Beyond the Point

by Claire Gibson

  At the reception, Locke’s saber sliced through the first layer of a three-tiered cake. Twinkle lights hung around the white reception tent, millions of little gold orbs. And while Amanda swayed with her ring bearer on the dance floor, Locke pulled Dani in for a hug near the open bar. For a moment, Dani thought he might ask her to waltz, like they’d learned to do so many years ago. But then, in a pang of deep sadness, she realized those days were over.

  “You got a little emotional up there, McNalley,” he said, pinching her elbow.

  Dani took a breath and held it, wondering if it was too late. What would it matter now if she told the truth? What would it change?

  “Of course I did,” she said, turning her eyes to meet his.

  They stared at one another, and in that moment, Dani saw recognition. A slight nod of his head. A longing in his eyes and hers that spoke clearly, even as they said nothing at all. I thought it would be you, her eyes told him. And he squeezed her hand. I did too, he didn’t say. Dani looked down, satisfied that it was over.

  She sighed. “You better get out there.” Amanda was waving him toward the dance floor as the band struck up the next song.

  Later, Dani stood underneath that white reception tent, among the twinkle lights and candles, watching. With every turn of Amanda’s gown, the life Dani had written for herself unraveled. The person she thought she would marry had married someone else. The friendships she thought would survive anything now felt as thin as smoke. The future, once a destination, had become a cloud of confusion. Nothing was clear. Nothing was certain. And yet, she’d still put on that dress. That was something. And when the song changed and Amanda reached her open arms toward Dani, she still found the power within her to dance.

  “DO YOU HAVE anything a bit more feminine?”

  A week after Locke’s wedding, Dani stood in the dressing room at her favorite store in London, inspecting her reflection in the mirror. The retail associate waiting outside the velvet dressing room curtain was a slender brunette with blunt bangs and thick-rimmed glasses. She looked young, Dani thought—younger than Dani, which felt strange, since she still felt like she’d only just graduated from college. Could there actually be people working in the world that had graduated from college after her? Nonsense.

  “Have you seen the new gray lot we got in?” the girl asked, her accent posh and British. “It just arrived this week. I’ll grab one. You’re a U.K. size twelve, right?”

  Dani hated to think she shopped here so often that this woman knew her size.

  “Right. Bring a ten too, just in case.” That was the other resolution Dani had made, after eating a Nutella crepe that morning at the market. She needed to get back to clean eating like the doctors told her to, to keep her arthritis from flaring. And she needed to join a gym. It was time to revive the athlete inside. It was a thin plan, full of vanity, she knew. But sometimes, when the future looks foggy, you have to draw your own map.

  An hour later, Dani left AllSaints with a slate-colored leather jacket that draped open in the front. No zippers. No buckles. Just the perfect cut in the perfect color, with all the promise she’d desired. As she made her way back to her apartment, the sun teased London, dropping little specks of gold onto the ground. It was the perfect temperature for an afternoon coffee—decaf, of course. After the wedding, she’d been following doctor’s orders—but before she could duck into the coffee shop on the corner, Dani heard a familiar sound.

  They say sound and smell are the senses that connect most to our memory. The hollow bounce was like a laugh, a clarion call from the past. So full of meaning and regret and nostalgia and promise. She felt transported in her spirit to her driveway as a kid, then to the gym at West Point. The game she’d so wanted to leave behind, she couldn’t fully abandon. It was knitted into her skin, into her senses. The sound made her heart beat faster.

  A chain-link fence encircled a court to her right. The five-on-five pickup game looked like it had been raging for quite a while, based on the amount of sweat that had gathered on the boys’ faces. They looked to be teenagers—thirteen or fourteen, Dani guessed. There was one black kid among the white boys, all equally lost in the game. They shouted and shuffled, playing shirts against skins, as the boy with the curly hair dribbled, shoulder down, and pushed into his defender. The defender fell and the game stopped. No ref blew a whistle. No one yelled or started cursing. The offending player offered his hand, and the defender stood up and took the ball to start the game again.

  Mesmerized by their ungraceful steps, botched passes, and poor shots, Dani had to keep herself from laughing out loud. They were terrible. But they didn’t care. They kept right on playing. Dani wondered if they were even keeping score. She wondered if the score even mattered.

  Her senior year, after the second surgery, Dani had planted herself on the sidelines, leaning on her crutches, forced into silence. Two plebes had quit midseason, and after they lost four games in a row, West Point’s athletic director had called Coach Jankovich into his office. Avery reported that she’d seen the coach walking in, wringing her hands. But when the season ended and Jankovich still hadn’t been fired, Dani, Hannah, and Avery had started scheming. They couldn’t leave West Point without telling someone the truth.

  “You gotta pump a fake!” Dani shouted instinctively after one of the kids on the skins team threw up another blocked shot.

  The game stopped. All ten kids turned to look at the woman behind the gate. The black kid put his hands on his hips and laughed, lighting up the court with his smile. He reminded Dani of Locke, all confidence and swagger.

  “Oh yeah?” the kid shouted, his smart British accent calling out across the court. “Care to demonstrate?”

  The boys all groaned, using the spontaneous break to grab water and wipe their faces on their oversized shirts. Taking the dare, Dani walked around the chain-link fence and dropped her shopping bag by the entrance.

  “Oh rubbish!” one boy shouted, shocked. “She’s going to play!”

  “What?” Dani laughed. “You don’t think I can hack it?”

  “American! Go figure. Cheeky bastards,” someone shouted.

  “Here.” The boy passed her the ball. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Dani bounced the ball a few times, just to appreciate the sensation. It had been nearly two years since she’d touched the leathery plastic of a basketball. The tiny bumps massaged her hand as it fell to the court and bounced back to her palm. Knowing she was showing off, but without a care, Dani picked up the ball and spun it on one finger.

  “Okay, okay,” the kid answered. “But can you shoot?”

  With that, Dani took off, dribbling first to the left and then to the right, unaware of the pain in her hip. Her opponent matched her steps, lifting his arms up and mimicking her every move. Dani took a step back to the three-point line and pretended to shoot. In that moment, the boy lurched up and toward her with one hand high in the sky, and as he landed on the ground, Dani took her shot, the ball soaring from her fingertips straight through the net.

  Swoosh.

  “OHHHHHH!”

  “DAMN! SHE SCHOOLED YOU!”

  Dani spent the next hour teaching them things she’d nearly forgotten she knew. A set of streetlights went on. The sun fell, spilling cans of purple and red paint across the sky. She lost all sense of time, just like a little kid. On the court, something changed in her, like a key had been placed into a lock. The boys looked at her to learn. There was no ego. No disdain that they were hearing from a woman. Just the honest hope that they would improve their game. Respect and gratitude appeared in their eyes. And it didn’t matter that Dani’s body ached.

  Her soul soared.

  23

  Fall 2006 // Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  The first Sunday in November, Noah left for a monthlong deployment to an unknown destination. Saturday, he’d packed his rucksack, thrown the rest of his gear into his car, and told Avery not to worry. Like usual, he’d kissed her goodbye in t
he middle of the night, and then he was gone.

  In the morning, she found an empty water glass, an open jar of peanut butter, and a plate full of crumbs on the kitchen counter—remnants of Noah’s midnight snack. She put the peanut butter jar away, wiped the counters of the trail of ants that had invaded, and then stared out the kitchen window onto the street outside. Throughout the neighborhood, fathers with military haircuts were mowing their grass. Pairs of mothers pushed strollers down the road and waved with gloved hands. Yellow ribbons wrapped around trees where wives sat alone inside, wrangling children without the aid of their husbands. The Nesmiths’ house was all dark, with two blue-star flags hung side by side in the front window. At the beginning of October, Tim had arrived at Avery’s door with a spare key to their house and a zip-lock bag full of morning glory muffins.

  “Since when did you become Betty Crocker?” Avery had said, receiving the bag from his hand.

  “Just cleaning out the freezer,” he’d said. “Thought you might enjoy a snack. Microwave them in the morning, thirty seconds.”

  “You all packed up?”

  “Yep,” he’d said, rocking back on his heels. “Tomorrow.”

  “You ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  A moment passed between them, and Avery considered inviting him inside, but before she could, Tim clapped his hands together and smiled. “Guess that’s it.”

  Avery reached for him and hugged him hard, if not for herself, then for Hannah.

  “Geez, Adams,” Tim had said with a laugh. “It’s not like I have cancer.”

  “Just be safe,” she’d replied.

  “Will do.” He’d offered a small salute. “Hey. When Hannah gets back—watch out for her, all right? I think when she gets home, it’ll be harder than when she’s over there.”

  “I will.” Even as she made the promise, Avery wondered if she could keep it, or if Hannah would care.

  Then he’d walked back to his house, three doors down.

  OPENING THE GATE to her neighbor’s backyard across the street, Avery found the dog leash underneath the grill. She and Eric Jenkins had struck a deal—Avery would take his dog, Bosco, on long runs, and in exchange, he shoveled her driveway in the winter and mowed her lawn during the summer. It was a good deal because Bosco helped Avery feel safe when she ran alone in the woods. But unfortunately, Eric’s wife had a permanent scowl on her face every time she saw Avery leashing up their dog in the backyard, as if Avery were purposefully trying to point out that she was out of shape. Michelle was out of shape. But Avery wasn’t trying to rub it in.

  Seeing her, in the kitchen window, Avery gave a little wave and a false smile.

  Bitch.

  The word came into Avery’s head before she could stop it. When had she become so hard? Had she always been that bitter? Who cared if Michelle stared at her and Noah, judging them, when he left in the mornings? Who cared if she hadn’t once invited Avery to any of their barbecues that they had in their backyard? She still shouldn’t call the woman a bitch.

  At that moment, Michelle opened the back door and smiled at Avery.

  “You sure you want to take him?” she asked kindly, bobbing a baby on her hip. When did she have that baby? “I know he’s a lot to handle.”

  Just then, a black Labrador came barreling out of the house. He darted around Michelle’s legs, through the yard, and jumped straight at Avery’s knees.

  “Whoa, Bosco! You want to go running?” Avery looked back at Michelle. “No, it’s fine. Really.”

  “Eric and I are heading to Oklahoma next week for Thanksgiving,” Michelle said happily. “We leave Tuesday.”

  “Oh great,” Avery said. “To see your family?”

  Michelle gave a slight shake of the head. “Eric’s.” She stepped outside and looked at the sky, as if to assess the day’s temperate weather for the first time. “I wish I liked running. I’ve never understood it. It’s like . . . what are you running from?”

  “Yeah,” Avery said. She felt so tired of holding up the neighborly charade. “Well, I’ll bring him back soon. Maybe in an hour?”

  Michelle raised her eyebrows like she’d never heard something so insane. “Knock yourself out,” she said with a laugh, then looked at the baby. “We’ll be here.”

  The dog panted, stretched, and flipped his black tail back and forth with force. Avery felt a surge of gratitude toward the dog—At least you want to hang out with me, she thought, staring at his happy brown eyes. There it was again. That little, bitter voice. The only thing she could do to shut it up was to run. And so, turning out their gate, she ran.

  THE TRAIL WAS eight miles long, hidden by the woods. The entrance, an inconspicuous path marked only by a small wooden post, was Avery’s confidential cardio treasure. It weaved an oblong loop and passed over a creek twice, ascending and descending gradually across varied terrain. There were roots to dodge, rocks to kick, and spiderwebs to pull off her face along the way.

  Avery pushed herself faster than she’d ever run before. Off his leash, Bosco sniffed grass, marked his territory, and trotted far ahead, a black spot among the rotting brown leaves on the ground. Avery breathed in perfect rhythm—inhale, four steps; exhale, four steps. Her hair collected sweat and her legs turned over, warm on the inside even as a cold breeze passed over her thighs. This was perfect running weather—cool enough to keep her going for hours. And at least when she was running, she was supposed to be alone.

  As she ran, she did the math. She and Noah had been together more than a year now—several months longer than Avery’s longest relationship, and that was back in high school. But the truth was, Noah had become like a ghost, coming in and out of her life as he wanted, never giving much explanation for where he was going, how long he’d be gone, or why he couldn’t answer his phone. When his job took him away, it was like he didn’t even exist. Avery didn’t want to be demanding—she couldn’t imagine stooping to the level of a girl who stamped her foot and asked for a ring. But some kind of assurance that their relationship was moving forward would have been nice. It didn’t even have to be moving forward! Just moving . . . somewhere.

  Instead, Noah left her alone in her kitchen to watch her neighbor’s children grow up before her eyes. Dani was living in London and gallivanting all around Europe on the weekends. While Avery was sure deployment sucked at times, at least Hannah had a chance to put her training to work. And what about Avery? She had a shadow boyfriend, a messy house, and not much to show for her two years out of college, other than a few pieces of furniture she’d bought at IKEA.

  Then there was the letter. Ever since she’d received notice from West Point that John Collins had been paroled, nothing had felt right. The first thing she should have done was call Dani and Hannah. But that night, sitting on the guest bed in her parents’ house, she couldn’t bring herself to pick up the phone. It was the middle of the night in London, and Hannah was tucked away in some far corner of Afghanistan, unreachable. It had been a year since they’d been together at Dani’s apartment in Boston for Thanksgiving, and even then, they’d seemed so suspicious of her new boyfriend. She couldn’t call them with the news about John Collins or her worries about Noah. She didn’t want to hear I told you so.

  As she ran, Avery tried to untangle the web of her own shame. Who was she to feel bad about her life, when Dani had just watched the person she loved most tie the knot with someone else? And Hannah—she wouldn’t see Tim for another year. Compared to them, Avery had no right to feel anything but fine.

  At that moment and without warning, Bosco halted in the middle of the trail. Stumbling over his body, an eighty-pound obstacle, Avery caught herself, her hands planted in a puddle of fresh mud.

  “Bosco!” she cried. “What the . . .”

  Standing up, Avery brushed her soiled hands across her pants, leaving trails of dirt behind. The dog crept into the woods next to the trail, sniffing at something in earnest. Stepping closer, Avery caught her breath and peered into th
e pile of leaves. A small rabbit lay on its side, its brown pelt punctured in two places at the neck. A small trickle of red blood seeped from its mouth. Bosco pushed it with one careless paw.

  “Hey, leave it,” she ordered. Bosco whined, then stepped away.

  The rabbit’s mouth opened and closed once.

  Avery crouched closer. It was still alive—barely. Its eyes were open wide, as though it was experiencing terror in its last moments. The woods were very quiet now, her loud thoughts halted by death. And for a moment, Avery felt scared and alone.

  “Leave it, Bosco,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The dog bolted up the trail. Then, with a sigh, she started running again.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, a pot of water boiled on her kitchen stove, jumping in eager anticipation for the box of fettuccine sitting on her counter. She’d recorded Thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy, and the episode opened with Derek and Meredith making out in a bathtub, which, Avery knew, was one of the most uncomfortable things a couple could do. She and Noah had tried once, with some success, but at times, she wished television shows would include the actual awkward moments in a relationship: the moment you realize you can’t step out of the tub without his seeing you from all the wrong angles; the strange, uncomfortable clean-up that happens after the main event. Sex wasn’t nearly as seamless as television led everyone to believe. But with Noah, it came close.

  Whenever he arrived at her house, he could barely drop his bags by the door before filling his hands with her breasts, her hips. He looked at her like he wanted to devour her—and his hunger made Avery feel sexy and powerful and in control, even as the voice in the recesses of her spirit warned that he was taking rather than giving. Whenever he prepared to leave again, he’d grow agitated and uncomfortable, like he was sitting on pins. He blamed his anxiety on the impending deployment—and Avery would try to rub his shoulders, but eventually he’d push her off. After his last trip, Avery had found a pile of Pakistani rupees on the nightstand next to a receipt for two foot-long Subway sandwiches that he’d purchased at Fort Bragg. Looking at the date on the receipt, Avery’s eyes had narrowed. October 12. How could he have purchased two turkey club sandwiches at the Fort Bragg post exchange if he was supposedly in Pakistan? And why did he need two? Avery had willed her eyes away from the receipt, refusing to follow those questions to the root. Surely there was an explanation.