by Lulu Pratt
CHAPTER FOUR
ZANE LEWIS
As I get to the bottom of the stairs that morning, I can smell the eggs, bacon and coffee in the kitchen. I went to bed the night before after talking to Harper without even thinking about the leftover pot roast Mom had told me about, so I woke up starving.
Dad’s sitting at the table, and Mom’s taking something out of the oven as I walk into the kitchen.
“Just in time, as always,” Dad says with a smile.
“Never miss a meal,” I tell him.
He gets up and hugs me real quick before gesturing for me to take my usual seat at the table.
“We’ve got bacon, eggs, coffee, fruit salad and muffins,” Mom says. “If you can’t find something to eat, you’re not looking.”
She brings muffins to the table along with the bacon. The eggs and fruit salad are already there, and the three of us start eating.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth and crunch some bacon with it. The mess hall on base is good, but there’s something about the way Mom does it.
“We need to finish getting the house ready,” Mom says.
“Your mother practically wants to renovate before tonight’s party,” Dad tells me.
“I do not!” Mom throws a muffin at him and Dad catches it and takes a bite. “Anyway, there’s just the decorating to do. Nadine and Harper are coming over to help in a little bit, too.”
That piques my interest a little bit, even though I was kind of expecting it.
“When does the party start?” I know Mom probably told me before, but I can’t remember. My parents have so much going on for their anniversary that it almost seems ridiculous.
“Starts at seven,” Dad says.
“I’ve got some stuff prepped for food, but I’ll need your help icing down the drinks and things, too,” Mom tells me.
“I can do that,” I say. I drink down some coffee, have some more eggs, bacon and another muffin. “What are we serving for food?”
“The usual stuff,” Mom replies. “That veggie plate everyone loves, your aunt is bringing her crab dip, Nadine agreed to make her salsa. Dad’s making his meatballs, and we’ll have some other odds and ends that people are bringing.”
“Your mom pre-made some kind of spinach pastry thing,” Dad adds.
“How many people are you expecting?” It sounded like a lot of food, but I knew by the end of the night it would probably be gone all the same, or at least there would only be enough leftovers for us to snack on the next day.
“Only about thirty-five for this one,” Mom says. “The bigger party, for the whole neighborhood, is in a few days.”
“Why do you need to have two parties?” I shake my head at that.
“We’re actually having three,” Dad says. “But the last one is just a dinner party with the Polsens.”
“Why three parties again?” I look at both of my parents, finishing off the fruit salad on my plate.
“Because we wanted to make a big deal out of our twenty-fifth anniversary,” Mom says with a shrug. “Plus, not everyone could make it tonight. We wanted to make sure we had at least one event that everyone could come to.”
“Why not make the big party the only one?” I grin. “I mean, unless you’re hoping to get triple the presents or something.”
“Because once we’d planned to have this one, we didn’t want to abandon it,” Mom replies. “Besides, it’s sort of a set-up, a pre-party for the big one.”
“I guess,” I say with a shrug.
“Now that we’ve got the plans all laid out, how’s your career going?” Dad refills his coffee mug.
“It’s going well,” I say. “I’m almost done with my term, so they’re offering me the chance to reenlist.”
“That’s good to hear, they don’t want to just shuffle you off,” Dad says.
I shrug. “I’m a specialist, so a little more valuable than I was a year ago,” I tell him. “But ultimately they just don’t want to get rid of anyone they don’t have to. Situation around the world’s pretty tense, so apart from grunts they’re trying to hold onto people.”
“Do you think you’ll do it?” Mom takes the coffee pot from Dad as she speaks, and waves it slightly in the direction of my mug. I nod that I’ll take a little more.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “I’ve got a couple of months before I have to really make a decision, right up until I have to do my discharge paperwork, but they’re already letting me know that staying in is an option.”
“Would there be a promotion down the line if you stayed in?”
I sipped my coffee, thinking about my dad’s question.
“Probably, at least in a while,” I tell him. “Not right away, but I’m already a specialist, so they’d want to push me to do even more, eventually.”
“What would getting out look like for you? Maybe you could go for your degree. The military will pay for that, after all,” Mom points out.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I got out,” I say. “I could go for a degree, but I don’t even know what I’d want to do.” That was the big question, what was I worth outside of the army?
“You’ve got some time to think about it,” Dad points out. “Weigh the pros and cons, figure out what works best for you.”
“Definitely,” I agree. “It’s a big decision, you know?”
“I’d love to have you back home, at least for a good little while,” Mom says. “You could get a job in town. I’m sure a lot of places around here hire vets.”
“Just because he leaves the army doesn’t mean he has to come home,” Dad points out. “I think it’d be good for Zane to get a fresh start altogether if he leaves.”
“That would depend on me getting a job right out of the army,” I say. “And I don’t know who would want to hire me.”
“Lots of people would want to hire you,” Mom insists.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I suggest. “I’ve got time ahead of me. Before I really talk about this I need to figure out what both things are going to look like.”
I hear a knock at the back door, a few yards away from me, and Mom gets up. It’s Nadine and Harper. I take a moment to look Harper over again in decent light. She’s got her long, dark hair in two braids and she’s in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She makes both pieces of clothing look good enough that the brand should have paid her for wearing them.
When did she get so hot?
The girl I’d known all my life had always been sort of pretty, but not outright hot. This woman standing in my kitchen, talking to my mom, is someone I would have probably singled out at a base bar, at least to chat her up.
“Okay,” Nadine says. “Where do we get started on decorating this place?” I grab my plate and take it to the sink, preparing myself for a long, long day ahead.
“We need to clean up breakfast first,” Mom says. “And I’ve got some decorations ready to put up. Would either of you want to help me with some of the last-minute food prep?”
I put my plate in the sink, finish my coffee and start grabbing the rest of the dishes off the table to wash them. If nothing else, the army has taught me that no one doesn’t appreciate someone else doing the cleaning.
CHAPTER FIVE
HARPER POLSEN
“Starting to really shape up out here,” Bev says, stepping out onto the porch. Mom and I are setting up tables, while Zane is dealing with lights along the roof. We’ve been at it for maybe twenty minutes while Bev got started on the food.
“It’ll look even better with the tablecloths and candles and stuff laid out,” Mom says. “When are the flowers supposed to be coming in, Bev?”
I grab one of the ends of a table, and Mom grabs the other. We pull together, until the legs straighten and it looks more or less level. Mom and Bev apparently designed an entire layout for the tables outside and the decorations inside the house, with flower arrangements and candles and all kinds of other stuff. It would probably come out loo
king great, but for the moment I found myself thinking it was kind of ambitious for four people to tackle.
“The florist called about five minutes ago and said the delivery van was on the way,” Bev replies. “Make sure you get the staples down good, Zane,” she adds.
“I’m doing it,” Zane says. “I’ve assembled and disassembled guns in one minute, I think I can tack down some lights.”
“Totally different skill set,” I call out. Mom and I settle the table on the ground, making sure to sit it firmly in the grass, so it won’t wobble. There’s a pile of tablecloths ready, a bottom layer that’s a pale, dusky pink, and a top layer that’s some kind of lace, and boxes of candles on the porch where Bev stands.
“I think there’s one more,” Mom says, counting the number of tables we’ve already put together.
I look around the backyard and picture it the way I think it will be that evening, with the sun going down, the candles and flowers, the way it would look kind of dreamy. It was going to be beautiful.
“Yep,” I agree. “One more table and then we can get to work on decorating them.”
Zane tacks down the lights he’s handling with a few more cracks from the staple gun in his hand. I look in his direction. I’ve been doing that all morning. I can’t seem to make myself stop.
I’d thought I’d gotten a good idea of his newfound gorgeousness the night before, but in the daylight it’s even more obvious. In jeans and T-shirt — both of them fitting him perfectly — I can see how much muscle he put on. His face lost most of the boyish look too and it really suits him.
“Don’t work too hard,” Bev says, sitting on the patio. “I want you both to be able to actually enjoy the party tonight.”
“Maybe I’ll take a nap,” I suggest.
“You are far too young to need to take an afternoon nap before a party,” Mom tells me.
Zane snickers from where he’s almost finished hanging up the strings of lights.
“It’s just good sense,” I point out. “I used to do it in college too. Take a nap, that way you can stay up until four in the morning.”
“Just admit it, you’ve turned into an old woman already,” Bev says, grinning at me.
I roll my eyes. “Not at all!” I can feel my cheeks heating up.
“Harper was always an old woman,” Zane chimes in.
“Hush, you!” I scowl at him playfully. “You don’t get to have an opinion about me, considering you spent an entire year after high school doing little more than partying.”
“I’d rather have been a party-boy in my younger years than old before my time,” Zane says, sticking out his tongue at me. Something about the way he does it, in spite of the fact that he’s done that to me hundreds of times from childhood through when we parted ways after high school, sends a little jolt of heat through me.
“I’m not old before my time, I just believe in balance,” I say primly. “Besides which, I highly doubt this party is going to keep going until four in the morning.”
“You never know,” Bev says. “Before we became mothers, we could have partied until dawn and then gone to work.”
“Yeah, but that was before you had us,” Zane said. “You’re out of practice.”
Mom and I grab the last table and pull it open, settling it onto the grass and making sure it’s not going to wobble, and we head for the patio, where Zane is finishing the lights.
“Tables down, lights done,” Zane says, jumping from the last rung of the ladder. “What else have we got to do, Mom?”
“Your dad and I have the living room cleared, so as soon as the flowers get here, we’ll be ready to finish everything up,” Bev says.
“Do you want any help with the food before people start arriving?” Mom starts sorting through the candles, putting them into the groups that they should be in for the tables, and I help her.
“I think I’ve got it under control,” Bev replies. “Besides, aren’t you bringing something too?”
“We’re going to make a couple of things,” I say. “That yogurt dip everyone likes and Mom talked me into making pasta salad.”
“I didn’t know you knew how to cook,” Zane says, giving me a little look that I might have thought was flirty coming from anyone else. “Five years out of high school and you’ve become the perfect woman.”
“She works too much for that,” Mom counters. “Never goes out, always staying up late on some project.”
“That’s because she hasn’t found a guy to sweep her off her feet yet,” Bev says. “Besides, nothing wrong with a woman who isn’t afraid of a little hard work. Most men are hard work.” She gives Zane a nudge. “If this one ever finds someone willing to put up with his crap, I will get down on my knees and worship her as a saint.”
“I thought you army types got married young,” I tell Zane.
“Some do,” he admits. “The rest of us enjoy being footloose and fancy free for a while.”
“Neither of our children is ever going to give us grandkids,” Bev tells my mom with a sigh. “Maybe we should pool money and adopt a grandchild.”
I roll my eyes and Zane does too. “Haven’t you heard? Our generation in general is having kids later,” I point out. “It isn’t that you won’t get grandkids, it’s that it’s not financially feasible for us to give them to you until we’re over thirty.”
“You tell ‘em,” Zane says.
“All right, all right,” Bev says. “I can wait a few more years to have grandkids. But if neither of you are married in five years, we’re going to get you both green card spouses.”
“Besides, how do either of you expect to get to twenty-five years of marriage if you don’t get started until you’re over thirty?” My mom asks.
“As proud of you as I’m sure both of us are,” I say, “I don’t know if I can even imagine being married for twenty-five years.”
CHAPTER SIX
ZANE LEWIS
It’s about an hour and a half before the party, and everything for it is finally just about done. Mom has left the kitchen to get changed. Dad’s sitting in the living room waiting for people while watching a recap of the last football game. Harper and Nadine have even gone home. All I have left to do is to take a shower, put on some of my better clothes and present myself.
I strip out of my sweaty T-shirt and jeans, kick off my shoes and grab a towel from the closet before I head to the shower. The house looks great, I can’t deny that. It’s nice to know I won’t be on duty for another several days and good to see Harper again too. I take off my boxers in the bathroom and kick them onto the floor, starting the water in the shower and giving it a chance to warm up before I step in. Really, really good to see her again.
I grin to myself as I step over the ledge and let the water rain down on me. Before I’d left to start basic, Harper had still had that school nerd vibe down. All she was missing was glasses and one of those grandma sweaters to look like the campus librarian.
I lather up and start scrubbing down, and I can’t help thinking about Harper a little more. If it weren’t for the fact that we lived next door to each other our entire lives, I don’t think we would have hung out at all in high school. We didn’t hang out that much anyway, at least not at school. I was busy with my buds, and Harper was busy doing all that extra-curricular stuff like honor society and drama club and whatever else it was she was doing.
But this new Harper, the grown woman she’d become, was actually kind of cool. Living in the city, looking really good, with a good job. How the hell is she not with someone? I rinse myself off and get started on washing my hair, thinking about the question.
I remember Harper’s mom and mine teasing her about being old before her time and joking about her lack of social life. It really isn’t all that surprising, when I think about it. Thinking about Harper makes me start to get hard, and I turn the water on cold for a quick blast. What’s wrong with me, thinking like that?
I get out of the shower quickly before I can be tempted to ind
ulge myself, and dry off and go back to my room. I look out through the window and catch sight of just a second of Harper moving past her own window. She’s got a bra and panties on, her hair done, but other than that she’s undressed and unaware that she’s being watched.
I turn my back on the window, close the blinds and start getting dressed. I force myself to stop thinking about her like that. It’s not a formal event, so I decide to wear a pair of khakis and a dress shirt. I put on a pair of socks and my dress shoes, check to make sure my hair looks all right, and I’m done.
Dad’s sitting in the living room, still watching the TV, and Mom is hurrying through the house back to the kitchen, her clothes on but her make-up not done yet.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help with anything, Mom?”
“Thanks, sweetie. I’ve got everything under control.” Mom runs around the kitchen, pulling something out of the oven and setting it where it can cool. I have no idea what it is, but it smells amazing. After spending half the day setting up the house for the party, I’m already starving, but I know better than to ask Mom if I can snag some.
“Wait until she goes to do her make-up and hair, and then we’ll grab some of the meatballs,” Dad mutters to me, and I snicker.
“Done,” I agree.
We wait for Mom to do whatever it is she’s doing in the kitchen, and she scurries back to the master bathroom to finish getting ready before people start coming over. As soon as Dad and I are both pretty sure that she’s occupied, we head into the kitchen and grab some of the meatballs simmering in the crock pot.
“So it’s been a while since you saw Harper. She’s looking good these days,” Dad says, as we eat in the living room as quickly as we can.
“Yeah, she doesn’t look bad at all,” I agree.
“Weird she isn’t with anyone,” Dad adds. “Usually girls get into the city and then get involved with one guy after another until they find a good one.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes. “She’s not a cliché,” I point out. “She’s picky, anyway. Always has been.”
