Because of the List

by Amy Knupp

  Saturday. To start the work on the house, she reminded herself.

  She should cancel that whole arrangement, or at least Alex’s part in it. But not right now because she had about twenty seconds before she broke down and cried her eyes out, and frankly she was maxed out on humiliation for the evening.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN SPITE OF EVERY MUSCLE in his body screaming at him after forty grueling minutes of physical-therapy hell, the need to hit something rumbled through Alex like a volcano getting ready to erupt.

  The news from Helen Vossmeyer, the highly respected physical therapist, wasn’t roses and unicorns. She hadn’t sat across from him, after poring over his medical files and putting him through a workout, and smiled hopefully. None of them ever did, and he understood that they couldn’t guarantee anything. Didn’t want to get someone’s hopes up to have them crushed yet again. He wasn’t an idiot. But was an optimist too much to ask for?

  Because, dammit, he was grasping on to hope the way an orphan clung to a ratty old teddy bear.

  He entered the parking garage, walked up to the passenger side of Marshall’s eggshell Acura and opened the door before noticing his brother sat there.

  “What the hell? Move over,” Alex said.

  “You can drive home.”

  Alex swore at him. “You said you’d give me a ride. That suggests that you drive the car.”

  He shifted his weight off his bad leg and leaned heavily against the back door, waiting for Marshall to get out of his way. Instead of climbing out, his brother lifted his right hand, which held a bottle of Jack Daniels. A third of the amber liquid was gone.

  “You bought whiskey?” Alex didn’t know whether to be impressed with his foresight or disgusted with the implications.

  “Liquor store down the block and across the street. I’d offer you some but you’re driving.”

  This was not the perpetually motivated brother he knew. Nothing like him. Marshall wasn’t a complete abstainer, but his version of tying one on was having a second glass of wine at a business dinner. Alex had never seen him hit the hard stuff. Maybe that was why he pushed off the car and headed around to the driver’s side without another word.

  He got in, found the keys hanging from the ignition and started the engine.

  “You better be able to hold your liquor. I don’t want to have to pull over if you get sick.”

  “I don’t want to mess up my car even more than you don’t want to stop.”

  They were silent until Alex had merged with the relatively-light-for-Chicago midafternoon traffic on I-90.

  “So how’d it go?” Marshall asked after taking another swig.

  Alex was just about picking up a buzz from the smell alone. “It went.” With one hand steering, he tapped the bottom of the wheel agitatedly, trying to release some of his pent-up energy.

  “What’d she say? Was she encouraging?”

  “Somewhat. More so than the army doc three months ago.”

  “She thinks you can recover fully?”

  “Said it’s possible. I’ve made a lot of progress since March.”

  Marshall nodded and took another drink.

  “Keep that out of sight, would you?” Alex snapped. “I’m not looking to be pulled over today, either.”

  Marshall lowered the bottle below window level. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “What do you think? You going to give it a chance?”

  “I think to hell with ‘possible.’ I’ll get it all back. I have to.”

  Silence filled the car for several minutes.

  “I’m the one with everything at stake,” Alex said, maybe more to himself than to his brother. “That’s what they don’t take into consideration when they give you their official opinion. Willpower. Determination. I’ve got to get back.”

  “Why are you so bent on returning to that hellhole?”

  “Just…need to.” His hand started tapping on the steering wheel again, without his conscious thought.

  “Army’s not exactly running a four-star hotel over there. You’ve got a compelling, understandable reason to walk away. What gives?”

  “It’s just…what I do. What I know.”

  Marshall stared at him again. Alex forced his hand to still on the wheel. He hit the CD player’s power button and was pleasantly surprised when the cacophony of Rob Zombie blared through the expensive speaker system at a brain-busting volume. Suited his state of mind perfectly.

  After tipping the bottle up again, Marshall reached over and killed the music. “You can do something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Whatever you want to. You’re the only one who bought your act of drifting around uselessly before you joined.”

  “Flying’s in my blood.”

  “Don’t have to be military to fly.”

  It was all so damn easy, wasn’t it? “I know that!” Alex exploded. If he couldn’t punch something, yelling would have to do.

  His brother didn’t take the bait, didn’t give him the fight he was itching for. Marshall just sat there, infuriatingly calm, sipping his Jack like a baby with a bottle of milk. Irritation built, welled up from deep in Alex’s gut. He could feel his blood pressure ticking upward. He let out a stream of crude obscenities and again Marshall didn’t even flinch.

  “I have to go back,” Alex finally said. “For Quinn.” Speaking his dead friend’s name had a sobering effect. Tightness gripped his chest as oxygen seemed to leak out of the car.

  They crossed the Wisconsin border without a word, the silence tense, expectant.

  “I don’t understand that,” Marshall said just when Alex thought he was going to get away with the admission. “What’s going back to hell got to do with Quinn?”

  “Quitting now…” Alex took his time to form an answer, maybe because he was figuring it out as he went along “…is the easy way out. I just get a guy killed and then go get a job at Radio Shack and live easy?” A foul taste filled his mouth. “I don’t think so.”

  “So it’s like penance?”

  “Hell if I know.” He wasn’t in the mood to be psychoanalyzed by his cerebral brother. “No. It’s not like penance. It’s going back and doing what I do because that’s what Quinn would’ve done. If he could’ve. He was over there for a reason, more of a reason than me. I just wanted to fly. He believed in the cause to his core. I owe it to him to keep doing it because he can’t.”

  Marshall chewed on that for a good five minutes before speaking again. “You don’t have anything to make up to him, you know. The enemy shot you down. You did the best you could to land safely.”

  “Easy to say,” Alex snapped. “Hard to prove. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “I goddamn understand more than you know.” The rage in Marshall’s voice took Alex by surprise, but before he could question him, his brother pounded on the CD player and Rob Zombie serenaded them with his angry growling once again.

  Suited him just fine.

  It wasn’t until they hit the outskirts of Madison that Marshall reached over and swatted the music off as violently as he’d turned it on.

  “I screwed the hell up,” Marshall said quietly, but with so much conviction it dripped from the words.

  Alex knew his brother wasn’t talking about today, but he didn’t ask any questions. More than half the bottle of whiskey was gone. Maybe this was Marshall working through some hard-core crap.

  “Nine people are out of work because of my mistakes,” Marshall continued, self-loathing evident in his tone.

  “Businesses go under. I’m sure you tried to prevent it.”

  Marshall scoffed. “Two years ago I had a company trying to get me to take the magazine electronic. ‘Where the future is,’ they said. Did I listen to them?”

  “I’ll guess no.”

  “Hell, no. I was one of those fools who swore print would never go away. Couldn’t imagine newspapers going under. And high-end glossy full-color magazines people could hold in the
ir hands…they’d never choose a computer monitor over that.” He laughed bitterly. “I know a thing or two about self-blame.”

  “That sucks,” Alex said sympathetically.

  “Screwing the hell up sucks.”

  “Agree completely.”

  “It’s humiliating.” Marshall’s voice had lost all its bluster and he was barely audible over the sound of the road.

  Alex nodded once, understanding all too well what Marshall was talking about.

  Wasn’t it funny how things changed, he mused. After a lifetime of being the family member who never really belonged, Alex now had more in common with his brother than he could ever want. He wasn’t going to acknowledge that out loud, though. What was the point?

  Instead, he was going to funnel all the self-blame, all the anger and the doubt into PT. He couldn’t change what had happened or take anything back, but he was going to somehow move past it all by honoring his dead friend. The best way to do that was to get back to the Middle East and continue the work Quinn had believed so fervently in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TAYLOR BREATHED EASIER the farther she and Vienna got from the crowd near the lakeshore park on Friday evening.

  Another work function survived—the annual picnic and concert. They’d endured the dinner part and had escaped as the local band was setting up. Taylor had done her duty, made her appearance, and now she was done in more ways than one. Ready to wilt into a puddle and decompress for the next hour or two.

  Ready but not able to quite yet.

  Though Vienna was friendly, Taylor still felt a bit ill-at-ease with her, especially now that it was just the two of them. It wasn’t Vienna—that’s just how Taylor was. Once a social failure, always a social failure.

  They opened her car, climbed in and sat with the doors ajar for a few seconds to let the remaining late-afternoon heat escape. Taylor was just starting to become antsy, thinking she needed to say something, when Vienna broke the silence.

  “That was excellent. Thank you so much for introducing me to practically everyone in the marketing department, Tay. Awesome connections.”

  “It was no problem. I hope it goes somewhere. Did they say whether they expect to be hiring in the fall?”

  “It sounds promising, actually. They’re working on creating a new position that would be a perfect fit for me. Hugh Samuels said he’d contact me when it’s concrete.”

  “That’s encouraging. He seemed interested in you.”

  The shake of Vienna’s head was so subtle Taylor would’ve missed it had she not been looking directly at the woman.

  “Not the kind of interest I’m looking for, you know?”

  No, Taylor didn’t know. The marketing vice president had been overtly friendly to Vienna. Had maybe held her grip a touch longer than necessary when they’d shaken hands, but you couldn’t prove it by Taylor whether he’d crossed a line. She’d never had anyone be anything but professional with her, so she wouldn’t know.

  They both pulled their doors closed and Taylor considered turning on the radio to avoid the need to talk. Would that be rude?

  She decided against music and settled for the air conditioner on High. She backed out of the parking space and headed toward their side of town.

  “What’s wrong, Taylor? You’re practically white-knuckled. Something bad happen back there that I missed?”

  Taylor forced her fingers into a stretch on the wheel, unaware until Vienna had spoken that she’d been grasping it so hard. “Work things like that aren’t my favorite.”

  “You were great when you did all the introductions.”

  “The business part I can handle…” She nervously pushed the strands of hair that had come out of her ponytail behind her ear. “You’re good at the social thing,” she said simply.

  Vienna laughed. “If only you knew. I was so nervous I talked five hundred miles an hour. About nothing! I’m not usually such a mess but I felt like a college student among grown-ups.”

  The admission relaxed Taylor a bit. “I never would have guessed. You seemed at ease. Enviably so.”

  “I hesitated to shake anyone’s hand because mine was so sweaty.”

  “I’d say you made a good impression.”

  “Thanks. You know, we need to recover. That was trying.”

  “Recover,” Taylor repeated dumbly.

  “Absolutely. Let’s go have a drink. It’s Friday night, we’ve been through trauma.”

  “Wh-where?”

  “Nothing fancy. The opposite, in fact. There’s a bar two blocks from my house, Saint Patty’s. Do you know it?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Most people don’t, which is the beauty of it. It’s smack in the middle of a bunch of houses. No idea how it got zoning approval. It’s about as big as the backseat of your car. Low-key. We’ll probably be the only two there.”

  Taylor had never gone out to bars with girlfriends. She didn’t have girlfriends, never had. Kind of a fact of life when you were two years younger than your classmates and, well, a geek.

  She apparently hesitated too long.

  “Patty’s a family friend. She makes a wicked white chocolate martini.”

  “I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never had a martini.”

  “Do you drink?” Vienna asked in a rush.

  “Some. Usually wine. Mostly because I don’t care for beer and I don’t know what else to drink.”

  “You have to try Patty’s martini. She doesn’t advertise it, only makes it for someone who knows to ask. It’s not really a martini kind of place.”

  Taylor didn’t exactly know what a martini kind of place was, but as they walked toward the front of Saint Patty’s five minutes later, she could see clearly that this was not the classiest watering hole in town. Likely not in the top five hundred.

  “Told you it’s a dive,” Vienna said, holding the rickety screen door open for her. “Don’t worry, it’s safe.”

  The exterior was white and in desperate need of a coat of paint. Centered on either side of the entrance was a small window with an empty, weathered flower box hanging haphazardly beneath it. The one to the left was more vertical than horizontal. The concrete walk was crumbled in places, and Taylor was thankful she’d worn two-inch floral wedges to the picnic. She wasn’t sure she could navigate it in heels.

  This wasn’t a place where heels were commonplace, she surmised as they went inside. Motorcycle boots, work boots, maybe.

  A shabby bar with three sixties-era light fixtures stretched along the near wall, perpendicular to the front door. Small tables were scattered throughout the room—six of them, Taylor counted. Nothing matched, not even four chairs at a single table and Taylor itched to rearrange them to achieve at least some degree of symmetry.

  “Table or bar?” Vienna asked.

  “You choose.” Taylor felt the two men at the far table watching them and longed for her own kitchen and a fresh-tossed green salad.

  Vienna took one of the stools with a back midway down the bar. Taylor uneasily sat to her right on a simple round stool with no back.

  “It’s the baby Worth,” a woman’s voice called out. There was a service window in the wall behind the bar, and though no one was visible, that’s where the sound came from.

  “Hey, Patty,” Vienna hollered.

  The woman appeared in the doorway at the far end of the bar, wiping her hands on a powder-blue towel. She was in her late fifties, Taylor guessed, with short, russet hair, round cheeks and a genuine smile. Wide-shouldered and ample-chested, she carried extra pounds around her middle. Her pink T-shirt declared, I’m not good at empathy, will you settle for sarcasm?

  “How you doing, honey?” She came around on their side of the bar and hugged Vienna.

  “Fantastic.” Vienna swiveled to include Taylor. “This is my friend Taylor McCabe. Taylor, Patty Wyman.”

  Taylor’s stool didn’t twist so she rotated partway around, extending her hand politely and saying hello. Patty threw her off by
ignoring the hand and pulling her into a quick hug. “Welcome, Taylor. Have you girls eaten yet?”

  Vienna nodded. “We’re here for dessert, if you know what I mean.”

  A conspiratorial smile spread across Patty’s face. “White chocolate for each of you?”

  “You in?” Vienna asked Taylor.

  “I have my car—”

  “We’ll make sure you get home safely, sweetie,” Patty said, somehow brash and warm at the same time. “I don’t let anyone drive outta here who can’t.”

  Taylor liked this woman. She was welcoming and motherly and yet Taylor suspected she could and would knock skulls together when necessary. “Saint Patty’s white chocolate martini sounds like something I have to try at least once.”

  Patty slapped the counter lightly. “On their way. You girls sit tight.”

  “How you doing, Vee?” one of the guys at the table called casually.

  Vienna smiled and waved at him.

  “How often do you come here?” Taylor asked, surprised Alex’s sister knew the man, who wore some kind of uniform.

  “I worked here last summer. Had to quit when school got too intense. I miss the tips.”

  “You’ll get a job easily,” Taylor said, “with much nicer paychecks.”

  “Hope you’re right.”

  Patty came out carrying three full martini glasses and set them on the counter in front of them. “I only allow myself one of these babies a day.” She winked at Taylor. “Keeps the doctor away.”

  Vienna held her glass up to Taylor. “To surviving corporate picnics.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Patty said. “Sounds like I should’ve made these doubles.” She held her glass up as well and all three clinked.

  Taylor took a tentative sip and raised her brows in surprise. “That tastes amazing. Like white chocolate chips. Are you sure there’s alcohol in there?”

  Patty chuckled and nodded. “And a two-drink limit on those for newbies.”

  “They kind of sneak up on you,” Vienna confirmed.

  Half a drink later, Taylor felt warm and more relaxed than she’d been in a long time.