Purple Hearts

by Tess Wakefield

  “Are you ready?” Cassie asked. “This one’s a little rough, but it’s getting there.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. Rooster had stopped doing sit-ups, I’d noticed, and was now lying on the floor on his back, listening.

  “This is called ‘Green Heron,’ ” she said, and played a chord. “And imagine this with bass and drums behind it,” she added.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” Rooster said from the floor.

  “When I saw you, you were on the fence,” she sang, and flourished the keys. “They said you weren’t a sign from God. I didn’t know what that meant. But when I walked to you, you didn’t fly away.”

  After that introduction, she played a rhythmic, almost old-timey section. Every time I thought I knew the beat, it swept off to another. But it always returned, too. It wasn’t off the rails or hard to listen to, like jazz. It made its own kind of sense.

  The lyrics were about her mother, about not knowing what to do, about forgiving herself for not knowing what to do, and her voice was dramatic and sweeping, a combination of Billie Holiday, if Billie Holiday were one octave lower, and Freddie Mercury. She seemed to skip shame and go straight to forgiveness. I’d never learned how to do that.

  “Man, that was good! Goddamn!” I found myself saying as she finished.

  “That was really, really good,” Rooster said from the floor. “I almost cried a little bit.”

  “What’d he say?” Cassie said, wearing a big smile, catching her breath. She had put her hair up into a little ponytail at the top of her head, and now it was almost gone, the strands having fallen as she played, nodding along.

  “He said he cried a little bit.”

  “Almost!” Rooster corrected.

  “Wow,” I said. “Nice work. That’s great. Really great. Honey,” I added with a sideways glance at Rooster.

  “Thank you,” Cassie said, her cheeks reddening. Was she blushing? Or just flushed after singing? “Well, I should go. Gotta go to work.”

  “Okay, we’ll talk in a few.”

  “Thanks for asking me to play for you, Luke. Baby,” she said, scratching her head, embarrassed.

  “You’re welcome.” I swallowed. Here it was. The time when we said those words. Before I could start, Cassie was scrawling something on a piece of paper, and held it up. I think we did really well today.

  I grabbed my Moleskine to reply. Me too. Keep the emails coming.

  “Are y’all showing each other your privates?” Rooster called from the floor. “I want to play online solitaire and Skype sucks up all the Internet.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. I rolled my eyes at Cassie. “I love you, honey.” It rolled out easier this time.

  Cassie gave me a knowing smile, turning up one corner of her lips. “Love you, too, babe.”

  It was smoother from her end, too. Then she crossed her eyes at me, sticking out her tongue.

  As the call ended and I pushed back from the green table, I realized I was smiling to myself.

  To: PFC Luke Morrow

  From: Cassie Salazar

  Subject: What did you REALLY think?

  So I know you were trying to be nice to your wifey in front of your bunkmate about my new song but I’m actually curious about what you thought for real, since you and Push-Up Rooster are the first people to hear that who aren’t in a band with me. Nora said it’s one of my best, and Toby said it was good, too. Your opinion also matters to me because not only are you my husband but you’re someone who doesn’t listen to a lot of current music, and if you actually DID like it, I would want to do more stuff like that, because I don’t just want to play songs that appeal to obscure Pitchfork people (the blog I was telling you about, not a strange alien race of people with pitchforks for heads).

  So when you get a chance between volleyball games, shoot me an email.

  Love, C

  PS Please please PLEASE tell me you wear spandex when you play and if so, pix or it didn’t happen

  • • •

  To: Cassie Salazar

  From: PFC Luke Morrow

  Subject: RE: What did you REALLY think?

  It was one of the best songs I ever heard. I was thinking to myself the whole time that your voice sounded like a combination between Billie Holiday and Freddy Mercury from Queen. I also really love how it changed up in the middle, fast and slow, fast and slow, but without seeming too jerky. It was natural sounding. Don’t listen to Toby, it was better than good.

  We’re going out on a scouting mission so I can’t skype for a while but to tide you over here is a pic of me and Frankie and Ahmad, who has one of the best serves in the entire world. Sry about the grainy quality of the pic. It’s from Majeed’s cell phone. #selfie <<
  Love from your husband

  Luke

  Cassie

  I got cut from The Handle Bar early, so I had asked Toby to meet me across the street at Tucci’s. We’d eaten garlic bread and pretended like we knew something about wine.

  Toby was signaling to the server for another glass, and pointed to my empty one. “You going to join me?”

  I nodded then took another sip of water. “So, I’m thinking The Loyal needs to go on tour soon. If I can figure out a way to get off work for a month or so.”

  “I’m ready whenever you are.” He took a strand of my bob and rubbed it between his fingers. My hair was longer again, brushing the middle of my neck. People say your hair and fingernails grow faster when you’re in love.

  Oh, God, that was ridiculous. I wasn’t in love.

  “We’ll see how this next show goes,” I said, taking his hand. He smiled at me, quiet, and a wave of warmth passed through me.

  But I also wasn’t not in love.

  My boyfriend got it. He’d known me from the beginning of this little band. He’d been on tour, and he was ready to drop everything and go on tour again. He’d been in bar fights and played with church groups. He’d broken down on the side of the road, taken payment in the form of baked goods. All so he could play. He understood what music meant to me, because it meant as much to him.

  Toby had even gotten us a show at the Sahara Lounge. And this time, we weren’t splitting the marquee with anyone. It was just The Loyal, for an hour, playing the new stuff we’d put into our album.

  “I want to take you home,” he said, reaching to brush a thumb across my cheek.

  “My home or your home?” I asked, already feeling the nerves alight in my thighs.

  My phone vibrated in my purse. I reached in to turn off the ringer, figuring it was my mom or Nora. They could wait till morning.

  “Ready for the check?” a black-clad server asked.

  “Yessir,” Toby said, placing his credit card on the table.

  “Can I split it with you?” I asked.

  He shook his head, folding his lips over that sweet gap of his, smiling with his eyes.

  The phone vibrated again. Another call. I pulled it out and noticed it was from an overseas number, or what I figured was an overseas number.

  “I better get this,” I told Toby as we stood up from the table.

  “K, I’m going to use the restroom real quick,” he said, and walked away.

  I answered.

  “Cassandra Salazar?” a woman said quickly.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Captain Grayson, of the Thirty-fourth Red Horse Infantry Division. Ma’am, I’m calling because your husband, Luke Morrow, has been injured in the line of duty.”

  I stopped breathing. I blinked twice, mechanical and slow.

  “Ma’am, are you there?”

  “Yes.” Injured?

  “Your husband’s been evac’d to an army facility in Germany. In two days, he’ll be transferred to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. I’m sorry to have to give you this news, ma’am.”

  I unlocked my jaw, sat down at the table, feeling tears hit my eyes. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “He’s in stable
condition, but seriously injured. Bullets shattered his shin and kneecap. He should be ready for transfer very soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll keep you posted on his status.”

  “Thank you,” I said, because it was all I could think to say. Then, “Can he talk? Who— Who do I call for news?”

  “He’s unable to talk at the moment,” she said. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we can. Good-bye, ma’am, and God bless you.” The line went dead.

  My heart was beating so hard, my eyesight flashed red and black. He had told me in an e-mail that he might be on a mission. And it had almost killed him. Good lord, what about Frankie? Was Frankie okay? I should have asked. I should have asked more about both of them.

  The sunlit hotel room came back to me. Luke had handed me the piece of paper, the number scrawled with a motel pen. Your husband, she had said. My husband.

  Toby returned from the bathroom whistling, hands in pockets. When he saw my face, he stopped.

  “I have to go home,” I told him.

  He drove me, though I was unable to answer his chorus of Cassie, you can tell me. I’ll help you. Just tell me if everything’s okay. Cassie?

  Where was the paper? Where was the goddamn, stupid fucking piece of paper? I had put it in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Last month’s Internet bill. Last month’s electricity bill. A smaller, lighter paper. Was this it? No. A fucking take-out receipt. Why the hell had I saved a take-out receipt?

  I emptied the drawer onto the kitchen floor.

  Key from a bike lock I’d never used. Pennies. Bottle caps from when Nora’s niece needed them for her school fund-raiser. More pennies. Nickels. A tiny gift bag from when one of Mom’s clients had given their staff “Merry Christmas chocolates.” No more pieces of paper.

  I moved to my room, searching the drawer in my bedside table.

  A leather journal to which I had contributed two lines. A pack of condoms. A guitar pick Nora and I suspected belonged to Jack White after The White Stripes had played The Moody Theater.

  For three hours I searched, tearing apart my apartment, finding nothing. I sat on my couch around two a.m. The quiet was quieter than normal. I eyed the keyboard, thinking about playing something to ease my anxiety, but found I couldn’t even touch the keys.

  I heard a small tap on the door, footsteps on the stairs. I looked through the keyhole. It was Rita, holding Dante, who appeared to be half asleep. I opened the door.

  “You moving out up here?” she asked, her pink bathrobe open to an oversized T-shirt reading JUST TELL ME WHERE THE CHOCOLATE IS AND NO ONE GETS HURT.

  “No.” I sighed. “I was looking for a piece of paper with someone’s information. That I need really badly, like, right away.”

  “Someone’s information?”

  “Yeah, like their phone number. Anyway. Sorry to disturb you.”

  “Wanna smoke?”

  “I don’t have any.” I’d stopped buying when I got diagnosed. Every penny I earned went to bills, medical supplies, or music now.

  “I didn’t ask if you did,” she said, and pulled a joint from behind her ear.

  “Thank God,” I muttered.

  We sat in our usual spots, not having to talk, passing the joint back and forth, letting the marijuana bathe the destroyed room in a haze. I put on Donovan.

  After a while, Rita repeated, “Someone’s information. Hm.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Did you try Google? For this person’s number?” Rita asked, coughing a bit as she exhaled.

  The sharpness came back. Google. Fucking duh. Panic had scrambled my brain. Of course I should do a Google search. “Rita, you’re a genius.”

  “Tell that to my job,” Rita said. “They just fired me.”

  “Damn, Rita,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged, stretching as she stood. “Everyone’s losing their jobs these days.”

  I grabbed my laptop from the floor. Morrow, Morrow, Morrow. Now, what was his first name? The e-mails. Luke’s e-mails with the questions I was supposed to ask during our Skype calls—Luke had written the name there. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Just keep payin’ your rent on time,” she called as she opened the door. “I’ll see ya later. Come, Dante.” Dante clicked across the floor.

  As the door shut, I typed. There it was. Morrow Garage, Buda, TX. If I called now, no one would answer. If I left within the hour, I’d be there at sunrise.

  Luke

  Cucciolo, I was saying. Cucciolo. But I was lying down and there were three suns and my mouth was made of rubber. Frankie wouldn’t turn. I needed him to turn around because they were shooting at us. We had ducked behind the jeep and they were shooting. Rooster was on the ground.

  The shooting wasn’t bullets but beeps. Beeping.

  But then for some reason we were back at my dad’s garage. Why were they shooting? Get them out of my dad’s garage. It was lunchtime. It wasn’t time for people to shoot at my dad and my brother. I had to get up from this bed. I had to protect them.

  Rooster was taking a nap under the jeep on a red pillow. How can he sleep right now?

  I couldn’t get up because the bottom half of me was a tree, a trunk where my legs should be. It was growing, cracking my skin, bark made of knives, stabbing.

  I screamed because it hurt. Someone cut this tree off! I screamed.

  Three suns were so bright. People were talking funny. I was, too. Cucciolo. No one was listening.

  They put a piece of rubber on my face.

  Blue and white and blue and white.

  The tree grew again. I screamed.

  “Goot, goot,” they were saying. “Ess weird goot sign.”

  “Not goot,” I said, but the rubber got in the way. “Frankie.”

  Frankie. Not good. Someone cut this tree off.

  Frankie.

  Cassie

  Dads and I do not mix. Never had one, didn’t want one, didn’t need one. Didn’t like them when they verbally abused my fourth-grade rec-league soccer refs, didn’t like when they got too drunk at quinceañeras, didn’t like how they rolled their eyes at my college friends’ majors from their La-Z-Boys.

  Dads and I especially did not mix when I was running off no sleep, three bites of tikka masala, and a joint with my landlady. I rumbled down the main drag of Buda, gas tank low, past the mom-and-pop stores and trucks parked in front almost as big as the buildings themselves, fast food trash skittering near the curbs. I scanned the buildings for the red-and-white sign I’d seen on the website.

  When I found it, I got out, ready to knock on the door and see Luke’s brother. A brother, I’d imagined, who would be a nicer version of Luke. A younger, jumpsuited guy looking like an ensemble member of Grease, with a cherubic toddler hanging on his pant leg, who’d usher me into an office with leather chairs next to a sorority girl wife with moist eyes. They’d all listen and tell me what to do.

  Instead, the garage was closed. Back in five. If it’s an emergency I’m at Morts getting coffee, a handwritten sign had read.

  So I waited. I waited for five, then five more. I called the number that had called me last night in hopes there would be an update on Luke’s condition, but I couldn’t get through. I gathered my dress and sat in the middle of a cement square bordered with weeds, watching the tricked-out cars pass at fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Mothers pushed kids in strollers, blowing smoke from their cigarettes away from their babies’ lungs as they complained into their phones about someone who had done them wrong. I sent a text to Toby, telling him sorry, and that I’d call him soon.

  Then Luke’s dad came up the walk with a Styrofoam take-out coffee in hand. Legs up to the chest, triangle jaw, but with ghost-white hair and a stooped back. Unmistakable.

  I thought about getting up and walking away. Luke had talked about his brother working for the garage, so I figured I’d see him first. I figured the dad would be puttering about in the back somewhere, running the book
s.

  It occurred to me that Luke had given me his brother’s number. That Luke had told me to contact him first.

  “How can I help, ma’am?” he asked, pulling out his keys. His hands were thick and strong with gray, wiry hairs.

  How could he help? “Uh. Well.” I stood, brushing gravel. “So,” I began.

  He pressed a lever to the side of the door, creaking open the wide garage.

  “Is that your car?” he said, pointing to my Subaru in a long line of cars parked on the street.

  I tilted my head. “How did you know that?”

  “Buda’s a small town,” he said, turning around and striding toward my car.

  “Sir,” I began again, following him. “Sir, I’m not here for car trouble.”

  “Is that so?” he answered, unhooking the hood, propping it on its metal stand. “Then why are you waiting outside my garage?”

  I recognized his casual stride from the way Luke walked back and forth through a room, as if no one were there, as if he were alone in the woods. But he meant no harm. He was aggressive without the anger. Just matter-of-fact, grabbing on to something he could play with, like a kid goes for a toy left out on the table.

  I let him unscrew something or other, making contemplative noises to himself. And then I took a deep breath.

  “Sir, I’m married to your son Luke,” I began.

  He bolted upward, banging his head on the edge of the hood.

  “Ma’am?” he said, holding a purple-veined arm to the back of his head, scowling.

  “My name is Cassie Salazar and I’m your son’s wife and he’s been injured overseas.” It came out as three facts. Another great thing about not having a dad is not really being afraid of dads.

  He dropped his hand and the how can I help you? demeanor, taking a step toward me. “Overseas as in serving in the military? Luke Morrow?”