Uncharted Passage

by Julie Cannon

  *

  Emily shoved past a man with a zoom lens on his camera, almost knocking him sideways as she stormed away. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She couldn’t face returning to work, and she had no classes, so she called in and said she intended to work from home for the rest of the day. Somehow she managed to drive without smashing into another motorist. When she reached the tranquility of her temporary home, she took a cold shower and left a whiny message on Julia’s voicemail.

  Her friend understood her well enough to finish work early and arrive with Chinese food. They ate and watched CNN for a while before Julia could contain her curiosity no longer.

  “It’s her, I suppose. Just a wild guess.”

  “Of all the arrogant, self-centered, condescending jerks.”

  “So you saw her again, then?”

  “To even think that I’m not capable of making my own decisions. She needs to think again. She has no idea what I can do for myself.” Emily got up and paced back and forth while Julia sat calmly on the couch, wisely saying nothing. “Do you believe she actually implied that my libido is stronger than my brain? Does she really believe those things? How chauvinistic is that? My God, she thinks like a man. She is everything I despise about the military.” She finally fell back into the chair across from Julia.

  “Why are you so tanked up about it? Let it go.”

  Emily glared at her friend, amazed at her cavalier attitude. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see her face. She actually believes all the crap she spewed.”

  “So what? It’s not like you two run in the same social circles. You’re never going to see her again. Forget about her. You survived an experience that makes for damn good cocktail conversation, and you had some great sex doing it. Not many people can claim either one, let alone both. Move on.” Julia accentuated her last two words to make her point.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll show her high libido and loss of self-control. Let’s go.” Emily grabbed Julia’s hand and dragged her toward the front door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To get laid.”

  “I’m driving,” Julia replied, leading the way.

  *

  Even though it was Emily’s idea, it looked like Julia was the one who was going to get laid almost immediately. At the first club they walked into, she hooked up with a tall brunette. Emily set her sights on a petite blonde on the other side of the room, and in no time they were dancing, closer and closer as each song played, until not an inch of space separated them. The constant drumming of the music mimicked the pulse in her veins. The blonde’s seductive moves didn’t hurt either. Names were not important but when the stranger kissed Emily, there was a problem.

  Emily wanted to pull away. She didn’t part her lips but the blonde sucked and licked while she reached for Emily’s butt. Emily tried to relax, but she hated feeling the small hands squeezing as if they had a right. The woman gave up trying to get her tongue into Emily’s mouth and swooped down on her throat instead, nibbling like she got plenty of practice. Her ponytail tickled Emily’s chin and a stray strand of pale hair slithered unpleasantly across her lips.

  There was nothing wrong with the woman, Emily reasoned, she had some moves. What more did she want? She put her arms around the eager woman’s waist and tried to get interested.

  The blonde instantly ground against her. She whispered in Emily’s ear, “I’m wet. Let’s get out of here.”

  Emily pictured the platinum ponytail bobbing between her thighs and felt repelled. Fighting an urge to jerk her body out of range, she gave in to more intimate caresses. One of her breasts was squeezed. Her nipple responded with a brief, feeble tightening. Her body was letting her down, refusing to become aroused. If she got any drier, her jeans would chafe. She glanced swiftly around, looking for someone who was more her type. Tall. Powerful. With a commanding presence and incredible green eyes she could lose herself in.

  “Hello?” The blonde’s query was accompanied by a pout.

  Emily mumbled an apology to the miffed woman, found Julia and said she would grab a cab, then almost ran out the door. She stopped on the sidewalk and instantly started shivering. She didn’t know if her reaction was due to the cool night air rushing over her heated body or the realization of what she’d almost done. She had not picked up a woman in a bar since college and here she was, allowing a stranger she didn’t find attractive to practically fuck her on the dance floor. What was she thinking?

  It was still early and the sidewalks were crowded, so Emily decided to walk the five blocks home instead of fighting for a cab. The evening stroll would give her a chance to clear her head. Whether or not she wanted to admit it, Hayden had gotten under her skin. She was humiliated and upset that Hayden could think so poorly of her. It would have been easy to correct her mistaken assumptions about Michelle, but Emily had been too hurt. It was as if Hayden wanted an excuse to discard her, to trivialize all that had happened between them.

  But their connection was more than adrenaline and hormones, as Hayden had tried to explain it away. Emily refused to accept that Hayden really believed her own dismissive statements. No one else had been around to pull her from the water. No one else had come out of nowhere to save her from the two ugly men. Of all the possible venues, Emily had chosen to protest at the Fort Tanner base. She took her students to the same park every day and one day there Hayden was, sitting on a bench. It was almost as if something was steering them in the same direction. Could it be fate? With her technical mind, she generally didn’t believe in such things. But what else could it be?

  Every time she turned around, Hayden was there.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emily heard the phone ringing as she pulled the door closed behind her. She glanced at her watch. She was already late and if the call was important, whoever it was would leave a message. She was groggy from only a few hours of sleep again for the third time this week. She knew it wasn’t a case of insomnia, it was a case of Lieutenant Colonel Hayden Caldwell. She had tried everything to get Hayden out of her head, including her disastrous attempt to sleep with someone else, but the minute she laid her head on the pillow at the end of the day her thoughts returned to Khao Lak Beach. Oftentimes, she woke in the middle of the night with her hand where Hayden’s mouth had so skillfully caressed her. Her only relief came when she let her fantasies take her away.

  Yawning, Emily hit the garage door button, slid into her car, and backed out of the drive. She managed to reach the school without falling asleep at the wheel or driving into a parked car. Mobile television trucks crowded the front of the school as she drove by on her way to the parking lot reserved for the teachers. The trucks, bearing logos of Live at 5 and Eyewitness Now, had been here before doing stories on the school itself or incidents involving parents of the students. Emily didn’t think twice about their presence as she parked and locked the car.

  Molly Riverson, the school secretary, met her at the staff entrance. Molly was normally well put together, so Emily immediately noticed her frazzled appearance and excited look in her eyes.

  “Molly, what is it? What’s happening?”

  “You are what’s happening, Emily. You’re in the paper and the news people want to interview you.”

  Molly’s words came out in such a rush, Emily wasn’t sure she heard her correctly. “What?”

  “You’re in the paper. Right here on page eight. Didn’t you see it?”

  Molly thrust the morning newspaper at her. Emily opened it casually. Her parents had been in the paper many times, and she’d been interviewed occasionally before she left the Ashley Institute. After her remarkable tsunami survival story, the media had swarmed all over her for a week, but the fuss had died down since. So why the TV vans? In a split second, she knew the answer.

  MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

  TSUNAMI SURVIVORS ON OPPOSITE SIDES?

  The headline was centered over two pictures of her and Hayden. The one on the left showed them
shaking hands in the park. In the other they were sitting close at Roscoe’s.

  “Oh my God.” Her knees began to shake and she steadied herself against the cool brick building. She felt Molly’s prying eyes on her as she read:

  Our very own Emily Bradshaw and Lt. Colonel Hayden Caldwell both survived the deadly tsunami that struck Thailand the day after Christmas. In fact, Ms. Bradshaw was rescued by Lt. Colonel Caldwell just before she would have been swept away to her death in the wave. The women traversed death, destruction and savage conditions for two days until they were rescued by aid workers sent to the devastated country.

  Emily skimmed the next few paragraphs that provided the readers of the Braxton Daily Bugle a detailed, if not exactly accurate, account of their experience together on the beach. The Bugle, as it was known by the locals was, in Emily’s opinion, not much more that a gossip rag, spewing innuendo and half-truths to anyone stupid enough to pay the seventy-five cents to buy it. What caught her eye was the reporter’s account of her arrest at the Army base.

  Ms. Bradshaw was arrested for trespassing on the military base famous for its rigorous pre-deployment training. Lt. Colonel Caldwell, the woman who saved Ms. Bradshaw’s life, happens to be the garrison commander for the Fort Tanner base and ordered her arrest. When contacted for comment, Ms. Bradshaw did not return this reporter’s calls. Lt. Colonel Caldwell was unreachable as well.

  But are they on opposite sides? This reporter has seen Ms. Bradshaw and the Lt. Colonel several times looking far chummier than Army regulations would allow. You tell me…do they look like adversaries?

  “Emily, I had no idea. Are you—” Molly was stopped in mid sentence by Emily’s scalding look.

  “Get a substitute for me today, Molly. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the children if I’m here. It’ll be too distracting.”

  The principal of the school was the most liberal person Emily knew, so she didn’t expect there to be an issue about the article and accompanying pictures. But others might not be so understanding. Leaving the building, Emily quickly walked back to her car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  The streets in downtown Braxton were one-way, but thankfully the way Emily needed to go took her in the opposite direction of the television crews. She slowly merged into the morning rush-hour traffic, fighting the urge to race around every car in front of her. Finally she was moving at a pace that still didn’t come close to the racing of her heart. She turned onto her street and immediately hung a U-turn at the sight of a news van parked in the vicinity of Julia’s house.

  Emily took refuge near the municipal park a few blocks away and shut off the engine. Tightly gripping the steering wheel, she rested her forehead on the back of her hands. What was going on? Who was this reporter and where did he get his story? How had he connected her to Hayden? She took several calming, deep breaths and sat back in her seat. She was a scientist, trained to think analytically, to consider all the evidence before drawing a conclusion that could be validated and substantiated.

  There was only one thing she could be certain of: Hayden would never have risked her Army career by leaking information. Emily could imagine exactly what she was thinking right now.

  *

  As Hayden waited for the ax to fall, a grim suspicion crossed her mind. Had Emily sold their story? Was this some form of carefully orchestrated payback for the arrest? Had Emily and her anti-war friends dreamed up the perfect way to poke fun at the military, at Hayden’s expense? She’d tried calling, but Emily’s phone rang and rang with no answer, and when she called the school they simply said she was not in today.

  Hayden’s office was small and she paced the six steps back and forth, her eyes never straying far from the newspaper. The photographer must have taken them with a long-range lens because she would have seen him otherwise. An unlikely assumption, when each time she was with Emily the only thing she saw was Emily. The color of her hair, the smoldering darkness of her eyes, and the way her lips moved when she talked. Hayden wouldn’t notice a bomb going off next to her if she had Emily to look at. She wouldn’t have seen a man with a camera.

  Corporal Stone was speaking to someone just outside her door, and Hayden knew from his tone it was not Foreman. Her phone had rung constantly since she got in, and the corporal had done an excellent job of deflecting any unwanted calls. After a quick knock, he stepped into her office.

  “Captain Caldwell is on the line.” His face looked pale.

  Her father. Just who she didn’t want to talk to. “Thank you, Corporal. I appreciate everything you’re doing. I’ll take it.”

  Hayden had been concerned when her rank surpassed her father’s. She suspected he was bitter because he was never able to move past captain, but he never let on. Hayden detected more than a touch of sarcasm when he joked that he should be calling her ma’am instead of using her name.

  She walked around her desk and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  There was no point in pleasantries, she knew why he was calling. Even though he’d retired several years ago, Frank Caldwell was still closely connected to the inner circle of the Army. She knew her father well and held the receiver several inches away from her ear.

  “Hayden, what in the fuck is going on?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Her mother said that her first word was not “mama” or “dada” like most kids said, but “sir.” Of course it was. Her father was an officer in the Army and she was his child. There was no other option than to refer to him as “sir,” especially when she was in trouble. And she was in big trouble.

  “What do you mean, ‘nothing’? This shit is all over the paper,” he bellowed.

  Hayden was eerily calm. She was a grown woman, but her father still had the ability to rattle her nerves with his military voice. “First of all, Dad, I wouldn’t call the Braxton Daily Bugle a credible source of journalism. Secondly, the piece is filled with speculation. There is nothing going on between me and Emily Bradshaw.”

  She had rehearsed this speech several times and was fully prepared to repeat it to General Foreman when he decided to summon her to his office for a browbeating.

  “Well, it doesn’t look that way to me,” her father said. “Who is this woman, anyway?”

  “I met her when I was in Thailand, during the tsunami. She’s the one I rescued.” Hayden filled him in on the details of their recent meetings, from the protest to their disastrous meal at the restaurant. “I don’t know how this guy connected us, but what he’s implying is simply not true.”

  “Then you need to issue a statement. Demand a retraction.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” She’d anticipated this suggestion.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because giving this story air will lend it credibility. I won’t dignify this kind of smut reporting with a response. The media has been here all morning and I refuse to speak to them. In a few days this will blow over and the Bugle will be on the bottom of the neighbor’s bird cage.”

  Hayden hoped this would be the case, but knew deep down that the story would get legs, as they said in the news business. It was filled with excitement, intrigue, sex, and conflict. A news producer’s dream.

  “Do you know how many calls I’ve received this morning?” Her father was relentless.

  Hayden softened her tone but remained firm. “I’m sorry, sir, but this has nothing to do with you.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones.

  “Nothing to do with me? You’re my daughter and an officer of the United States Army. You’re supposed to set the example of what an officer should be. You keep your nose clean and your head down and do your job, for Christ sake.”

  Hayden let him continue without interruption. She read between the lines and knew he was more concerned with his reputation than hers. His buddies would drop subtle comments or snide jokes about his daughter the dyke. She’d heard them all before.

  Hayden hadn’t officially
come out to her parents, but her lack of boyfriends when other girls were sporting hickies and going to the prom might have been their first clue. That and the fact that she was forty-three and never married or talked about getting married. That should have been their second clue. And if they took a good look at her, especially in the last few years, they would see that her “lesbian” neon sign was glowing brightly. Her normally short hair was cut shorter, her edge was a bit edgier, and her attitude was You don’t have to ask, here I am.

  Hayden felt remarkably calm. She let her father finish and then said, “I’m sorry that you’re upset and I’m sorry for any embarrassment this may cause you. But it’s not true, and that’s all I’m going to say about the matter.” She didn’t apologize for seeing Emily because she wasn’t sorry. She waited a few seconds, expecting him to start in again, then said, “I’ve got to go, sir. I’ll call you later this evening.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

  Corporal Stone must have been waiting for the light on his phone to show that her line was no longer in use because he knocked on the door as soon as she replaced the receiver. “Excuse me, ma’am, but Ms. Bradshaw called when you were on the phone with the captain. She left her cell phone number and asked if you would please call her.”

  His face had regained some of its color and his eyes were filled with understanding.

  Her face softened as well. It was good to have an ally.

  “May I say something, ma’am?” the young man asked hesitantly.

  “Of course you can, Corporal. You know that.”

  Hayden was more relaxed with her staff than other officers, who preferred to pull rank and demand proper protocol. She typically called them by name and not rank, and never issued what she termed as “orders” to them. In addition to treating people respectfully, she’d learned long ago that her staff had the power to make her look good or very, very bad.