by Trent Reedy
We’d stopped by the side of the road, where we were mostly shaded from the nearby streetlight under a big oak tree. I dropped Scrappy to the pavement. “Whoa,” I said. “Isma, don’t worry about it. I can’t go to the party anyway. My mom will be freaking out that I’m home so late as it is.” I disagreed with her us-versus-them mentality, but I couldn’t say so right now.
“I just … you know …” Isma wiped at a tear on her cheek. “We were going to walk home together and I’m … tired of being second best, you know? Tired of being a consolation prize, someone to hang out with when there’s nothing else to do.”
I brushed a stray strand of dark hair back from her face and worried for a moment that she’d step back or push my hand away. She only watched me. A breeze blew, rattling the changing leaves in the branches above us, making the light from the streetlamp dance with the shadows.
“I’m tired of being so alone,” she whispered, stepping a little closer to me.
Somehow my hands slid around her back. She looked up at me and I leaned toward her. Our lips pressed together, warm and electric. We parted a little, but our foreheads still touched, and I could breathe her breath. Then we kissed again and our mouths opened and I could taste and feel her everywhere.
For years my companions had always been books. I’d read how Romeo kissed Juliet, how Katniss kissed Peeta in The Hunger Games, and how Gatsby kissed Daisy in The Great Gatsby. I’d read hundreds of storybook kisses. None of them were as perfect as this kiss with Isma.
When we somehow finally stopped, we still stood close, and I let out a slow breath as I stared into her dark eyes. “You’re not alone, Isma,” I whispered. And I realized that for the first time in a long time, neither was I.
She shivered. “I’ve never kissed a boy before.”
It had been a first for me too. I smiled, slipped my jacket off, and put it over her shoulders.
She made a small effort to squirm away. “I’m not some helpless girl who can’t remember her own jacket and —”
“I know you’re not.” Pulling the coat tighter around her, I leaned in to kiss her again, and this time I felt her warm fingers press my cheek.
I picked up Scrappy and gripped the handlebars with one hand so that I could take Isma’s soft hand in my other. My arm grew tired from the constant adjustments I had to make guiding the bike that way, but it was worth it to hold on to her. She rubbed her thumb against mine as we walked, and each movement warmed my whole body.
When we reached her block, she squeezed my hand. “I’ve got to go.”
“I wish you didn’t have to.”
“I know. But we better say good-bye here. If my parents see us together …” She let the thought trail off, but I understood her completely. My mother would be even worse. “Thanks for walking me home,” she said.
I wanted to thank her for the kiss. For holding my hand. For everything. I wanted to tell her how I felt, but I didn’t know what to say. “I … uh …”
She smiled in that cute way she had that wrinkled her nose. Then she quickly kissed me on the cheek and backed away toward her house. “Good night,” she whispered with a little wave before running home.
“Good night, Isma,” I said quietly, pressing my fingers to my cheek where her lips had been.
The next morning, I woke in the light from a single sunbeam shining in through my tiny attic window. The muscles in my arms and chest ached when I stretched, but the warmth in my chest spread through me, reducing the pain to a mere reminder of the wonder of last night. Dad’s second mission had been to take a risk and make a move with a girl. I smiled and whispered, “Mission accomplished.”
I threw the old quilt off me, quickly rolled out of bed, and ran so fast toward the stereo that I slid to a stop in my socks on the wood floor. My finger traced down the line of Dad’s CD collection until I found a disc I hadn’t listened to in a long time. It had this cheesy old song that fit today perfectly.
When the first notes hit and the deep voice started, I closed my eyes and I imagined Isma there with me. Why couldn’t she really be here right now? She’d actually liked my attic. We’d been alone up here for hours and all we’d done is studied. We could have been dancing. I found myself swaying along to the music, slowly spinning in a circle as I sang along.
My darlin’, I can’t get enough of your love, babe
Girl, I don’t know, I don’t know why
Can’t get enough of your love, babe
“Oh. My. Gosh,” came the sound of Mary’s voice.
I jumped and slammed my hand down on the OPEN button on the CD carousel. The disc inside spun out of control, probably scratching.
“You’ve got to knock! I told you that! You can’t keep sneaking up here!” I shouted.
Mary laughed. “You’re such a dork. Is this what you do all the time, dance around to terrible music and make out with invisible girls?”
“Shut up. Just get out.”
“It makes sense, though, since that’s the only kind you could ever get.”
“Well, you weren’t there last night when —”
“You bet I wasn’t there last night.” Mary put her finger in her mouth like she was gagging herself. Then she stopped and stared at me seriously. “Wait. What are you smiling about?”
My cheeks flared hot and I knew I had to be bright red. “Nothing. I wasn’t smiling.”
“What happened?” She climbed the rest of the steps out of the stairwell into my attic. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Mary pressed a finger to her lips. “Hmm.” She held the finger up. “Fact. My dorky, never-been-kissed brother had Isma Rafee up in his bedroom to” — she coughed — “study … or … whatever.”
“We didn’t do —”
“Fact.” Mary held a second finger up. “My dorky, never-been-kissed brother has been spotted walking alone with Isma Rafee after football games.”
“Wait. How did you —”
“I have my sources. Fact. My dorky, never-been-kissed brother is caught dancing around to the stupidest old music in the world the day after he has a great football game and is seen walking alone with Isma Rafee.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks and looked at me with wide eyes. “Could it be?”
“Will you just leave?”
“Is it possible?”
“Get out of here!”
“I think Michael M. Wilson might have actually found a girl willing to” — she grabbed her stomach, bent over, and heaved like she was about to vomit — “willing to kiss him.” Then she stood up straight and stared at me.
“Yeah.” What was I supposed to say to that? “You’re an idiot. Get out of here.”
“You did kiss her! Wow. What was it like?”
“I’m not talking about this with my sister,” I said.
“Well, you were dancing around, so it must have been pretty good.”
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “What did you even come up here for?”
“Oh. Yeah. Mom’s taking off for work, but she said we’re supposed to rake and bag the leaves.”
I rolled my eyes and pointed at the stairs. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Except that I’m going shopping with Tara and Crystal. So … it looks like you’re going to have to do the raking yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “For once you’re going to have to get off your spoiled butt and help out around —”
“And you’re going to give me twenty bucks.”
“You’re dreaming.”
Mary started dancing around the room, making kissy faces. “You’re right, Mikey. I guess that instead of taking your twenty bucks shopping, I’ll just stay home and tell Mom all about football and your hot make-out session with Isma.” She made a big, long, sucking kissing sound and smacked her lips. Then she put her fist under her chin and looked up like she was in deep thought. “She might be so mad that she won’t allow you to get your license next week.”
I sighed. I hat
ed my sister. Just once I wanted to see her not get something she wanted. But she had me cornered. I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet, crumpled it, and threw the paper ball at her. Somehow I didn’t think that a blackmailed payout to my sister was what Dad had in mind when he told me to do something nice for her.
She picked up the bill and smoothed it out. “Thank you, Isma. I like her, Mike. I really do.” She slipped the bill in her pocket. “Here. Trade you.” She pulled out an envelope. “Another letter came for you yesterday afternoon.” She left it on my floor as she went downstairs.
Yes! I snatched the letter up and hurried to my desk. For once the Mystery Mailer had perfect timing.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004 (271 Days Left)
Dear Michael,
It’s been over a month since I last wrote to you. We’ve been busy. Second squad drove armored Humvees out from Kandahar, so we now have tactical vehicles. My squad has named our Humvee “Rawhide” after this old Western TV show. We sing the theme song as we launch every mission. More importantly, we have more guys who can help us cover guard duty, so we can get a little more sleep.
Our base is getting closer to done. Construction on the barracks will be finished soon and then we will all move into three-man rooms, or two-man rooms for us team leaders. The barracks are supposed to have a big latrine with actual real, working showers that should have hot water and everything.
One big thing happened. One night we were all just hanging around talking after chow. There’s not a lot else to do. Suddenly, we heard this far-off explosion. This sounds like a big deal, but it’s really not. Explosions and gunshots go off all the time here in Afghanistan. Who knows why. Anyway, we all paused for a second, but it was far away and nothing else happened, so we went back to talking. About ten minutes later, there was a white flash and a much bigger boom. It was still far away. We weren’t under direct attack or anything, but a minute or two after that, the lieutenant came running out of the TOC Tactical Operations Center, telling us to get our armor and helmets on. He’d got a call from the local hajji governor’s office saying the UN compound in Farah had been bombed once, and then when Afghans went to help the victims, a second explosion had gone off.
Every spare man went to the walls to guard our base in case of attack, but my squad was assigned to protect our medics and a physician’s assistant — a female captain attached to us from an active-duty unit — while we went into town to see if we could help.
All of the usual joking that we did when we rolled out on a mission was replaced by nerves and a cold quiet. A crowd of Afghans had gathered around the blast site, but many of them scattered when they saw us pull up. This was unusual. Most of the time, a crowd would gather wherever we went. If they were running, did they know something we didn’t? Were they expecting another Taliban attack?
The captain and the three medics did a great job. They ran right up to the blast site to help. Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. Bits of shrapnel had shredded through a couple nearby cars, and even a poor donkey that called out in agony until an Afghan put it down. There was … stuff … body parts everywhere. I told my guys not to look at it, and I made sure they kept a sharp eye out as they stood in a security perimeter around the area. In the darkening evening, there were too many shadows for the Taliban to hide in. Our medical people helped patch up a couple Afghans, and then it was time to head back to base.
I forced myself to stay sharp and focused on our mission the whole time, but back at our base, I thanked God that we all made it back to base safe. I kept thinking that if we’d been there a few minutes earlier or if there had been a third bomb, it could have been my parts thrown all around the area. I thanked God, as I do every day here, for the gift of being able to live one more day.
Outside of that bombing, life has been pretty routine. Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how things go here, I guess. Ortiz has even been complaining about being bored.
I get letters sometimes that thank me for my service and call me a hero. I appreciate it, but I wish they wouldn’t say those things. I’m no hero. I’m a scared guy just doing my job in a war. That’s it. I didn’t enlist to defend freedom or protect my country, though those things mean a lot to me now. I signed up for the Guard the first time because I was flat broke, and they were offering a $10,000 sign-on bonus, plus G.I. Bill money for college that I or someone in my family could use. The ten grand helped me and your mom buy the house. A fixer-upper, true, but a place of our own.
I reenlisted in the Guard about six months after you were born because we were short on cash, and we needed the $15,000 reenlistment bonus. Your mom had been talking about college, maybe to be a nurse or something, so I figured she could use my G.I. Bill. That was nine months before the 9/11 attacks, so there were no wars or anything at that time, but your mom was furious that I re-upped. If you’re reading this, I guess she was right. I should have listened to her and got out of the Guard. Then maybe I could tell you all this in person. Still, I want you to know that I don’t regret anything I’ve done for you, Mary, or your mother. I’m proud of our family.
This war has taught me that it is a big world with more places to go and more kinds of jobs and lives than your high school guidance counselor ever tells you about. If you’re willing to travel and take risks, Mike, you’ll find endless opportunities, and I hope you get to grab all of those. Don’t rush to be burdened by a house payment. Don’t hurry to take out a loan to buy a car. The more stuff you buy — especially the more stuff you borrow money to buy — the harder it is for you to take advantage of certain opportunities.
Use high school as a time to explore a lot of your interests. Find that one great future that you want in life and then work as hard as you can to achieve it. Even if you think your goal is just a silly dream, never be one of those people who gave up on what they wanted. ALWAYS HOLD ON TO YOUR DREAM!
To that end, I want you to do really great in school, and so your mission with this letter is to ace a school assignment. Do your best. Earn that A. Then keep on going. It will make all the difference in the long run.
I wish I could be there with you now. I’d love to hear about all the fun you’re having.
Love,
Dad
Again, I couldn’t hold back my grin at the thought of how in sync I was with so much of what Dad wanted for me. I always did my best in school. If my mission was to earn an A on an assignment, I probably only had to wait for Coach Carter’s grade to come back for the Civil War presentation. Or else I’d study to ace the next English quiz on Hamlet. This mission shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
What troubled me was the idea that Mom had been mad at Dad for reenlisting. I’d never known that. I’d thought that, except for not having a lot of money, my family had always been happy, sort of ideal. At least that was what I remembered from when Dad was alive. That’s how it had felt on the trip to the Mark Twain Cave, and when Mom and Dad smiled at Mary and me on the kiddie rides at the county fair in Iowa City. I’d never considered that Mom might not have wanted him to be in the Guard.
Dad said he wasn’t a hero, yet he’d gone to a Taliban bomb site with his unit as if it were no big deal. Is that what everyone meant when they said he’d been a hero — that it hardly fazed him to do a whole bunch of scary things? The superheroes in Dad’s old comics that I used to read acted like that, casually fighting powerful villains on a regular schedule, but in Spider-Man and the New Warriors, the heroes always fought with a clear purpose, to save the day. What had my dad been fighting for? He said himself that he wasn’t there to defend freedom, so apart from improving a base in Afghanistan and responding to this bombing, what was he supposed to be doing? What was it all for?
* * *
After a few hours of raking leaves, I headed out to Derek’s farm on Scrappy. Annie rushed out of the ditch and ran along beside me as I rode. She barked and opened her mouth in a doggie smile, as though she knew about Isma and the football victory.
“Hey!
There he is! Touchdown Wilson!” Derek rolled out from under the Falcon when I came into the shop.
“I swear all you ever do is mess around with this old truck,” I said as I got off my bike.
“Whoa!” Derek stood up and patted the Falcon’s fender. “Don’t listen to him. With all the work I’ve put in on this truck, it’s hardly old anymore. New shocks. Engine work. Some reinforcing in the body. Replaced the windshield. New stereo and rewired speakers. Completely new transmission. Muffler. Well, the whole exhaust system. The brakes are fixed up. I even have tires on order. The Falcon is back, baby!” He slapped the fender again. “Good as new! Better. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.”
I had to laugh. That truck was over thirty years old. “I’ll believe all that ‘good as new’ stuff when I see it in action.”
“You got your permit, right?”
“Sure, but I haven’t had the chance to drive much since —”
The keys came flying at me, and I caught them. Derek climbed into the truck on the passenger side. I slid in behind the wheel. “Are you sure about this?” I said.
“Yeah.” Derek pointed out the door of the shop. “It needs a test drive.”
I put the key in, turned it, and gave it some gas. The engine fired up and the rumble shook through me. The Falcon sounded good. It sounded hungry.
“Let’s go!” Derek rolled down his window.
I shifted into drive and rolled out of the shop, stopping before the highway at the end of the gravel driveway. “Which way?”
“Let’s head to town.”
I hit the gas and the tires spun out in the gravel before we shot ahead.
Derek laughed. “Easy, there. The Falcon’s got a lot of juice under the hood. It doesn’t take much to get it going.” He smiled as he watched me drive. “What do you think?”
“It’s pretty awesome,” I said.
He tapped a button to turn on the radio. “Three forty. Twenty minutes until four o’clock. It’s sunshine and sixty-eight degrees here in downtown Riverside. I want to give a shout-out to the mighty Riverside Roughriders football team for bringing home a big win last night against Lone Tree. Great work, guys. Keep it here on the one to count on for today’s news and the best of yesterday’s music. K Double R P, 102.3 FM.”
