We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

  Jen likes to give the impression that Kevin is much more invested in my life than he actually is—I suspect she’s always had this romantic idea that we would be the Three Musketeers or something. But I can’t say Kevin and I instantly clicked when we first met all those years ago, despite Jen’s assurances that I was going to love him. My first impression when I saw him though was, This guy? It was hard to pick him out from all the other identical-looking white guys in plaid at the Irish pub on Walnut Street we’d met up at on one of my rare visits home. Kevin wasn’t what I was expecting based on everyone who had come before him—the tattoo artist, the professional poker player, the guy who lived on a rickety houseboat and grew hydroponic weed. The evening was pleasant enough, and I could see how much Kevin adored Jenny, but he clearly didn’t feel he had to work particularly hard to earn my approval even though I was the best friend. Later I’d overheard him talking to Jenny. “Yeah, she’s cool, you guys are just so… different.” Which was fair, and I felt the same about him. Kevin—simple, basic, vanilla, chinos-wearing Kevin—was just not who I’d always imagined for my friend.

  He’s not enough for you. It was my first thought when Jen announced they were engaged a year later. And then: Please don’t settle. But I swallowed those doubts with a gleeful scream and a promise to throw myself into maid-of-honor duties immediately. I have no idea what Kevin thinks about me beyond how “different” I am, but I don’t believe for a second that he’s the driving force in any setup. It’s Jen who, like every married woman with an unattached best friend the world over, has a single-minded mission to find me someone.

  “Oh yeah?” I can guess the reason Kevin thinks this guy and I would make such a great match.

  Jen takes a big bite of a crab cake and talks as she chews. “His name is Kayvon Freeman.”

  And there you go: a fine upstanding brother.

  “He just came onboard as detective at the Twenty-Second District with Kevin. Moved here from Delaware… I guess he wanted to work in a bigger city or something.”

  A cop? No way in hell would I ever date a cop. But I obviously can’t tell Jen that.

  “And he’s hot. And tall, we know that’s a must! Kevin says you two would hit it off. We should double! I mean, Kevin/Kayvon. It’s too perfect.”

  “I have zero time to date right now, Jen.” It’s my stock response—offered reflexively as a defense and an excuse. “I’m so busy. I need to—”

  Jenny stops me with a raised palm. “Riley. It’s time. How long has it been since you’ve had sex? Your vagina probably has cobwebs by now.” She playfully makes as if to lift my skirt, but her tone is laced with concern.

  “I’m focused on other things. And I’ve got time.” Though some days it doesn’t feel like that at all. Some nights I’m wrenched awake at 3 a.m. with the unsettling sensation that time is speeding past me and I’m so behind I’ll never catch up. I know what Jen’s going to say before she opens her mouth. Because it’s a lecture I give myself at least once a week.

  “C’mon Rye. You can’t be single forever. It’s time to move on. To get back out there. You need to—”

  I put my hand up to stop her before she gets to the part about how all the “good ones” are going to be taken.

  Even though she may have a point. At Jen’s urging I went on two dates since moving back to Philly, with people she’d swiped for me on Tinder. One guy talked about himself the whole time and then when I called him out about it said, “I’m just trying to help you get to know me.” And the other one told me I must think I’m “big-time” when I told him about my job and then just eyed the check when it arrived, waiting for me to pick it up. I had little faith third time would be the charm.

  “I can’t take the idea of getting back out there, Jenny… starting from scratch with someone new, letting someone see me naked for the first time….”

  “So you’re just going to be celibate forever? No way. Here, give me my bag so I can get my phone. Let me show you his picture. You’ll want me to make this date happen tomorrow.” Jen goes to grab her purse and then winces sharply.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine, this happens all the time,” she says, waving off my concern.

  “You sure?”

  “Just a kick. Right in my ribs. You want to feel?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabs my hand and places it to the left of her belly button. There’s a series of little jabs, quick and insistent. I fight against pulling my hand away from the little alien boxing in my friend’s belly.

  Jen finally finds her phone and pulls it out triumphantly.

  “Ugh. Kevin’s texted a bunch.” Her stubby fingers swipe the texts away and scroll through her photo album. “Here, I found him. Kayvon. Hot, right?” Jenny holds up the screen.

  Kayvon is attractive, with his buffed bald head and sprinkle of stubble. In the photo he’s dressed in his buttoned-up blues and wearing a sly kind of smirk, like he could be up to trouble. I see him giving me that smile across the table in a dimly lit restaurant and then I see him slapping handcuffs on teenagers and wrestling them to the ground. I chase both images away with a swig of my drink.

  “Okay, true story. He is good-looking. So maybe… we’ll see.” I’m hoping Jen just drops this, even though I know better.

  “No, no maybes. This is happening. It’s been like a year since Corey.”

  Actually, it was fifty-six weeks to be exact. Hearing his name out loud, my stomach turns over on itself. I should be over this by now. It makes me crazy that I can still have this reaction to just hearing his name. Or finding one of his socks tucked in the back of a drawer, like I did last week, which threatened to wreck my whole afternoon, until I marched out on the balcony, threw it into the air, and watched it flutter onto the hood of a delivery truck.

  I hold my breath and wait for Jen to ask me again about what happened between us. She’s never been satisfied with my vague answers. But she seems to register the pained look on my face and switches gears. Corey is a bear we do not poke.

  “We need dessert,” Jen says, and we let the subject dissipate like smoke after fireworks.

  “Okay, you have to get the bartender’s attention though; he’s not giving me the time of day. Look pregnant and hungry and sad.”

  “I can do that.” As Jenny juts out her lower lip and bats her eyelashes at the bartender, her phone buzzes and “Hubby” lights up on the screen.

  “Seriously? It’s like I go out one night and he can’t stop texting me.” She rolls her eyes, but I know she loves this about Kevin, that he needs her so much.

  “Oh, text him back. You’re pregnant. He’s probably worried about you.”

  She swipes to open the message. “Or he’s bored. He always texts when he’s on patrol and he’s bored. I told him to start playing one of those games where you kill birds—”

  In almost thirty years I’ve seen about every expression Jenny can make. I know her face like I know my own. But the look she has right now, as she reads Kevin’s message, is one I’ve never seen. I grab her arm. “What’s wrong? Is Kevin okay?”

  She doesn’t respond, too focused on opening the Uber app. “I have to go.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “I have to go.” She’s in motion, gathering her bag, her coat, knocking over her purse, picking it up by one strap. A tube of ChapStick falls and rolls across the floor.

  “Wait. Jen. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Something happened… to Kevin.”

  It is these four words that will haunt me, how she phrased it: Something happened. To Kevin.

  “My Uber’s pulling up,” she says. “Look, I’m sorry, I just need to find out what’s going on. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” She’s already standing, buttoning her coat. She moves in for a quick hug.

  I’m worried, but also a little pissed at being inexplicably shut out like this.

  “Okay, then.” I probably sound bitchy but she’s n
ot listening anyway. She’s halfway out the door.

  When the bartender appears, I order a second drink, which is noticeably stronger than the last one, practically a shot. Maybe he saw Jenny rush out. Maybe he thinks I was dumped by my pretty, white, pregnant girlfriend, which makes me laugh a little. The liquid singes the back of my throat as I drain the glass and then search for my phone, calculating that it’s been at least an hour since I’ve checked it, a record these days.

  Adrenaline pricks at my skin when I see I’ve missed three texts from Scotty.

  We need you tonight.

  Where are you?

  Get here, now.

  He also sent two emails. As I open them, my whole body buzzes, the tingles. A Black teenager shot by a Philadelphia police officer, in critical condition. I make the sickening connection. I know exactly why Jenny had to rush home.

  Chapter Two JEN

  In my dreams I never see it happen: never see Kevin get shot, never see my husband splayed out on the pavement, bleeding out. The nightmares always begin in the morgue, a scene straight out of Law & Order, a freezing room with puke-green walls. He’s lying on a metal table when I arrive. No matter how hard I try, I can never touch him. My arms are glued to my sides, and I can only stare at his dead body. I’ve had that dream once a week since he started at the academy.

  The truth is, I never wanted to be a cop’s wife. When I met Kevin, he sold Internet ads for a living—good, safe, stable, boring. Thinking back on it now, I should have known better. The way Kevin had told me, so proudly, on our very first date that he came from a long line of police officers. Even Kevin’s younger brother, Matt, had recently joined the force. But in the next breath Kevin insisted he liked it at Comcast, and that if he left it would be to become an entrepreneur, maybe design an app or something, the type of vague grandiose shit you can get away with saying when you’re in your twenties and have bright blue eyes and a headful of floppy curls that I kept wanting to run my hands through.

  I wanted to be something bigger back then too, whatever that meant. My number one goal was to get the hell out of waitressing ASAP. I was so sick of working at Fat Tuesday, slinging watered-down margaritas to drunk sports fans who grabbed at my ass. I wanted to get a degree or start some sort of business, or maybe get my real estate license so I could flip houses. The details didn’t matter so much. My single goal in life could be summed up pretty simply: whatever you do, do not turn into Lou. And then there was Kevin, banner-ad-selling Kevin, who had his own apartment with framed pictures on the walls and a real couch (not some stained futon), a good salary, health insurance, and all I could think was: This. I want this. I’d always had this feeling that the life I wanted was out there and I was just waiting for it to arrive, like a bus. Or waiting for someone like Kevin to arrive. A year later we got married, and life was going to be stable and safe and maybe even a little boring, just like I wanted.

  Safe and boring went out the window a year after our wedding when Kevin turned to me out of the blue and said, “I wanna be a police officer, Jen. I’m joining the academy. I don’t want to look back on my life and say the best thing I ever did was convince more chumps to sign up for Xfinity.” His dad had recently retired from the force after suffering from a severe stroke, and my brand-new husband was suddenly all about carrying on his legacy. Being a cop became Kevin’s “dream,” and once he said that, used that word, what could I do or say? I wasn’t going to stand in the way of my husband’s dream.

  And now, here were are in this nightmare. As far as I know, Kevin has only ever even pulled his gun once. And now this. Not that I know any details yet, beyond Kevin’s text: I shot someone. But there’s nothing to do now except wait. I’d raced home from the bar so fast, leaving Riley there all worried and maybe even pissed at me, but Kevin still isn’t home yet. He’s probably being grilled in some dark room at the station.

  I pace the kitchen, waiting for the microwave to beep, while terrifying thoughts tumble round and round like socks in a dryer. Administrative leave. Investigations. Lawsuits. Hell.

  When I grab the mug of hot water, my hands shake so badly that steaming droplets splash onto my bare feet, burning tiny sparks. I yelp and so does our dog, Fred. I scratch the wiry fur behind her ear to hush her. Then I return to my cup, bobbing the tea bag, willing it to release all the magical “calming” ingredients promised on the box. It hasn’t even had time to steep, but I take a sip anyway, and the liquid scalds the tip of my tongue, making it go numb. If only the same thing could happen with my mind. I carry my steaming tea to the living room and am settling back on the couch when Fred yelps again. This time it’s a happy sound, the one she makes when Kevin’s key turns in the lock. The door slams, and my husband’s voice carries through the foyer. I think he’s talking to me until I realize he’s on the phone with his brother.

  “I don’t know, Matt. We just have to wait. He’s alive; they took him over to Jefferson Hospital. No one will tell me anything. I hope… I don’t know if he’s gonna make it. I’m meeting with my union rep in the morning. I’ll call you after, okay? I just got home; I gotta go.” He lets the phone fall to the carpet as he collapses beside me on our worn sectional.

  “Oh God, Jenny.” His head drops like a heavy weight onto my shoulder. I smell old sweat and something musky, the acrid scent of adrenaline lingering on his skin. He’s back in plain clothes. Where’s his uniform? I picture a bloodstained pile.

  I cup his chin in my hand and tilt his face toward mine. “Babe, tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.”

  He turns away from me, silent. This is nothing new. He shuts down all the time when it comes to work, especially when shit goes bad. I grab his hand, trembling and ice-cold. “Kevin, I need to know what happened.”

  “It was all so fast, Jaybird. Cameron shot, so I shot.”

  “Wait, who’s Cameron?”

  “Travis Cameron. New kid. I was matched with him at roll call this morning for the first time.”

  I can tell Kevin and I are having the same thought: We both miss Ramirez. Kevin missed his partner of five years because they’d become best friends, close as brothers, and had each other’s backs at all times. I missed Ramirez because he was the only person I trusted to keep Kevin safe out there. It was a shock to both of us when Ramirez announced that he and his wife, Felicia, were moving back to Felicia’s hometown outside Topeka to take care of her mom, who was battling cancer. In the couple months he’s been gone, Kevin’s been noticeably grumpier when he comes home from work, full of complaints he didn’t have with Ramirez. Ramirez calls Kevin throughout the day to vent about the new force he’s on in “this nowhere town with no action.” I bet Felicia loves the fact that there’s no action. We’d spent how many dinners together talking about how much we worried about our husbands—their safety, their mental health—while they swapped years’ worth of their greatest hits of stories and memories from the streets on a loop.

  Kevin takes a deep breath, as if willing himself to continue, then starts talking so fast I can barely keep up.

  “We got a call for an armed robbery, guy shot a convenience store clerk when he wouldn’t open the register. Plugged him point-blank in the chest. From the description it was this guy Rick, who robbed another bodega last week. Cameron and I were first on the scene, and we saw him running down the street. We started pursuit in the car. When he pulled up on Ridge, we got out and ran after him. Cameron is hella fast—he actually ran track at Kutztown—so he’s a few yards ahead, turning into an alley. I hear him yell, “Police, stop!” and I’m there at his heels when he yells, “GUN!” and fires. I stop and fire too and the guy goes down.” Kevin suddenly stops talking and stares into the empty fireplace across the room, like he’s watching the scene play out on an invisible screen.

  “It was so fast. I didn’t have time to think. I should have—FUCK.” He’s digging his nails into my thigh so hard they leave a mark.

  I don’t even feel the pain because I can only focus on one thing: My
husband is alive. All the talk about armed robbery, chases, and gunshots, and Kevin is still here, right here with me.

  I’ve gotten used to a lot in eight years as a cop’s wife—the erratic schedules, the bullet casings in the laundry, the missed birthdays and holidays—but I will never get used to the constant, relentless fear. Every day Kevin puts on his uniform and walks out the door is a day I wonder if he’s going to make it home. It doesn’t help that he works in one of the most dangerous districts in Philly or that his bulletproof vest expired two years ago. He’s supposed to go out there and face down men with guns with nothing between his heart and a bullet except an expired vest. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve been saving up to buy him a new one for Christmas, the best on the market. I put it on layaway last summer, and the final payment’s due in a couple of weeks. I keep telling myself that once he’s wearing the vest I’ll stop having all these nightmares.

  I reach for him with both hands, desperate for the reassurance of his body, his breath, his presence here before me. You’re alive. The fact of it makes me weak with relief.

  “He was a bad guy. You did the right thing. He’s in the hospital? I heard you tell Matt. He’ll recover?”

  Kevin stands so quickly he almost knocks me off the couch. He paces the room without answering, a wild, terrified look on his face, like a scrawny cheetah I once saw in a cramped cage at some janky wildlife park in the Poconos. That’s what Kevin reminds me of now, a caged animal. In nine years of marriage, I’ve never seen him like this.

  “He’s alive, yeah, but…”

  “But what?” I want to go to him but I’m rooted to the couch, paralyzed with dread, just like in my nightmares.

  Kevin talks to the wall instead of to me. “It wasn’t our suspect—it wasn’t Rick. He didn’t even match the description. Rick was tall, like six foot three and wearing a dark jacket. Cameron never should have…” His voice trails off. “Christ, Jen, this is bad.”