouted as we climbed into Carson’s car. “Those kids were fascinated. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony ends up joining the Navy.”
“I told you you ought to have taken the recruiting position,” said Carson. “Now you’re recruiting, and you don’t even mean to.”
Carson seemed to have accepted the fact that his wallet was gone forever, though he hadn’t ruled out hanging around Murphy’s that night to see if Kayleigh showed up. “Just don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone,” I told him as we stood out on the green an hour later, clubs in hand.
“Are you really leaving?” Carson asked.
“I am. I’m heading out tomorrow, and I’m taking Kayleigh—I mean, Kelli—with me for a couple weeks. Just so you can’t hit on her in my absence.”
“Dang, I was really looking forward to that,” muttered Carson, and he took another swing with his club.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kelli
I woke up that morning to a couple of texts from Zack.
I liked texting with him because his messages were consistently kind and encouraging, and I invariably felt better about myself after reading them. I sat at the dining-room table reading over them while Renee cooked breakfast. I think she had this weird idea that we spent all our time sexting each other, but there was nothing in our conversations to scandalize my mother. He was just…sweet. He was my Zack.
“So,” I said to Renee as she scrambled eggs in the skillet, “I’m leaving for Texas tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh yeah? Do you need me to drive you to the airport?”
“No, I’m not going on an assignment or anything. Zack invited me to go home with him for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” Renee beat her spatula repeatedly against the side of the skillet, then set it down on the counter and looked at me.
“Yeah, he wants me to meet the rest of the family. Apparently, they’re farmers who live out in the country, which isn’t what I’d have expected from someone like Zack. He’s the most sophisticated one of the bunch. He’s got three brothers, and from what he tells me they’re all completely different.”
“Wait, how long are you going to be gone exactly? Did you ask your boss?”
“Two or three weeks, and yeah, he’s fine with it. I don’t think he was even paying attention.”
“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.”
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��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.”