Falling Again in El Salvador

by Julie Danvers

  She frowned and swiped on her screen. The latest match had proved himself tasteless on the first message. Delete.

  In the last month Ivy had become a bit of a master of these apps. She was looking for someone to date—not a five-minute fling or hook-up. She said so in all three of her profiles, but that didn’t stop a few guys with other things on their minds sending her messages. She deleted them all quickly.

  Another message buzzed onto her screen.

  Hi Ali, hope you’re doing well. Which city are you in currently? R x

  She smiled and shifted on her sofa as Ruff gave a low growl at the disturbance. Rob. He was one of the few potential bright sparks on the horizon. They’d exchanged first general, then a few flirty texts for the last two months. Although they were both based in San Diego, both of them had careers that made it difficult to coordinate. Twice they’d planned a date, and twice they’d had to rearrange. Rob was an international banker and frequently flew across the US and to other countries for business. Ali, her alter ego on this app, was a specialist insurance agent who could be gone for weeks at a time.

  Of course it wasn’t true, but she was reluctant to reveal her true name or her true job until she’d got to know someone a little better. She wanted to be honest about being away a lot, so having an alternative job where she could be out of the picture for weeks at a time was handy.

  She’d been texting three separate men for a few weeks now. But Rob was definitely the one who interested her most. He seemed down to earth. Fun. Cheeky and a little flirty.

  Her fingers moved to answer.

  Hi Rob, I’m home right now. Have been for the last three weeks. How about you? A x

  She couldn’t pretend that her stomach didn’t give a little flip-flop.

  Just landed. How about we try and finally have that date?

  Ruff gave a yelp as Ivy sat upright, sending Ruff spilling from her lap. She glanced at her watch. It was late—but not too late.

  Her fingers paused above the screen. If she answered straight away, would she seem too keen?

  She stood up and walked through to her bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe doors. What to wear if she said yes? Ruff nuzzled into her legs, as if trying to remind her that she should be paying attention to him. ‘Sorry, boy,’ she said, biting her bottom lip as she scanned the contents of her wardrobe while trying to decide if she should answer or not.

  She pulled out some jeans and a black strappy top with some scattered sequins across it.

  Her phone gave another buzz and she smiled. He was waiting for her answer.

  Well...?

  Sure. Let’s meet somewhere for a drink.

  She definitely couldn’t pretend her stomach was feeling normal. Ivy sighed as she caught sight of her appearance. Her hair was currently tied in an unruly knot on top of her head. It was clean. Just not styled in any way, shape or form. She pulled it loose and shook it out, flicking the switch at the wall for her straightening iron.

  Her phone buzzed and she almost leapt on it. Rob had named a popular wine bar set right on the bay. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from where she stayed. As she was staring at the message on the app her phone started to ring.

  Her friend Liz. She pressed the screen to chat as she started to get dressed.

  ‘Hey, girl, what you doing?’ asked Liz.

  ‘I’m getting ready for a date,’ replied Ivy as she tugged on her jeans.

  ‘You’re what!’ squealed Liz.

  Ivy grinned. She knew the response would get this kind of reaction. ‘That guy I’ve been messaging.’

  ‘Which one?’ cut in Liz. ‘I can’t keep up.’

  ‘Rob.’

  ‘Ah...’

  Ivy was changing her bra. ‘What does that mean?’ She turned and faced her phone as if Liz was actually in the room.

  ‘He’s the one you actually liked, isn’t he?’

  ‘He could be,’ answered Ivy as she pulled the strappy top over her head.

  ‘Didn’t he cancel on you?’ came the voice.

  ‘Yeah, he did,’ said Ivy, as she pulled a face at the memory. ‘But I had cancelled on him first.’

  ‘So this time it’s for real?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Ivy was standing in front of the mirror, wondering if she’d made the right choice. ‘Hold on,’ she said, picking up her phone and snapping a selfie before sending it to Liz. ‘What do you think? What does it say?’

  She stared at her reflection critically, all the while wondering if she could actually pull her hair into some kind of shape before she had to leave.

  Liz paused at the other end of the phone. ‘It’s good,’ she said finally. ‘It’s “Look what I can throw on and look spectacular in”. But please tell me you’re going to do something with your hair.’

  Ivy laughed as she tugged a comb through her blonde tangles, which objected to being tamed.

  ‘What can I ever do with this hair?’ she asked.

  ‘Let your natural curls take over,’ said Liz promptly. ‘It only gets in that state when you’ve been straightening it too much.’ There was a loud sniff through the phone. ‘In fact, I can tell, I can smell the burning. You’ve switched them on already. Put them off. Spritz your hair with some water and get your diffuser out instead. Anyway, where are you meeting this guy? Somewhere central? Somewhere safe?’

  Ivy smiled—knowing that if the shoe were on the other foot she’d be saying exactly the same things. Trust Liz. ‘We’re going to Gino’s in Old Town,’ she replied.

  ‘Hmm, nice,’ said Liz. ‘Central enough, with some cosy booths and good wine. Does he know the place?’

  ‘I take it he must,’ said Ivy as she dotted some foundation on her face. ‘He’s from San Diego, but I’m not sure where he lives.’

  ‘You haven’t told him where you live, have you?’ said Liz immediately, her tone wary.

  ‘Of course not.’ Ivy laughed. ‘I’m feeling kind of bad. He doesn’t even know my real name, or what I do yet.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Liz quickly. ‘Make sure you’re at least ten minutes late,’ she added. ‘That way you’ll have time to scan the bar and make sure he’s not actually one of your workmates.’

  Ivy shuddered as she applied some eye make-up. ‘Don’t even say that. Not even funny. We’ve got a whole bunch of new marines who think they are fantastic. Please don’t let it be one of them. That would be a disaster.’

  She shook her head as she took out her mascara. ‘No, I think Rob is who he says he is.’

  ‘Have you done an internet search on him?’

  Her hand froze. Of course she had. But she hadn’t found him.

  The silence gave way to a shriek from Liz that sent Ruff jumping in the air in fright.

  ‘You have, haven’t you? Ooh, you didn’t find anything, did you? Well, that’s weird, isn’t it? Because if he’s really an international banker he has to have an online presence somewhere, doesn’t he?’ There was another minuscule pause. ‘Hey, want me to come along? Just in case he’s not what you think?’ Caution laced her words.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ said Ivy softly, as she took a few steps and bent down to pet Ruff. ‘Didn’t mean you to get a scare.’ She rubbed both sides of his face as he scowled at her.

  A tiny part of the shine about this date was starting to wear off as worry threaded its way through her head. Maybe she should be more cautious?

  ‘Ivy? You still there?’

  She gave Ruff another pat. ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she said as she stood up again and caught sight of her hair. Her hand went automatically to the straightening wand and she made a few half-hearted attempts to pull it through her stubborn natural curls.

  She was watching her reflection in the mirror the whole time, but her eyes caught sight of the clock on the wall behind her. ‘Darn it, I’ll need to run. There’s a trolle
y in a few minutes.’

  ‘You’re getting the Old Town trolley?’

  Ivy nodded as she gave up on her hair. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Tourists,’ said Liz with a shudder.

  ‘I like the tourists. Plus, I always get a discount. And Elvis is usually on this shift,’ she said. The green and orange Old Town trolleys covered a twenty-five-mile loop of the city.

  Elvis was one of her favourite trolley drivers. A little eccentric, he dressed as Elvis every day while working, sometimes doing a little singalong while telling the tourists about the history of the city.

  She grabbed her phone and her bag. ‘Okay, wish me luck. I’d better go.’

  ‘Message me,’ said Liz quickly. ‘And leave immediately if you think he’s a creep.’

  Ivy laughed. ‘Liz, I’m not fifteen, and I can take care of myself.’

  Liz sighed. ‘I know you can, but I feel obliged to say it. Have fun!’

  Ruff followed her to the door, looking hopeful. She leaned down and gave him a big hug. ‘Sorry, honey.’ She rubbed his coat. Truth was, she was going to miss him when she had to hand him back tomorrow, but having a dog on a permanent basis with a job like hers just wasn’t on. She looked into his big brown eyes. ‘Some family is just going to love you to pieces,’ she said as she blinked back a stray tear and stood up again. Ruff realised at this point that she wasn’t actually taking him for a walk, shot her a look of disgust and trotted off to a corner.

  Ivy took a deep breath, slid her feet into a pair of gold flats, glanced at her watch and bolted out the door.

  * * *

  What had he done? Travis King shook his head as he strode along the street to Gino’s. It was only a ten-minute walk from his apartment, and the Old Town was busy as usual. It didn’t matter what night of the week it was, this part of San Diego always had a buzz in the air and jostling crowds.

  He’d been flirting on and off with this particular woman for the last few weeks on the app. They’d almost met, and he still felt bad about letting her down at the last minute when he’d been called away to duty. He’d almost been tempted to tell her what his real job was, rather than the description he used online at the moment of ‘international banker’. That was his brother’s job, so it had been easy to pick up a few tips.

  His apartment had had that odd, unused odour when he’d opened the door half an hour earlier, so he’d thrown open the glass doors to his wide balcony and left them open. He’d bought the apartment a few years back, thinking he was going to be more or less permanently based in San Diego. But he’d barely signed the deal when he’d been shipped off—first to Chicago, then Washington, then Hawaii. The life of a navy surgeon was never quiet.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. On my way. He smiled. Finally. He might actually get to meet the elusive Ali, the insurance agent who seemed to jet about almost as much as he did.

  He tapped his fingers on his phone, a nervous habit, and quickly shoved it back in the pocket of his jeans. It wasn’t that he was anxious about the date. Of course not. He’d been on enough dates in his life to write a dating guide—some good, some bad. In his teenage years there had been the girl who’d stayed at the end of his street and after two dates had camped out in his backyard—much to the amusement of his three sisters. Then there had been the girl who’d also been dating three of his other friends. At med school he’d met a girl at a local restaurant and gone to meet her just in time for the cops to show up and arrest her for shoplifting.

  Finally, there had been all the ‘friends’ his three sisters had set him up with, each one nice, but just not for him. It seemed to be their mission to find him a girl. In all this, his brother was no help whatsoever. Mr International Banker had married his high school sweetheart years before and had the perfect wife and two kids.

  The dating app made things easy. It was a perfect cover. Since his deployment four years ago to a war zone, followed by a catastrophic fire in a hotel he was staying in, his nights had been full of nightmares, reliving one experience or the other. Sometimes the nightmares faded and settled for a while, only to rear their heads again when he wasn’t expecting them. He had no real knowledge of what triggered them. All he knew was that he hadn’t had a serious girlfriend in the last four years. No relationships. No overnight stays. He didn’t want to share his horror with anyone else.

  His last real girlfriend had stayed in Hawaii and things had come to a natural end when he’d been stationed elsewhere. She wasn’t the type to wait around when he’d been deployed to a war zone and it had turned out she’d been right not to wait for him. He’d been on his own ever since, and frequently placated his sisters by sometimes showing them who he was meeting, or chatting to on the dating apps.

  On the surface, it looked as though he was putting himself out there, but if the nightmares flared up too much he could delete the apps and pull himself back, protecting himself for a while. His family had no idea about his night-time horrors, and he wasn’t about to share. He was a doctor. He could deal with this himself. So he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he was so edgy about this date.

  Was it timing? He was hoping to be based permanently in San Diego now, and his nights had been quieter lately. Maybe things were settling down once and for all. Eventually he would like to meet someone and finally settle down to a normal life—or as much of a normal life as anyone who was in the US Navy could have.

  Maybe it was his age. Most of his friends in their mid-thirties like him had met someone by now and were starting to make family plans. He’d never had those thoughts before and had no idea why they were entering his brain now.

  His friends had liked the fact he seemed to go from one date to another. It seemed to brighten up their lives. But it would be nice to stop being their light relief.

  He walked into Gino’s, welcoming the dim lights and relaxed atmosphere. He spoke to one of the bartenders and took a seat in a booth in the middle of the bar. Jazz music filled the air, soothing but soft. By the time he finally met Ali, he wanted to actually be able to hear her talk.

  She’d given him good vibes. Confident. Self-assured. Fun. Most important, she took her job seriously—just like he did. The only thing was he had no idea what she looked like. Did that even matter?

  He didn’t like to think of himself as a guy who would judge someone on their appearance. A few of his friends had told him the fact she didn’t have a profile pic was a red flag. But he’d been quick to point out that neither did he. It was complicated. Using a pic when he wasn’t using his real name could cause all sorts of issues. There were dozens of computer programs out there that could easily scan his image and search for it elsewhere. That could end up with a whole host of uncomfortable questions. Why was a navy surgeon posing online as someone else?

  Plus, at some point, he felt you just had to have trust in someone. He had to hope he wasn’t about to meet someone who was thirty years older than they claimed to be, but the possibility had circulated in his head.

  He sent a quick message.

  I’m here. What do you want to drink?

  The answer came so swiftly he couldn’t help but smile.

  On the Old Town trolley. Will be at least another ten minutes. Rosé wine, please, and keep it chilled!

  He raised his brows at the slightly unusual choice and scanned behind the bar to make sure they had what she wanted before he ordered. Most bars in San Diego only stocked red, white and the very occasional blush. But Gino’s had a variety of rosé wines so he asked for a recommendation and hoped for the best as he carried it back to the table. A woman at the next table gave him an admiring glance but he pretended not to notice. He’d dressed in a black polo shirt and jeans. Casual. And whilst admiring glances were nice, there was only one woman on his mind right now, and he was happy to wait.

  * * *

  ‘Elvis’ had broken into ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ moments after Ivy had board
ed the trolley. Within seconds most of the passengers were singing along as the trolley made its way across the Coronado bridge. Her hair was immediately ruffled in the evening breeze but Ivy didn’t really care. It clearly didn’t want to be tamed and it was useless to try.

  She closed her eyes for a second, leaned back and smiled. She had a good feeling about tonight. That was unusual for her. Generally, she was nervous about talking on the dating app, the whole aspect of meeting someone. Probably because on a few occasions she’d felt kind of let down later. But this time felt different.

  She’d chatted with Rob for a few weeks. He seemed down to earth, had a wide range of interests and a bit of cheeky flair. She liked that. There would just be those few awkward moments when, after meeting him and ensuring she felt safe, she would have to admit what her real name and job were. It paid to be cautious in this life, and she was sure she would know pretty quickly if it felt safe to be herself or not.

  She grinned as a text arrived from Rob and she answered it quickly. Her timing was perfect. He was there first.

  She’d just sent the text when her phone rang. It gave her such a shock she almost dropped it—even more so when she recognised the number. ‘Ivy Ross,’ she answered.

  ‘Ms Ross, there’s an emergency,’ came the deep voice of her commander.

  She sat bolt upright. ‘What kind of emergency?’

  ‘It’s Flight Surgeon Davis on the USS Calvin Coolidge.’

  Her skin chilled. The USS Calvin Coolidge was one of the biggest ships in the fleet. An aircraft carrier that could carry as many as five thousand personnel.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There’s been an accident—not him. His wife and kids have been in a serious car accident. We have to bring him home and we need a replacement.’

  ‘What do you need me to do?’

  She could almost hear her commander smile as her stomach lurched. ‘We need you to be ready to deploy at zero six hundred hours.’