Revved

by Naomi Niles

  I hesitated for a brief moment before deciding Evan wouldn’t care. “Hey, what’s up?” I asked, glaring at Dennis who was making a wagging motion with his hands.

  “Hey pumpkin,” said Zack. “I don’t know if you heard about this banquet on Saturday—”

  “Yeah, I just got invited.”

  “By who?” he balked. “Not by one of my buddies, I hope.”

  “No, by your old boss. And my boss. But I turned it down. I have no desire to walk back into the lion’s den after the vicious response to my last post.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” said Zack in a disappointed tone, “because I was calling to invite you myself. We’ve been encouraged to bring a friend; some of the guys are bringing their moms, and Chuck is bringing his wife, but I figured you might like to go with me.”

  It was an invitation I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. Somehow, I felt the health of our relationship in the future was resting on my decision. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  “You sure? You still sound kind of uneasy.”

  “I just want you to promise me that you’ll keep anyone from trying to hurt me.”

  “They won’t hurt, you, babe,” he replied, though he didn’t sound so sure himself. “We’re going over there to be honored; the other guys probably won’t even notice you. Anyway, how would you like to meet me for dinner on Wednesday? We can talk about it then?”

  “I would love that.” I was almost certainly going to need a reprieve in the middle of my week.

  I could sense the conversation winding to a close and Zack wanting to get off the phone. I hesitated, wanting to keep him on the phone for a few minutes longer just to hear the sound of his voice.

  “Well, bye babe,” said Zack. “I’m about to head out for lunch.”

  “Bye. See you in a little bit.”

  I returned to my seat; I hadn’t eaten all morning, and it felt like a tent peg was driving its way into my skull. I wasn’t looking forward to having to explain to Evan that I was now going to be attending the banquet after all. And I knew Zack had been trying to make me feel better, but he wasn’t a good liar. Of course they were going to see me. Of course they were going to remember. We had spent a month living together in the jungle, and I had written an essay I would never be able to live down.

  That night, I made dinner for me and Renee—cold pasta salad with cucumbers, macaroni noodles, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and Kalamata olives, served with a light wine. I think we were both surprised at how much she enjoyed it.

  “You know, if I had known you could cook like that,” she said as she swirled her wine glass, “I’d have let you cook more often.”

  “Thanks for that. I need to start practicing anyway if I’m ever going to make dinner for Zack.”

  “Are you really getting serious? You’ve only been dating for, what, a day?”

  “I called him my boyfriend a couple nights ago, and he didn’t raise any objections,” I said. “I think that means we’re together, although who knows? He has a new nickname every time he calls me, and it’s become sort of a game to try and guess what he’s going to call me next.”

  “Sounds like you ought to just move in together,” said Renee.

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” I added in a quieter voice, “He invited me to his awards banquet on Saturday.”

  “He did what?!” Renee exclaimed.

  I shrugged and smiled, as if it was just some casual thing; as if I hadn’t been clamoring to tell her since the moment we got off the phone. “He called it a date, so I guess it’s a date. I guess that means we’re dating now. Him and me. Together.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Zack

  I spent the next couple days at home working on my book. After a quick run to Trader Joe’s on Monday night for drinks and snacks, I didn’t leave the house again until it was time to meet up with Kelli on Wednesday night. In the meantime, I sat at my desk eating yogurt and frozen pizza and struggling to outline my manuscript.

  I had thought this would be easier than it was, and after a few hours of panicked frustration, I began to wish I had confided in Kelli about my secret project. I remembered an argument I’d had with a friend back in high school who wrote novels as a hobby and wanted to be a professional novelist. “Anybody could sit down and write a book,” I had told him. “How hard could it be?”

  “If you think it’s so easy,” he said, irritated, “you ought to try it sometime.”

  At the time I couldn’t understand what he was so upset about, or why he bristled when I said writers must be lazy because they just sat around all day typing whatever came into their heads. Now I almost wanted to call him up and apologize. Turns out there was a lot more to it than just sitting down and spitting out words onto a computer screen. I tried that, but after a few pages of incoherent rambling, I realized I needed to sit down and plan this thing out before I started writing. It probably wouldn’t hurt to run by Barnes & Noble and see if they had any books on writing books for dummies. I didn’t think Kelli would mind if we went by there after dinner on Wednesday.

  “I thought this was supposed to be a vacation,” I muttered to myself as I downed the last of my Red Bull and glared at my screen with red eyes. “How do professional writers do this day in and day out without wanting to throw themselves out of a window?”

  I picked up Kelli at her apartment on Wednesday at around 6:00pm. She was putting her earrings in when I tapped at the door and smelled strongly of perfume and apple-scented lotion.

  “Come in!” she said eagerly, ushering me into the living room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  There was a dude standing in the kitchen, and I figured it was either her brother she had never told me about or we were about to have a fight. But then I saw a woman just a couple years younger than Kelli, and with Kelli’s eyes, standing at the stove heating up vegetables in a skillet.

  “You must be Kelli’s sister,” I said. “I want to say… Debbie?”

  “Renee,” said Renee. “And this is my boyfriend, Max. Max, Zack was also in the Navy.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where were you stationed?” asked Max, looking impressed and coming over to shake my hand. He had a firm grip.

  “Recently, the Congo and Libya. Before that, we spent about a year in Liberia battling the leaders of a sex trafficking ring.”

  “I fought in Afghanistan,” said Max. “Shipped out right after 9/11. My parents wanted me to go into music, but after watching the towers fall that morning in gym class, there was no way I wasn’t going overseas.”

  “I hear that,” I said. “To be honest with you, I thought we’d have bin Laden in the bag by Christmas. Sometimes I can’t believe we’re still over there.”

  “I thought we’d be leaving once we caught the bastard,” said Max. “I didn’t plan on getting involved in some other country’s civil war.”

  We’d gotten so absorbed in our own conversation that I had almost forgotten the real reason I had come over. But just then, Kelli emerged from a back bedroom with her hair pinned up, looking like the deposed princess of a small European monarchy who had found a second career in acting. “You ready to go?” she asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” I took her by the shoulders and waved bye to Max and Renee. “Good meeting y’all.”

  “See ya around,” said Max.

  We went out to dinner at Café Luxembourg on the Upper West Side, one of those bistro-looking places with a very old world, Parisian aesthetic. At one end of the room, a man was playing the violin while a couple of college undergrads wearing broad, black hats and vintage military jackets snapped selfies with their wine glasses. I ordered a Luxemburger with a side of frites (“I don’t know why they can’t just call ‘em fries,” I muttered) while Kelli ordered leeks vinaigrette, a quinoa salad, and roasted button mushrooms. (“I’m trying to eat healthier, okay?” she explained when she saw my bewildered expression). It seemed like the sort of place where her sister and M
ax might go on an anniversary, but I felt out of place, and I suspected Kelli did, too.

  “So,” said Kelli, shrugging her shoulders awkwardly. “What’ve you been up to for the last couple days?”

  There was no good way to answer this question: if I told her I was working on a book, that would raise all sorts of questions, and if I lied and said I hadn’t been doing much of anything, I would sound lazy. “Just running some errands,” I said finally. “It’s nice to stay inside and not have to go anywhere.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Kelli. “Or at least, not having to go into an office. I’ve been trying to talk my boss into letting me work remotely. It would be nice to write my columns without having to leave my apartment, although knowing me, I would start to go crazy after an hour and end up heading out to a coffee shop.”

  One of the great things about Kelli was that I didn’t have to struggle too hard to make conversation. I could say one thing and then sit back and listen to her talk about it for five or ten minutes. “I don’t understand this whole Parisian vibe,” I said, motioning to the exposed brick walls and the older couple behind us sharing an amuse-bouche. “If you want to visit Paris that badly, just go to Paris.”

  Perhaps I had spoken more rudely than I intended, because Kelli looked hurt. “Do you not like it here?” she asked in a sad voice.

  “It’s not that I don’t like it, I just think it should look more like New York.”

  “Well, that’s what I’ve always loved about New York,” she replied. “The way it can integrate and adapt itself to just about any culture in the world. It’s like the Epcot Center of cities.”

  “You just compared my city to the most boring part of Disney World,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, that was always my favorite,” said Kelli. “Much better than the Magic Kingdom in my opinion.”

  I threw her an incredulous look, as if to say, “What is wrong with you?”

  After dinner, we bought gelato at a local gelateria and I asked if she wanted to visit Barnes & Noble. Kelli spent some time browsing the true crime section while I disappeared and returned a few minutes later carrying a plastic bag containing a couple of how-to guides on writing a memoir.

  “What’d you get?” she asked in a whisper, like a librarian talking to a small child.

  I felt hot shame creeping up my neck as I pulled the books out of the book. She read the covers, then turned to look at me with a quizzical expression. “Are you writing a book?” she asked.

  I mumbled something about wanting to know how professionals like herself did it, but I could see she wasn’t fooled. She smirked proudly as she grabbed a Tana French novel off the shelf and headed toward checkout. I wondered vaguely as we headed out into the warmth of a late July night whether her love of mysteries was the real reason she had felt compelled to go out with me. I sometimes wished I could see the world through her eyes just for a day, just to know what it was she found so fascinating about me.

  Not wanting to be late for work again, she asked me to drive her back to her apartment.

  “We never did talk about the dinner on Saturday,” I said as we made our way through Manhattan traffic. “I guess I was enjoying my ‘frites’ so much I completely forgot about it.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” said Kelli. “I feel like everyone in that room is going to hate me, but I’ll go if you want me to. You’re probably the only person in the world who could get me to go in there after the things I wrote.”

  “What you wrote wasn’t even that bad.” I pulled into a parking space and stopped the car. “And nobody in my platoon really thought it was. Most of the hate you got was from ignorant folks who sit at home watching the news because they don’t have jobs and they’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “Well, hopefully none of those people will be there,” said Kelli with a grim smile. “If they knew I was coming, they would be lined up around the block in protest.”

  “Haven’t people moved on by now? It’s been almost a year since that piece went to press.”

  “Yeah, but every time there’s a new scandal involving a SEAL, Fox News distracts viewers by bringing it back up, getting them mad at the media, which in this case means getting them mad at me. Honestly, they don’t pay me enough for this.”

  “Nobody pays you what you’re worth, babe.” I leaned over and kissed her, once, on the mouth. She looked slightly reassured as she said good night and climbed out of the car.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kelli

  I awoke the next morning to a faint, wheezy sound coming from somewhere nearby. It was the sort of hacking sound a tomcat might make as it coughs up a piece of food that went down the wrong way. I got up and looked around the room, thinking maybe a mouse had gotten trapped behind the desk or under the bed. It took me a moment to realize the noise was coming from the living room.

  I threw on my robe and came out of my room. I found Renee sitting on the couch, crying.

  “Renee?” I came around the couch and sat down beside her at the other end. “Renee, what’s wrong?”

  Renee sniffled unhappily and looked up in annoyance, as if mad that I had interrupted. “It’s Max,” she said, wiping the snot off her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “He’s having second thoughts about getting married, and I think he might be thinking about breaking up with me.”

  “No way.” I reached over to take her hand. “How did this come up?”

  “I guess I’ve known it was coming for a while now,” said Renee. “I’ve seen how he looks at other girls when we’re out shopping or eating dinner. You know how you hear women say, their partner has a special way of looking at them that’s only for them?” I nodded. “Well, Max and I have never had that. Sometimes I catch him looking around, and I can almost see him wondering if he would be happier with somebody else.”

  “But you seemed really happy together. Are you sure you’re not just overthinking it?” Renee had a long history of panicking whenever a relationship was threatening to get too serious. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can make you breakfast? You can tell me all about it while I’m cooking.”

  I made her a breakfast of chickpea pancakes and a tofu omelet made with spinach, onions, and garlic. For myself I fried up a couple of sausage links, two hash brown patties, and a chicken crepe doused in butter. When Renee saw my plate, she set down her fork and stared longingly at it.

  “Do you want some of this?” I asked. “You can have it.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said sadly. “I shouldn’t be eating it anyway. Are we all out of the good orange juice?”

  “Pulp-free is the only kind of orange juice I buy,” I replied. “If you want orange juice with pulp in it, you’ll have to buy it yourself.”

  Renee stared wistfully at her glass as though at a lover who had betrayed her. “Anyway,” I added, scraping some of my mashed-up hash browns onto the edge of her plate, “what exactly did Max say to you?”

  Renee let out an involuntary shudder and lowered her eyes. “He said he doesn’t know if we’re really compatible—we’ve been dating for over a year now, and this is when he decides to tell me. I asked him if he was going to break up with me, and he said we can keep dating, but he doesn’t see marriage being in the picture.”

  “That doesn’t sound very promising,” I said, stabbing my fork into one of the sausages vengefully. “It sounds like he’s planning to break up with you.”

  “That’s what I thought!” Renee exclaimed. “I almost think I should get the jump on him and break up with him before he breaks up with me. That way it wouldn’t hurt as much, and I wouldn’t have to tell future boyfriends I had been dumped by a guy. On the other hand, what if he’s not thinking of breaking up with me, and I just ruined what could have been a good relationship?”

  “Well, he’s being kind of an ass, if you ask me.” I set down my fork and faced her at eye level. “I know I’m slightly biased because I’m your sister, but what kind of guy says, ‘I like you enough to date yo
u, but not enough to go out with you, but we should still keep dating!’ It sounds to me like he wants the benefits of a relationship without the commitments of a relationship. Honestly, I’m a little—well, majorly disappointed. I thought Max was better than this.”

  “So did I,” said Renee, wiping her eyes with a napkin, “or I would never have gone out with him in the first place.”

  After breakfast, we got dressed and went out shopping for dresses, but continued to talk sporadically about Max throughout the day. Renee wanted to know how I had lucked into my relationship with Zack, and I had to remind her that we had only been dating for less than a week. It felt strange to hear those words coming out of my mouth, I felt like we had been together for a lot longer than that.

  At one point, we passed by Victoria’s Secret, and Renee paused in front of the shop window, staring up at a poster of a skinny model in lacy red lingerie coyly hiding behind a heart-shaped velvet pillow. Renee admired the figure enviously, as if reflecting on the sad fact that she had never been that skinny, had never been a model, and had never been hung up in a shop window for men to lust over and women to gawk at.

  Over dinner that night at Avant Garden, she said to me, “Do you want to know a secret? I’ve sort of always wanted to be you.”

  It was one of the more surprising confessions she had ever made to me. I set down my fork and stared hard at her. “Why would you want that? Have you met me?”

  “I know it’s irrational,” she said, “and I know from your perspective, it probably doesn’t make sense. But growing up, our parents and teachers were always going on about how brilliant you were and how you were destined for great things. And I just wanted someone to fuss over me like that and to tell me I had the potential for greatness in me.”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever before said to me that they wanted to be me,” I replied.

  “More people should want to be like you,” said Renee. “I mean, look at you. You’re so much more put together than I am. You have a career, and you’ve done some award-winning reporting, and you’re in a steady relationship with the world’s most amazing man.”