“Oh, right,” Dani said, trying to hide her surprise. Over the summer, she’d grown her hair into a short and twisted Afro, a modern version of what her mother’s had been like in the 1970s. No one in the civilian world would ever have guessed that six months ago she’d been on track to be an officer in the U.S. Army. The way Dani dressed, with her new leather jacket and big hoop earrings, made most people assume she was an artist or a poet, and she didn’t mind the mistake. She was impressed that Brad could cut through her appearance that quickly and see the truth. People saw what they wanted to see. She’d half-expected him to ask if she’d wandered into the service academy career fair by mistake.
“H-4,” Dani answered.
“I was class of ’66.” He looked away for a moment, then looked back. “I should probably keep my mouth shut. But I’ll say this. Perseverance. This whole transition thing can be a long road. Just keep on moving. Persevere.”
A sudden rush of emotion swelled in Dani’s throat. The constant pain in her pelvis, unaffected by the Advil she popped every few hours, didn’t help. Hot tears filled her eyes and she fought valiantly to keep them from falling on her cheeks. Her lack of emotional vulnerability had made her successful at West Point and it was going to help her to succeed in the business world, too. But somehow, this man, with a class ring that matched her own, had spoken to a part of her heart that needed to be touched.
Persevere. She knew he was right, but she didn’t want this to be a long road. She wanted a job. She wanted to feel that, like her friends’ lives, her life was actually going somewhere.
“Thank you,” she said, clearing her throat. “I appreciate that.”
After shaking his hand, Dani limped past the entrance and into the hotel ballroom. But before she was out of his line of sight, two other veterans approached Brad and received swag bags. One had a prosthetic right arm, while the other looked completely normal—uninjured, unmarred by the journey he had taken to get here. Compared to the amputee, who’d clearly given a limb for his country, Dani’s “disability” was a joke. The naked eye couldn’t see why the Army had given her a medical release, setting her free from the five-year service commitment cadets had to complete after West Point. The men at this career fair couldn’t understand how weird it felt to be here, in this ballroom, instead of preparing for war. Then again, Dani didn’t know why the man standing next to the amputee had gotten out of the Army either.
Some wounds are invisible. It doesn’t mean they’re not real.
The room was larger than she’d expected, with several dozen rows of six-foot tables. Music thumped from speakers in the front. A host of young veterans in brand-new suits wandered through the room like lost, overdressed children. An NBC news crew held court in the center of the room, where a blond reporter interviewed men about their service. She kept asking banal questions that showed just how little she understood about the military: What kind of job are you looking for today? Oh, and what exactly is civil engineering?
When Dani had learned she wasn’t going to receive a commission from the Army, Colonel Bennett had made several phone calls on her behalf, trying to help her scrounge together gainful employment. Surprisingly, his Rolodex didn’t only include other Army colonels. He’d called several business owners in New York, three congressmen, and even one Supreme Court justice. All of those leads had turned into dead ends. Jim Webb was her last shot.
Dani rarely felt this nervous. If Avery were here, she’d march up to every table with a smile and her natural sex appeal and have three job offers before noon, Dani knew. But thanks to an undisciplined summer, Dani had gained more than a few pounds, thickening her middle, where her six-pack abs used to be. Even if the Nordstrom employee had been right—even if her black pants and brown leather jacket produced a natural slimming effect—sex appeal wasn’t her strongest weapon anymore. And if her relationship with Locke was any indication, it probably never had been.
On the cruise they’d all taken through the Mediterranean that summer, Dani was convinced their relationship would finally cross into new territory. Tim and Hannah couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Avery was constantly flirting with the waitstaff, in particular a Syrian bartender named Ludo. Meanwhile, Dani and Locke continued their practiced dance, constantly stepping closer and stepping back. Days upon days of spreading suntan lotion over each other’s bodies had driven Dani nearly mad. And just when she thought that it was all in her head, the ship had docked in Florence and Locke had disappeared with his football buddies for a few hours, only to reappear holding a brown package wrapped in twine.
“Open it,” he’d said, with his signature gap-toothed grin.
Unwrapping the package, Dani found a saddle-colored leather jacket, supple and worn, just her size. She’d taken one look at the price tag and told him there was no way she could accept it, but he’d ignored her protests and placed it around her shoulders.
“Your new uniform,” he’d said. “Trust me. It’s perfect.”
That night, he’d found his way to her room, into her bed, next to her body. They’d interlocked fingers and fallen asleep. That was it. Four years. One leather jacket. And then, nothing.
“Not even a kiss?” Avery had asked at breakfast the next day.
Dani shook her head. “Nada.”
“Do you think he’s gay?” she’d whispered.
Dani had rolled her eyes in response, as if that were the dumbest question she’d ever heard—though the possibility had crossed her mind, too. In the years since she’d arrived at West Point, her little brother, Dominic, had come out of the closet—and Locke knew that she’d supported him. If Locke was gay, she was certain he would have told her by now. As it was, Avery couldn’t understand how two people could not fornicate when left alone.
“He’s not gay,” Dani had answered finally.
Her friend raised an eyebrow and took a bite of eggs. It was unspoken but understood that Avery should drop the subject, and she did. Over the years, Dani and Locke had had plenty of deep conversations—much deeper than the conversations Avery had probably had with her latest fling. Dani still held out hope that Locke would eventually realize the truth: they were best friends. And what else did you need in a soul mate than for them to be your best friend?
Standing to the side of the ballroom, she pulled a brand-new Motorola cell phone out of her purse and flipped it open. Her fingers flew fast across the Razr’s thin keypad, toggling through each number to get to the right letters. Phones needed to be equipped with keyboards, she thought. It would save so much time.
Made it to NYC, she wrote in a text to Locke. I’m the best dressed in this place. San Lorenzo 4 tha win!
Atta girl, he sent back in a flash. Tell New York hello for me. Just don’t go getting lost with the FDNY this time, K?
Dani chuckled, then replied: No promises.
PULLING A MAP from her neon sack, Dani quickly decoded the madness around her. E & G, the company she’d come to meet, was tucked between FedEx and a cable company on the opposite side of the ballroom. Google had a table on the far north side, Microsoft had set up to the south, and a host of Fortune 500 companies floated in between. There weren’t any creative companies here, Dani noted. No television studios or music labels. As if America’s veterans didn’t have stories to tell. Shaking off that thought, she stepped into the maze, walking between booths like she was avoiding dirty carnies.
“Good morning!” chirped a woman with slightly bouffant hair. “Enter our raffle for a Bluetooth?” She pointed to a roachlike clip on her ear. “They’re the next big thing.”
Dani respectfully declined, turned a corner, and spotted a booth filled with two leather couches facing one another on a Persian rug. All the other booths looked sterile and boring, but the scene ahead looked like it had been ripped from one of Hannah’s home decor magazines. An older man sat on the left couch, one leg crossed over the other. He wore round tortoiseshell glasses and a black half-zip sweater. A blue collar peeked out from benea
th the sweater and his salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed close on the sides—handsome, Dani thought. Lean, like he woke up every morning to run. Like a West Pointer. Dani wasn’t one to bet. But she would have put her life savings on the fact that this was the man she was supposed to meet. This was Jim Webb.
Suddenly, he stood from the couch and smiled in her direction. Dani limped forward and her heart began to pound.
“Now, I’ll be damned if you’re not Dani McNalley,” he said. He had a Southern accent and a warm handshake, broken only by the cold platinum mass of his West Point class ring.
“Damnation avoided, sir,” Dani said.
Jim Webb laughed out loud.
“Here, Dani,” Jim said, “there’s someone I want you to meet. Laura Klein, this is the kid I was telling you about. Dani McNalley.”
Suddenly, a woman with short blond hair and a tight black dress appeared in front of her, fingering a pearl necklace and smiling, like she’d just been told some hilarious joke. Wrinkles fanned out from the sides of her eyes like spiderwebs. Red polish shined brightly on her fingernails.
“Oh, you’re Dani,” Laura said with an air of laughter. Her words were elevated by an aristocratic British accent. “I was expecting a man! You know. D-a-n-n-y,” she spelled. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like you went to West Point.”
“I don’t usually bring my guns to interviews,” Dani said. Laura Klein stared back blankly—apparently the British didn’t follow American sarcasm. “I’m kidding. They took the guns away.”
“What’d I tell you?” Jim said, addressing his colleague. “She’s quick.”
With a confused chuckle, Laura took a seat on one of the sofas.
“When did they start letting in your kind, Dani?” Jim asked.
Dani clenched her teeth to keep her jaw from dropping open. Her kind? “West Point admitted females in 1976, sir,” she replied evenly. “Its first African-American in 1870.”
“Well aren’t you the double threat?” Laura remarked, taking a sip from her Evian water bottle.
“Triple,” Dani said. “I’m also handicapped.”
Jim laughed again. “Mark said I’d like you. Here, take a seat!”
Dani smiled and tried to hit her internal reset button. Jim Webb had made some strange comments—so had Laura—but Dani had heard worse. One awkward moment shouldn’t ruin her chances at a great job opportunity.
“About that handicap. Now that you’ve brought it up,” Jim continued, “I can legally ask. You just graduated this spring, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So why aren’t you out there fighting the Taliban?”
He said it like a Southerner—Tally-ban. As if they were an Afghan tribe that prohibited taking a count of anything. But it was a valid question. One that divided people into two clear groups: the people who genuinely cared about Dani’s condition, and the people who secretly thought she’d invented an ailment to avoid the war. She couldn’t tell which camp Jim fell into, but if nothing else, she appreciated his candor.
For a moment, she wondered how much of the story she should tell. Should she start at Beast, when she felt a twinge in her hip while trying to qualify with her rifle? Or fast-forward to Buckner, when her hip had snapped brutally while she carried Locke uphill? Should she recount the surgery? Or the moment the doctor had presented an X-ray showing the ligaments in her pelvis frayed like rope, white and fuzzy against the light? She could tell him she’d led the women’s basketball team to a winning season her junior year—scoring more points than any female player in academy history. But that was a rabbit trail. Most important was the crack she’d heard while leading plebes on the thirteen-mile ruck march back to campus from basic training, when she was a Firstie. Once again, the X-ray blurred white, telling her everything she needed to know. Another surgery. Another round of rehab. Wendy sat next to Dani in April of her senior year, eight weeks before graduation, when a look of dismay appeared on her doctor’s face. He shook his head, presented Dani with a form. Medical Release.
It was the longest story she’d ever lived, but the shortest way to tell it was to speak the truth.
“I’d always had aches and pains while at West Point. But, as you can imagine, I thought that came with the territory. I was running sprints and lifting weights with the basketball team. I did all the rucks. All the training. I had a few back spasms, here and there. But my health devolved.
“The doctors kept thinking I was tearing ligaments. There were surgeries. Two actually, one my sophomore year, and one my senior year. I thought I’d recover in time for graduation, but after that second surgery, I ended up getting a second opinion, and the civilian doctor said I shouldn’t have had the surgeries in the first place. It was never a torn ligament—it was chronic arthritis.”
“Arthritis? Isn’t that something grannies have?” Laura Klein asked.
“Grannies and me,” Dani said with more kindness than this Klein lady deserved. “The long and short of it is, I probably should never have been admitted to West Point. After that, my fate was sealed. I appealed it. But there was no way I was going to receive a commission. I was medically discharged the day after graduation.”
“Well.” Jim sighed. “That’s quite a story. Although, you may have dodged a bullet. I’m not sure women should really be on the front lines anyway.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure there are ‘front lines’ anymore, sir,” said Dani.
“True enough. The good news is, in the corporate world, women have been my best assets. In my experience, women have more integrity. They’re better listeners. Better multitaskers. Women don’t let their ego drive decisions. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I think I do,” said Dani.
Laura smiled, looking content with Jim’s shower of compliments on their gender.
“A man earns a little money,” Jim continued, “he makes a few good decisions, and he kicks back, thinks he’s infallible. Like it’s going to come easy. When a woman gets some success, it’s never enough. She’s already looking for the next challenge. All I’m saying is if I see two equally qualified people, I’d choose the woman every time.”
Dani nodded. In some ways she agreed with him. She’d seen more than enough male ego at West Point to last her a lifetime. And sure enough, she was hungry for the next challenge. If her time at West Point had taught her anything, it was that she wanted to do something with her life that mattered.
“Your credentials are quite impressive,” Laura said, picking up where Jim had left off. She looked down her narrow nose at a piece of paper Dani assumed was her résumé. “NCAA athlete, ranked in the top fifteen percent of your class. Somehow, you maintained high physical performance scores despite your condition, so I know you have a high pain tolerance. That counts in this profession, believe it or not. You have to have thick skin.”
Laura paused, and in that moment, Dani assessed that everything she said seemed rehearsed, like she was playing a part for Jim’s benefit. The smart, authoritative businesswoman. Dani wanted to reach over and tell her it was okay to take off the mask. To relax and be herself. Instead, she just listened to Laura’s tight intonation and overconfident up-speak.
“I just want to make sure you have the math brain for what we’ll be asking you to do here,” Laura continued. “It’s research. Statistics, data mining. Dry stuff.”
The news stories Dani had scanned the night before had informed her that E & G was trying to land a five-hundred-million-dollar client, a men’s product line based in France called Gelhomme. She’d already read the job description online, and every line she’d checked off in her mind—she had exactly what they needed.
“Behavioral psychology isn’t dry to me. And, at the risk of sounding overconfident, I’m light-years ahead of any other applicant in terms of understanding the male psyche, simply because of my time at West Point. Honestly, if you want to get Gelhomme’s business, you’re going to need me.”
After a long pause, Ji
m said, “You understand it will require you to watch men shower?”
“Well, they’ll have on trousers,” Laura said, to clarify. “Swim trousers.”
“Of course,” Dani added. “That doesn’t bother me. The trousers or the showers.” Just wait until Avery heard her job description. The research would have its perks.
Jim grabbed his chin and looked her straight in the eye. “You’ll be based out of Boston,” he said, suddenly shifting the tone of his voice. “It’s going to require sixty, maybe seventy hours a week. And travel—a hundred global interviews in the first ninety days.”
“I understand,” Dani explained. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“All right,” he said. “Well in that case, welcome to the team.”
WITHIN THE NEXT half hour, Dani had signed a contract. There was a hefty signing bonus, and somehow, the sight of those zeroes helped Dani breathe a little easier. Earlier in the day, she’d refused to hail a taxi, simply to save a few bucks. But now, exiting the hotel lobby onto the muggy streets of Manhattan, Dani smiled broadly, stepped to the curb, and raised her arm into the air.
“Taxi!”
From: Dani McNalley
Subject: Re: Update
Date: September 1, 2004 17:56:41 PM GMT +01:00
To: Avery Adams
GUESS WHAT?!
I got a JOB!!! Finally. Everyone exhale!
Now get this. I’m moving to Boston. Who’s coming to visit? We can go to Martha’s Vineyard, or whatever yuppie people do around here. I’m so stoked.
PRAISE JESUS, I’m not homeless anymore!
Now . . . you girls give me an update! Are you both feeling settled at Fort Bragg? Still don’t know how you managed to get stationed at the same Army post. I’d be happy for you two if I weren’t so jealous.
Much Love to the Cult:)
Dani
14
Spring 2005 // Fort Bragg, North Carolina
A wire snapped, shooting sparks into the air.
Beyond the Point Page 17