The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

“She just couldn’t wait for me any longer, huh?’ he said. “Tell her I’m sorry – I’m just not the settling down type. She understands, right?”

  He heard Ben talking away from the phone, telling Christy what he had said. He pictured her laughing and rolling her eyes, and he realized he might love her almost as much as his best friend.

  “She says she’s going to try and console herself with a night of meaningless sex with me,” Ben laughed, and he heard Christy squeal her good-natured protest in the background. “I want you to be my best man, bro.”

  Reed felt a tightness in his belly – a good one like when you try and pretend the happy ending of a chick flick doesn’t matter to you.

  “Of course, man. No friggin’ doubt,” he said. “You guys got a date figured out yet?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Two weeks – well, two weeks from tomorrow. You’re schedule open?”

  “I’ll see if I can pencil you in,” Reed said, his head whirling a bit. Jesus, two weeks? “Wanna make sure she doesn’t have time to change her mind, huh?’

  “Something like that,” Ben chuckled. “Were you planning some leave for out of town?”

  “Nah,” Reed said. He had thought about a week of fishing at the condo some of the guys owned together in Hatteras, but that would sure as hell wait. “Where the hell am I gonna go?”

  “Right,” Ben said. Christy giggled about something in the background. “Hey, dude, as your first official best man shitty job, can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” Reed said and meant it.

  “Can you get the guys together for a beer call tomorrow night at Tunaz? Bros and Bras,” he said, meaning the team and significant others.

  “Yeah,” Reed said. “Easy day. How about like eight o’clock. Do it early before the bar gets silly.”

  “Awesome,” Ben said. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? Christy and I will announce it together. I just wanted you to know first.”

  Reed felt a lump in his throat at that.

  Stupid, girly, post-deployment emotional bullshit.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “That means a lot.”

  He closed his phone and stood a moment and looked out at the ocean across the street. In the distance, he saw another fighter jet approaching on a magic carpet of black smoke and ducked back into the restaurant before the noise caught up with the image.

  Two weeks. Wow, that seemed quick. He knew of no one that belonged together more than they did, though, so why not? He decided he felt more happy than worried now and headed back to the table to try and keep his mind back in the silly conversation and out of the shitty little village full of dead women and children they had left behind in Africa.

  Chapter 15

  Ben had wanted to take her to Aldo’s, a fancy and fairly expensive restaurant not far away, but to her it made more sense to celebrate where they would feel at home. Chix Beach Café was a comfortable walk from their house and a familiar haunt where the waitresses knew them by sight if not name, and they could relax and be themselves. She felt a little self-conscious about the ring on her finger – a simple one-carat solitaire in a white gold setting. Ben had picked out a ridiculously large rock surrounded by other stones, but it wasn’t really her and it would have taken a decade to pay it off. In the end, she had convinced him it wasn’t just the money – she really liked the simple ring better – it was more her. She stole a self-conscious glance at it under the table. She really did love it. She did her best not to stare at it. They knew people here, and Ben really wanted their friends, and especially his team, to hear it from them together tomorrow night.

  She looked around nervously and laughed at herself a little – a girl caught trying on her mommy’s things. A lot of team guys lived in Chix Beach, and word would travel fast. She kept her left hand under the table and reached for her wine glass. When she looked up she saw that Ben watched her, love and a smile on his face, and she blushed.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  “More than I could have imagined,” she admitted with a smile that almost burst out of her.

  She had thought she would be immune to the giddiness of the moment, but the little girl dreams of engagement rings and fairy tale weddings had caught up with her and caught her off guard. She was almost dizzy with excitement.

  “Feelin’ pretty happy myself,” her fiancé said and took a tentative sip at his glass of wine. She had picked a Pinot Noir, thinking a lighter wine might be a better introduction. She had given up trying to convince him that he didn’t have to start liking wine just because they were getting married. Ben raised his eyebrows instead of wrinkling his nose – a good sign she guessed. “Hey, that’s not bad,” he said. “I thought it would be all sweet or something, but that’s kind of good.”

  “You can have a beer, Ben,” she stifled a laugh. “Lots of married people drink beer.”

  “I know,” he said with more chuckle in his voice than defense, but still a hint of both. “But you like it so it might be fun if I liked it, too.”

  Ben had always had a heart of gold – a sensitivity that sometimes seemed out of place in his world. She had come to the conclusion long ago that maybe all of the team guys had a little more of that than they showed in public. Still, Ben was different than his teammates in a lot of ways.

  The waitress interrupted her musing with a big tray of food.

  “We’re all glad you’re home, Ben,” she said and slid a plate full of oysters, shrimp, and crab legs between them. “Christy is always happier when she’s in here with you.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said. She knew how uncomfortable the attention made him. “Good to be back.”

  “You guys need more drinks?”

  “I’ll have a beer, I think,” Christy said, intent on saving Ben from himself. “Blue Moon?”

  “Sure,” the waitress – Melissa she thought her name was – said. “How about you, Ben?”

  “I’ll have another one of these – the red wine,” a proud smile crept across his face.

  “Sure, it was a Cab, right?”

  Ben looked a little uncomfortable and raised his eyebrows at her to rescue him.

  “Pinot,” Christy smiled back. “It was the La Crema. Actually, maybe I’ll stick with wine, too.”

  “You want to just get a bottle, then?”

  “You bet,” Ben chimed in loudly. “A bottle of the La Crema.”

  Christy smiled again as her insides swirled with warmth.

  They dug into their seafood and salad and sipped their wine, which Ben really did seem to enjoy (or else he had become a much better actor than the man who had left for deployment). Neither would surprise her. There seemed to be a few things different about her best friend – but all of them felt good.

  “So what do you want to do after the wedding?” she asked him.

  “Same thing we did this afternoon, but lots more times,” he whispered with a little boy wink and smile.

  “Well, consider that done, but I meant what after that – like the next day. Do you want to get out of town for a few days? Maybe go to the Outer Banks? We could go to a bed and breakfast up on the Eastern Shore maybe?”

  Ben seemed to think hard for a moment, and then his eyes reflected a new thought.

  “What would you think about a couple of days in Duck and then a few days in Louisiana?” he asked.

  Christy felt a little taken by surprise. Ben had never even hinted at a desire to go home. When she had asked before he had always told her his home was the teams, and he had no one left in Louisiana anyway. Christy had always believed he was a little embarrassed by his very poor and humble background. He had told her a little bit about his Gammy and about what sounded like a shack in the woods where they had lived. She knew his grandmother had died when he was still in school, but she didn’t even know how old Ben had been.

  “Sure,” she said, not sure how to ask more. “I’d love to go anywhere with you.”

  Maybe he just needed to reconnect with Gammy – whom she thought had rea
lly been like his mother – now that he was making a big life change. Like most things, she figured Ben would tell her more when he felt ready.

  Ben shifted a little in his seat.

  “I thought we could hang out in New Orleans for a couple of days and maybe just drive up home once. Kind of say goodbye to my past or something.”

  That struck her as a little poignant, and she took his hand.

  “You don’t have to say goodbye to anything. I want to marry all of you – everything about you, including all of your past. I think that trip sounds perfect.” She smiled at him, and he grinned back. “Why don’t we just spend our whole honeymoon down there? We can go to Duck anytime – even go for a weekend when we get back.” If he needed to connect to home, she wanted to make it as easy as possible and give him all the time he needed. “New Orleans would be awesome in any case.”

  “Okay,” Ben said and seemed a little less tense. He didn’t offer her anything more, however.

  He lifted his glass to his lips, and Christy again noticed the strange ring on the middle finger of his right hand. She felt certain it had been a shiny whitish color last time she noticed it, but the ring reflected no light back at her this time from its rough appearing, dark blue surface.

  “That’s an interesting ring,” she said, hopeful he would tell her something.

  “I got it in Africa,” he said and dropped his hand into his lap without looking at the ring himself. He seemed nervous – an emotion she was unaccustomed to seeing in Ben. “It’s – well it’s kind of a complicated story.”

  She watched him expectantly. She felt like it was a story he needed to tell her for some reason, but she really wasn’t prepared for it.

  As they sipped wine and left the food relatively untouched, Ben unfolded his chilling tale. He told her they had been on a mission in Africa (even though she suspected she wasn’t supposed to know even that) and some terrorists had attacked and wiped out a village before they could stop them. He told her of an old man, a leader and doctor of sorts, who had been taking care of the injured, including the little girl whom he had later called her about possibly adopting. He told her about the old man giving him the ring to thank him for helping them and how he had been killed shortly after. Ben explained that he wore the ring to honor the old man and the other villagers they had failed to save.

  Christy said nothing as he laid out the tale. She knew he left out some details, some for security reasons she guessed and others so she wouldn’t worry. He told enough that she knew it to be much worse than what she heard, and the tears that rimmed his eyes told her how deeply it had affected him. The ring made a lot more sense to her now.

  “None of our guys got hurt?” she asked.

  “No, not really,” but his eyes told her something different. She accepted it, anyway. “Everyone is home in one piece. Auger got a scratch in the village, and Reed got his leg tore up a few days later, but he’s almost fine now.”

  “Almost fine?” She felt a wave of concern for his best friend.

  “Yeah,” Ben said and reached for a crab leg, as much to move them away from the conversation as anything she suspected. “No permanent damage. Just a little hobble for a few weeks.”

  She nodded her head and thanked God that Ben and his friends were alright. She wondered for a moment if she could live like this for her whole life.

  Of course, I can. I love him so much, and this is part of who he is, not just what he does. He wouldn’t be Ben if he did anything else.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said and took his hand again.

  Ben just shrugged, like he always did, and took another sip of wine.

  My quiet warrior.

  They ate for a while in silence. She had learned the importance of quiet when he had moments like this. After a few minutes, he seemed to relax.

  “I’m glad I told you.”

  “You can tell me anything,” she said with a smile and not just because she knew there was a lot more to the story than he had shared. Maybe he would tell her more in time, and she would understand the quiet storm clouds in his eyes.

  “I know,” but he offered nothing more. “We should stay a few days in the Quarter and then maybe drive east and find some quiet beach places to hang out and have a lot of sex,” he said, announcing the end of any conversation about Africa.

  “That sounds wonderful,” and she meant it. “We can get online and make some reservations when we get home.”

  “After we call your mom”

  “After we call my mom,” she agreed.

  They settled slowly back into the excitement of their big plans and the new life they were starting.

  The clouds in his eyes softened, but never really dissipated, and as they chatted she stole another glance at the ring which reflected back a soft rainbow of light from its shiny, bone-white surface.

  * * *

  Ben woke from a very comfortable sleep with the sense he had traveled somewhere but no memories of anything except a great evening and night in their bed that ended with them falling asleep on sweat-soaked sheets, arms and legs tangled together and faces inches apart. He stole a glance at his feet which stuck out from the sheets as his body searched for cool air and felt relief that they looked clean and unmarked. Then, he felt stupid for thinking they might have been anything else.

  He wrapped his arms around the woman he loved, her soft naked body mostly hidden beneath the covers she needed for warmth as much as he needed the air to be cool. He kissed the back of her neck and burrowed against her, the feel of her skin suddenly more important than a comfortable temperature. She sighed in her sleep in response to his kiss.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  He felt bad he had not told her more about Africa and the ring, but how could he? He had told her what he needed to tell her for her to understand his bond to Jewel, the old man, and the ring on his finger. How could he tell her the rest – the things he wasn’t sure he believed himself? She had agreed to marry him, a man hardly worthy of such an incredible woman. It didn’t make sense to scare her off with bad dreams, fantasies, and confusing nightmares from a childhood he had tried to forget and bizarre stories of magic rings and strolls through the jungle in his sleep with a dead witch doctor.

  It was behind him now, anyway.

  Why worry her?

  * * *

  “Congratulations, brother,” Chris said and clapped him hard on the back, his signature Maker’s Mark on the rocks swirling in his other hand.

  “Thanks, boss,” Ben said.

  He realized how silly it had been to try and keep things under wraps. He figured as soon as Reed called them and told them Ben had asked for a beer call at Hot Tunaz with significant others, that all of them knew the deal. What the hell else could it mean? Every important announcement they had in their lives took place right here in this bar. Past Chris he watched Christy show her ring to Chris’s wife Emily and felt warm inside at her obvious pride and excitement.

  “Two weeks, huh? Jesus, dude you don’t screw around,” Chris said and sipped his drink.

  “Can’t risk her having time to think it over,” Ben said, paraphrasing what Reed had told him when he heard the news.

  “Excellent point,” Chris chuckled.

  “Sorry for the short notice,” Ben said. “We’ll both understand if anyone can’t make it.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Chris said with a hint of annoyance. “Where else would we be on your wedding day? We’re a family, man, anyway, welcome to the club – you should probably be the president.”

  “What club is that?” Ben asked with a wry smile.

  “The Married-Up-Club,” Chris winked and then headed off to where Auger and Lash set up a row of shots for the team toast.

  Ben felt a warmth pulse up his right hand and looked at the ring on his finger which he had been absently spinning. The surface shined back at him with almost a glow, the orange-gold surface nearly mirror like. The tingle in his finger felt familiar and much less alar
ming than the first time he had felt it. He thought of all the supernatural significance he had attached to the ring and almost laughed. Crazy, superstitious Cajun.

  It’s just a mood ring. It turns with my mood in response to temperature or moisture or some shit. I’ve seen the same damn thing in gift shops at the beach for two bucks.

  But not really– not like this ring.

  He stopped spinning the ring and for a moment tugged at it gently, suddenly intent on pulling it off and leaving it on the bar. It was time to leave Africa and move ahead. When he tugged, the ring slipped a millimeter and then his finger went cold – nearly frozen. It turned pale and grey next to his other pink and healthy fingers. The ring lost its shine, and as he watched it turn dark grey and then black. It didn’t change all at once. Instead, it was as if dark grey clouds swirled across its surface, covering the sun like orange with an angry storm. The grey filled the ring and darkened until the ring looked nearly black – and his finger turned almost blue.

  “Best man check,” a voice beside him said, and he felt a warm hand on his neck. Ben startled, slipped the ring back into place, and shoved his right hand awkwardly into his jeans pocket. He looked up into Reed’s already slightly glazed eyes. “How you doin’, bro?” his friend asked.

  “Great,” He realized his shoulders ached with tension and forced himself to take a deep breath to a four count. “Doin’ great, man. How about you?”

  “I’m a little toasted,” Reed admitted with a crooked smile. He looked around the bar. “Toasted and scopin’ the perimeter for targets of opportunity.” He raised his bottle and smiled at two girls at the bar who shook their heads, but smiled back. He turned back to his best friend. “You sure you’re okay? You look nervous.” For a moment his friend’s hazy eyes cleared but held a critical look mixed with concern.

  “Gettin’ married,” Ben said and chuckled. “It’s my job to be nervous.”

  Reed laughed back. “Right you are, and my job to either talk you out of it or into not bein’ nervous.” He belched a little, and Ben realized Reed might be a little more drunk than he had thought. “Haven’t decided which yet,” Reed chuckled in a conspiratorial whisper.