by Gwen Florio
She stabbed at a slice of tomato as though it were a DOD functionary. It obliged by squirting her in the eye. “Damn—darn it!” Margaret opened her mouth and closed it before she could request the obligatory quarter. Lola didn’t much care that Pal was in yet another snit. And, although she felt sorry that Delbert was caught in the crossfire of malevolent emotion, she knew he’d handled worse in his life than quarreling women. But Margaret, who’d already endured so much on this trip, drooped wan and dispirited in her chair. Lola owed her at least the pretense of normalcy. She straightened and threw a shine into her voice.
“Where’d all those strawberries come from? And what are they for?”
Delbert’s look was one of pure relief. Take that, Pal, Lola thought. I’m the one who extended your buddy a helping hand.
“Dolores Wadda.” He paused to give Pal time for the smartassery that emerged whenever Dolores’ name arose. Pal failed to oblige. Delbert soldiered on. “Said they were two-for-one at the market. They’re full ripe now, going bad soon. She thought they’d be good for jam.”
Lola had no idea how one made jam, and didn’t want to know. “Don’t they sell jam at the store?”
Delbert flashed a tooth or two. “Not like Pal’s mother made. You’ve never tasted anything like it. Bet Pal will show you how.”
Pal looked at Lola for the first time since their morning encounter, her own false brightness mirroring Lola’s. “I’d love to. It’s easy. I’ve got all of Mom’s old jars and lids. I’ll show you what to do and then get out of your way.”
First the chicken. Now, strawberries. Lola knew that plenty of people around the world transmogrified fruit into jam, and that they still slaughtered their own dinner before they cooked it. Lola had made the mistake of petting a goat one morning in the courtyard of a guesthouse in Kabul, only to glance out a window shortly before mealtime to see it on its back, all four hooves pointing skyward, as men with knives carved her lunch from the carcass. She wasn’t squeamish as to the source of her food. She just didn’t want to be the middleman when it came to preparation. Her nascent plans snapped into focus.
“That sounds like fun,” she said. To hell with you, Pal, said the smile that accompanied her words. “But we’re leaving first thing in the morning.”
“We are?” Margaret did not sound nearly as enthusiastic as Lola expected. “Why? Where are we going? Home? Jemalina’s coming, right?”
Where indeed, Lola thought. Back to Montana, to face Charlie’s anger and her own damnable ambivalence? She supposed she and Margaret could resume their vacation. The Tetons were only a few hours away. Rather than camping in the back of the truck, as they’d been doing, she could spring for a night in one of the lodges. She’d talk to Skiff on their way out of town, and work on the story in the comfort of the lodge. There. She had a plan, one that eliminated the strawberries from the equation. “We’ve taken up far too much of your time, already. Pal, you seem like you’re feeling better.”
Pal speared a slice of ham, swallowing it with obvious difficulty, and followed it with some cheese as though to underscore the tenuous fact of Lola’s statement. Delbert nodded his approval. Given that Pal had lied to her about so many things, Lola felt justified in floating a fib of her own. “When I started this trip, I made some reservations in advance. We’ve got a motel room in the Tetons for tomorrow night. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
Lola spent much of the drive into town the next day explaining to Margaret that continuing their vacation didn’t mean abandoning Jemalina. She steered with one hand, sliding the other beneath her thigh and crossing her fingers.
“We could pick her up on the way back,” Lola said, trusting that Margaret was still too young to realize that vast chasm that yawned between “could” and “will.” Not to mention that a trip back to the ranch from the Tetons would involve a monumental backtrack from the most direct route to Montana.
“Back from where?”
Lola explained. Again.
“What’s Tetons?”
Mountains that look like titties, was all Lola could think of. She cast about in her memory for images from guidebooks and postcards. “A place with moose. And bears. It’ll be fun.”
Bub threw himself down in disgust, sensitive as always to deceit in her voice. Margaret’s yawn echoed Bub’s in theatricality. Bear were so plentiful around Magpie that Lola had taught her the “stop, drop, and protect your head” routine for grizzlies as soon as she could walk.
“I don’t want to go on vacation. Vacation is boring,” Margaret said. “I want to stay with Pal and Delbert and Jemalina.”
Lola was in full agreement with Margaret’s assessment of vacation. But she failed to see the charm in a hardscrabble, snake-infested ranch populated by a surly young woman and a psychotic fowl. “We’re going on vacation,” she said, in a tone meant to brook no argument. She’d forgotten that Margaret invariably opted for bargaining over defiance.
“Is there ice cream?”
Lola cursed herself for having set an unfortunate precedent on the trip. But the thought clearly appealed to Margaret, in a way that nothing else about their departure did. And Lola had yet to see the tourist destination that lacked an ice cream stand. “Of course there is. Lots and lots.” It seemed to suffice. Lola knew her daughter at least as well as Margaret knew her mother. Quickly, before Margaret could speak again, she made clear that there would be no ice cream until they arrived at the Tetons; that they would not, no matter what, be paying a repeat visit to Thirty’s ice cream parlor. “You’ll have to make do with playing in the park again.”
She’d arranged to meet Skiff there, away from the prying ears of patrons in a café or, God forbid, another bar. He was waiting when they pulled up, a solitary broad-shouldered figure shooting and sinking baskets on the baking courts along the park’s west side. He posted a final lay-up and dribbled toward them. Lola’s truck was the only vehicle in the park’s lot, a fact that Lola noted aloud.
“My parents’ place is only a few blocks away,” he said. “I walked.”
“In this heat?” Lola spoke over her shoulder as she arranged Margaret’s toys and snacks on one of the tables in the shade, brushing away fallen cottonwood leaves so dry they crumbled at her touch.
Skiff dropped to one of the benches. “I’m still getting used to the fact that I can walk around in shorts and a T-shirt, without all of that body armor.”
“I hear you,” said Lola. It had taken her weeks after her return to feel comfortable with baring her arms and legs, to relax and enjoy the freedom of loose, light clothing. “Do you remember Skiff?” she asked Margaret.
“Hi, Spiff.”
“Skiff. Here.” Skiff bounced the ball toward Margaret. “That basket’s a little far away for you, but you can kick this around like a soccer ball. Let me show you how. You want to use the inside of your foot.”
The ball rolled toward Margaret. She stuck out her tongue in concentration and aimed a savage kick. The ball flew past Skiff.
“Gooooaaaalllllllllll!” He held up his arms. Margaret awarded him with a grin.
“Pretty good for a rookie,” he said. “But you’re going to want to practice. Try kicking it around in big circles. We’ll watch you. Looks like your dog wants to help.” He blotted his forehead on his sleeve. Damp patched his shirt. A metal water bottle sat on the picnic table. Ice clinked within as he drained it in two long, gurgling pulls. The cottonwoods creaked and rattled in the useless wind. A car crawled past, its elderly driver hunched over the wheel. A pickup revved impatiently behind it. Despite windows cranked closed to keep the air conditioning in, Lola heard the deep thump of a bass beat. Inside, kids in cowboy hats jerked their heads to the rhythm of rap. Someday, Lola supposed, she’d get used to that. Thunks sounded a backbeat as Margaret whacked the ball again and again with her right foot. “Try one foot and then the other,” Skiff called. He turned back
to Lola. “What’d you want to talk to me about? As if I couldn’t guess.”
The ball rolled to a stop against Lola’s leg. She picked it up and threw it toward the middle of the park. “Stay away from the street,” she told Margaret. She knotted her hands together before responding to Skiff.
“About what happened in Afghanistan.”
“I already told you.”
“No. About what really happened.”
She laid it all out, just as T-Squared had in the bar, the interminable hours in the village, the trek through the darkness after the vehicle broke down. The Talib hunt. The shepherd. Mike. She stopped.
Skiff’s face twisted. “Where’d you get this? You must have talked to Tommy and Tyson.”
Lola sliced the air with her hand. “I can’t reveal my sources.” Her automatic response, silly given that only three other people knew what had really happened. Still, Lola thought it was interesting he hadn’t assumed the information had come from Pal.
Skiff called Margaret to him. He patted his lap. She hopped onto it and he wrapped his arms around her. Lola tensed. He noticed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t hurt her. This little girl; big girl, I mean”—Margaret beamed up at him—“helps me remember the world isn’t all black darkness.” Margaret wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He released her. “Maybe,” he said, “if that poor shepherd had had a child with him, she’d have held off. Captured him instead of shot him.”
“Maybe the child would have gotten killed, too,” she said. “You can’t go there.” Even though she knew he would. He was going to spend the rest of his life on what-ifs, Lola thought. She had a few what-ifs of her own. “Nobody’s told me anything on the record,” she said.
“And I won’t, either,” he said. “Try to see it from where I sit.”
Lola could see it, and what she saw was that, as leader of the group, his ass was on the line. Which, to her surprise, he acknowledged.
“She may have shot him, but I’m the one responsible. No matter how safe the situation, there was no excuse for dropping discipline. If I’d kept everybody in line, Mike would be alive, and maybe Cody, too. And then there’s Pal. If this comes out, she’ll be court-martialed. We all will, for the thing happening in the first place, and for covering it up. But they’ll come down hardest on her. They’ll want to show that they’re not going soft on her because she’s a woman.”
“I don’t get it. Why protect someone everybody hates? Even you. You told me she was trouble. And you were right. She’s the one who caused this, and she’s the one who gets off scot-free.”
“You know why.” He looked at her a long time, all patience.
Lola shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Pal’s a pain in the ass, but she’s one of us. You know? I know that you do. You reporters are the same way. A tribe. You stick up for your own, no matter what.”
Lola thought of Ahmed, her fixer. He hadn’t been a reporter, but a translator. But he worked with the journalists every day, risking his own life alongside them. Lola had thought their bond was just as strong. That, had she seen danger heading Ahmed’s way, she’d have thrown herself in its path. And then Ahmed had tried to kill her, to kill them all. Had Ahmed survived, would Lola have protected him just as Skiff now stood up for Pal?
“I don’t know,” she said, as much to herself as to him.
“I do,” he said. “No question.”
Lola envied his certainty. Admired the fact that despite everything, he’d managed to hang on to it. Yet the ass-covering aspect nagged at her. She said as much.
“No question that I come out better by keeping it quiet. All of us do. But it’s not as though nobody’s been punished. Look at us. Two dead and two more fucked up. How long do you think it’ll be before those two idiots do something else that lands them in jail? They won’t get off so easy the next time. And Pal. I saw her that day at the parade. She was a mess. Do you really think she’s not paying for what she did?”
Sympathy tugged at Lola. She pulled back against it. “You’re doing okay,” she said before she could stop herself.
He looked away. When he turned back, his eyes were full of tears. He reminded Lola of Margaret, who cried on only the rarest occasions, managing each time to break her mother’s heart. Skiff, not yet twenty, had seen two friends die before his eyes and bore the weight of knowing it was at least partly his fault.
“Am I?” he said. “Do you think I’m doing okay?” He folded his arms on the table and put his head on them. His shoulders heaved. His muffled voice reached her. “Sorry. I never do this.”
Lola’s hand hovered over his shoulders. She had a rule when people cried during interviews. It happened. People who’d lost children or spouses, their jobs to the recession, their homes in some sort of natural disaster. Victims of war, of injustice, of damnable circumstance. She always gave them a few respectful moments to collect themselves before resuming her questions as though nothing had happened. That way, everybody kept his dignity. Skiff’s shoulders knotted with the effort of withholding his grief. Rusted sobs reached her. She let her hand fall on his back. Held it there. Gave it some pressure, steadying him the way she would a spooked horse.
“Take your time,” she said. “We’ve got all day.” Even though she didn’t. Margaret had tired of the ball. She would soon run out of patience.
Skiff raised his head. He rubbed his face on his sleeve, a ghost of his earlier motion when the moisture on his face had been the healthy sweat of play. “You won’t tell?” he said.
Lola’s hand fell away from his back. “It’s not a matter of won’t,” she said. “I can’t. Nobody’s said anything on the record.”
A smile wobbled at the edges of his lips. “That’s good, right? Not for you, I mean. But for us, that’s good.”
“You know what I think is good?” Lola said. “The truth. I know you think the way you’re handling this is best. And I get it. Truly, I do. You want to protect your men—and woman. That’s understandable. But in the long run, it never works. The truth always finds a way out, and the longer it takes, the worse the consequences.” How many times in her life had she given that little speech? Sometimes, it even worked. Not this time, though.
“Hand to God, if it were just me, I’d do it. Get this shit off my chest, and out in the open. Make up for what Pal did to that guy, and for what that guy did to Mike. Even though nothing will make up for it. But what do you think that would do to Mike’s grandfather? He and Pal are still close. What’ll he do if he finds out she got his grandson killed? I can’t do it. I just can’t.” He stuck out his hand. “No hard feelings?”
Lola remembered his previous handshake. She flexed her fingers and took it. As before, he stopped just short of breaking bones. “No hard feelings,” she lied.
He dropped her hand and tugged gently at one of Margaret’s braids. “Thanks for brightening my day. You’re going to make a heckuva soccer player.” He bent and picked up the basketball and tucked it under his arm and started to walk away. “Bye, Margaret.”
She lifted her hand. “Bye, Spiff.”
Lola watched her story walk away with Skiff. She wanted to call him back; make a final tearful plea. Even though she never cried, she reminded herself, as she rubbed the heel of her hand against the damning moisture in her eyes.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, Skiff stopped and turned. “Sorry I can’t help with your story,” he called to Lola.
“There is no story.” Lola spoke as much to herself as to Skiff. Saying it made it real as the pain that accompanied the words. She tried it again. “There is no story.” She wondered how many times she’d have to say it before the ache subsided. “There is no story,” she whispered. Pain, three; Lola Wicks, zip. It was going to take awhile.
“Mommy?” A warm hand found its way into hers. Bub nosed at her leg, nudging h
er toward the truck. “Now what, Mommy?”
Lola turned her face into the hot wind. Let it go, she told herself. The story was never part of the original plan. This was supposed to be her time with Margaret, but so far she’d done exactly what Charlie and Jan and everyone else who knew her well had feared. She’d been unable to let work go. Now it was time to—what did people in these parts like to say? Cowboy up.
The hurt still throbbed within when she looked down at Margaret, but her eyes were dry. “We’re going on vacation. And it’s going to be fun, dammit.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The Tetons, as Lola described them on her way out of town, were a mountain paradise. She owed Margaret that much, she thought, remembering her earlier and transparent lack of enthusiasm.
Margaret had seen moose in Glacier, but nothing like the profusion of moose that roamed the Tetons, Lola said. “Whole herds of them!” Did moose travel in herds? She was pretty sure they didn’t. “Whole families,” she amended. “But we have to be careful not to get close. The mommies get mad if people scare their babies, and a mommy moose is a whole lot of mad.”
“Like a mommy grizzly!”
“Close,” said Lola. She’d encountered her share of grizzlies, but always at a comfortable distance and never with cubs, a record she hoped to maintain. She’d heard the stories. “I don’t think anything in the world is as scary as a mommy grizzly.”