Poked (A Standalone Romance) (A Savery Brother Book)

by Naomi Niles

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kelli

  Another ten months passed. Ten months during which I made no trips to foreign countries and did not antagonize the members of any branches of the United States Military.

  I had gone on a few dates, but nothing spectacular. It was a bit ridiculous, the hold what’s-his-face still had on me, despite the fact that we’d spent all of about two days together. One night, I went out for sushi with a twenty-something investment banker who was into the Grateful Dead and wore an obnoxious bowtie, which he had given a name (“the Lady-Slayer”). I excused myself about halfway through the meal to use the restroom and spent the next twenty minutes huddled in a stall, frantically texting my sister to come rescue me. She was at the opera seeing a production of Verdi and didn’t see the texts until I was already home.

  One night I got a call from Evan, who was in tears. He told me to turn on the local news. The building in which our office was located had caught fire, destroying a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and printing paper in a few minutes. The website had gone on hiatus for a few months while Evan sought new accommodations and pleaded with the millionaires who helped bankroll the Bugle to pony up some more cash. Now I was working out of a dingy, single-room basement that rattled with an appalling sound every time the train went past. It wasn’t ideal, but at least most of us still had our jobs.

  “What would you do if you had to leave the Bugle?” Dennis asked me one cold afternoon as we sat in the basement wrapped in blankets, sipping mugs of hot cider. He was playing Smash Mouth on his laptop, and although I had repeatedly offered him my headphones, he refused to take the hint.

  I glared up at him in suspicion. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Just a hypothetical. I haven’t heard anything.”

  I took a sip of my cider as I considered the question. “I don’t know. I suppose I’d try to leverage my experience here into a position on the staff of a respected paper. Maybe the Times would hire me.”

  Dennis scoffed. “You know how hard it is to get a job with the Times?”

  I shrugged. “They hired Ross Douthat, so I figure I at least have a chance.”

  And every morning, as she had done for as long as we had lived together, Renee dragged me out of bed with a few cheery words and the offer of some foul-tasting beverage.

  “Get up, get up,” she said one morning in early spring. “I brought you your favorite.”

  “It’s not that chocolate, latte, whatever, is it?” I said, throwing a pillow over my head to smother the hateful glare of the sun.

  “Nope, even better. It’s a kale shake, and I added rhubarb to this one to give it that extra kick. You’ll be awake in three minutes, and you won’t even be grumpy!”

  She said this with so much enthusiasm that I might have been forgiven for thinking it was my birthday. Still grumbling and swearing, I crawled out of bed, out of my pajama bottoms, and into a pair of blue jeans fashionably ripped at the knees. All the while Renee sipped her drink while she scrolled through the morning’s headlines on the Bugle.

  “Seems like Dennis is really slacking lately, isn’t he?” she said, a note of concern in her voice. “He keeps writing the same article about how everything is terrible.”

  “I mean, it’s just a fact,” I said from the closet. “There’s only so many ways you can say it before you start to repeat yourself.”

  “Yeah, but didn’t he used to write movie reviews? And the occasional poem?”

  “We got so many complaints about the poems Evan literally begged him to stop printing them. And our donors didn’t like the reviews because they weren’t driving traffic to the website. Turns out that passion and outrage is what drives clicks.”

  Renee sighed. “How long are you planning on staying with this paper?”

  “As long as they keep paying me.” I was getting a little annoyed with Renee’s repeated hints that I should quit my job and work for some worthier publication. She didn’t seem to understand that the Bugle model was the model for all websites in the past couple of years. You couldn’t make it in this business unless you found ways to harvest people’s rage.

  “Anyway,” I added, walking over to the refrigerator and retrieving a package of bacon and a tube of sausage from the bottom shelf, “there’s no way I can quit now. I’m in line for a promotion.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Renee, closing her laptop and glaring at the meats in disgust. “How do you figure?”

  “Well,” I said, “the lead editor has just left, after firing off a pretty nasty rant about how this isn’t the same Bugle he co-founded ten years ago and he’s very disappointed in the direction we’ve taken, etc. That left an opening that Evan is desperately seeking to fill.”

  “How many people have applied?”

  “Me and all the other reporters, and Bryan the copy-editor. Everyone’s angling for that pay increase. But most of the others don’t have any editing experience, whereas I was the executive editor of the school newspaper in college.”

  “Yeah, but that was six or eight years ago, sweetie,” said Renee, her forehead furrowed in worry. “You can’t depend on that, not when all your post-grad experience has been in reporting.”

  I shrugged, as if to say, “What of it?” Renee’s concern was aggravating even when I knew I needed to hear it.

  “Anyway,” said Renee, “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Times are hard, and there are a lot of people out of work, and they’ll probably end up hiring someone from outside the Bugle.”

  Renee’s advice put me in a rotten mood for the rest of breakfast, and it carried over to yoga. When she told us to get in the mountain position, it was hard not to hear in it the same hectoring tone she had used that morning in the apartment. I ended up leaving early and heading over to the coffee shop where Max worked. There I ordered a lemonade that she would not have approved of, in a fit of spite and defiance, and sat down at a booth near the window.

  She found me there as soon as class ended.

  “Hey,” she said, coming over and standing in front of me. She set her keys and purse down on the table. “I feel like you’re mad at me.”

  “I am, a little.” I figured it was best not to mince words, not with her. “I guess I don’t like being told that I don’t have a chance at the job I want because I’m not good enough or experienced enough or whatever.”

  Renee’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ of contrition, and she reached for my wrist. “Oh, Kelli. I hope you know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “What did you mean, then?”

  “You just seem to have it really settled that this job is yours for the taking, and I don’t want you to be disappointed if it ends up going to someone else.”

  “I guess so.” I hated it when she was right, and I knew she was right, but I didn’t want her to be. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  But before she could respond, Max stepped out from behind the counter and came walking over toward us. He reminded me uncomfortably of Zack with his lean but muscular frame, his black-rimmed spectacles, and his neatly combed hair. “Hey, you girls okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, reaching for my purse and getting up from the table. “I just need to get going. I’m going to be late for work.” I could still feel their eyes on me as I walked out the door and into the street.

  ***

  I entered the basement to find Dennis sitting alone at a table reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and eating cheese puffs while Bryan the copy-editor hovered in the background trying to get the coffee-maker to work.

  “This book!” Dennis shouted by way of greeting as I set my purse down. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me how good it is?”

  “I’ve read it a few times,” I replied. “Never gets old.”

  “It’s just so Gothic and so deliciously evil. Like, I’m only in the third chapter, but there’s this cloud of dread and foreboding hovering over every page. How do you achieve an effect like that?”

 
; I shrugged. “I guess you have to be Oscar Wilde.”

  “He’s brilliant. It’s insane what they did to him, throwing him in jail and destroying his health. Imagine what else he might have written.”

  I was spared any more of Dennis’s literary harangues when the door opened and Evan came walking into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The bakery was, if you can believe this, out of doughnuts. I’ve never been so disappointed. How’s everyone else doing?”

  “Good,” said about six different voices, all sounding tired and unhappy.

  “Anything new that we need to be reporting?”

  Dennis set down his book and scanned a notepad that was lying on the table in front of him. “There’s been a labor strike in Seattle; global warming has sent the cost of chocolate skyrocketing, so now scientists are confident that America might actually do something about it; umm, nobody is sure where the Maldives went…”

  “No actual news, then?”

  He shook his head. “It’s been a pretty quiet morning, politically. The governor of Kentucky ‘faved’ some pretty pornographic tweets; a Republican senator said some terrible things about Ted Cruz.”

  “Dennis, I want you to cover the tweets. Patricia, you cover Cruz. I want both of those articles done within the hour. Kelly, come with me into my corner.”

  Now that we were working in a single-room basement, Evan’s office had relocated to the corner underneath the drain pipe. Normally I hated having private meetings with him because the rest of the office could hear everything he said; but on this particular morning, I followed him hopefully over there, eager to know whether I would be getting a promotion.

  “So,” said Evan, setting one stack of papers on top of another so that we could face each other, “there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I’ve found a replacement for Tony.”

  He paused, apparently waiting for me to ask what the bad news was. But if that was the good news, then the bad news could only be one thing. I went on sitting there in silence for a moment, rather wishing I could stop time right there so I never had to finish the conversation.

  When it became clear that I wasn’t going to cooperate, Evan said, “The bad news is, I’ve given the job to Bryan. It’s nothing against you; his years of experience copy-editing blew everyone else out of the water.”

  Bryan. Of course. I guess that was the reason why he was standing at the coffee-maker with his back to me when I came in. He didn’t want to have to face me.

  “Cool,” I said, though I didn’t think it was cool at all. I stood up, not wanting to prolong the conversation any further. “Will that be all, then?”

  “I just want you to know how much I value both of your contributions,” said Evan, with the practiced air of someone saying the thing he was supposed to say. “I hope you’ll continue to be on the team for many years.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” I said, just loud enough that he could hear me, and returned to my desk without another word.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Zack

  Carson and I were crossing the airport on our way to baggage claim. It was our first time back in the states in almost a year. Behind us a man was talking loudly on his cell phone; his thick accent and the way he kept saying “y’all” and “fixin’ to” suggested that he was from Texas. Ahead of us a couple of teen girls in light-up sneakers were sharing a large pretzel.

  “Damn, don’t it feel good to be back?” said Carson, staring gaily around him. “I bet this is how it feels to come out of prison.”

  “I can’t really compare it, having never been to prison,” I said. “But I feel like what we went through was a lot harder in some ways. Let’s throw America’s criminals into a hundred-degree furnace for ten months and see if they make it.”

  “Literally the only thing that got me through that,” said Carson, “was knowing that I would be going home soon. All in all, it was probably the most hellish experience of my life.”

  “After what we just went through,” I replied, “you will never hear me complain about Texas summers again. Shit, those things are mild compared to the Sahara.”

  “I don’t understand how anyone can choose to stay there,” said Carson. “And they say it gets hotter every year because of global warming. Pretty soon, no one will be able to live there.”

  “Yeah, but they can’t really afford to move,” I said. “There’s either going to be a lot of migration or a lot of deaths.”

  “No wonder everybody in that part of Africa is fleeing to Europe. I hear Germany’s taken in millions of new immigrants, just in the past year or two.”

  By now we had reached baggage claim, where a couple of boys were gathered playing a game on their parents’ phones. I could see my green duffel bag on the opposite side of the circular conveyer belt, Carson’s resting beside it. I nudged him and pointed at it. “We’ll just wait here and let it come to us,” I said. “I think I’ve earned the right to be a little lazy, haven’t you?”

  “If I had had to do one more sit-up, I would have died,” he replied. “Is there a vending machine around here? I want to drink a cool, refreshing soda.”

  “Don’t use the vending machine.” My bag was coming back around now; I grabbed it while Carson reached for his. We turned, looking for the exit. “Not when you can get a real soda at any bar or restaurant in Manhattan. What do you say we go out?”

  “Any place you had in mind?” he asked as we headed outside toward the waiting taxis.

  I shook my head. “And you know, it doesn’t even matter. Our deployment is over, we’re out of the heat, we’re home, and tonight we’re going to celebrate being back in the best damned country on earth!”

  ***

  We ate dinner at an Irish pub in Midtown with wood-paneled walls, plush red carpeting, and furniture that seemed to have been there since the nineteenth-century. A life-size statue of a leprechaun, carved out of oak, stood in one corner, and a plaque on the back wall paid tribute to the victims of an 1860s massacre, all of them mowed down by an Italian mob on their way home from church.

  We sat down at the bar next to an older man with a gray beard wearing a green camo vest and a red hat. Carson ordered a plate of chicken wings with honey barbecue sauce and a foaming root beer while I ordered a bacon, turkey, and avocado sandwich, greasy potato crisps, and a cherry soda. I was so absorbed in my meal that I didn’t speak for a good while, soaking in the air of the pub and watching the girls passing by.

  “Honestly, I wasn’t sure this day was ever going to come,” I said as I ate my last crisp. “I keep worrying that this is all just a dream and I’m going to wake up in a minute in the hundred-degree heat.”

  “That’s the crazy thing about life,” said Carson, his fingers covered in wing sauce. “Sometimes it feels like you’re stuck in a moment, and there’s no way out of it. And then when it’s over, it feels like it only lasted a minute. How does that happen?”

  “I bet life is just going to fly by,” I said, raising my glass to my lips. “Even if we live to be ninety, we’ll look back at the end and say, ‘That didn’t last very long.’”

  Carson shrugged. “But at least for right now we’re young, and we’re home, and we can bang anyone we want. Though if this turns into a competition, you’re probably going to beat me.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “What makes you say that?”

  “The beard you’ve got coming in. Back when you were clean-shaven, I’d have given us roughly equal chances, but now it’s an unfair fight.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much,” I assured him. “If the girls come over here hitting on me, I’ll just point them in your direction.”

  “Thank you,” said Carson sarcastically. “That’s very gracious of you to help me.”

  “Well, I do what I can. Anyway, I haven’t really been in a banging mood lately.”

  Carson turned me a confused stare. But before he could inquire further, we were interrupted by the old man in
the green camo vest. “Pardon me,” he said. “I couldn’t help but overhear you.”

  I braced myself, thinking he was going to reprimand us for our loose morals. nstead he said, “Were you in the military? Did you just get back from overseas?”

  I was about to respond, but Carson spoke over me. “We did, actually,” he said proudly. “U. S. Navy SEALs, stationed in the Congo and Libya. Boy, you can’t know how good it is to be home after being over there for so long.”

  “I think I might, actually,” the old man said. “I did two tours in ‘Nam back in the ‘70s. Lost three of my best friends from childhood. One of them walked into the jungle and never came out again. Two of them were taken out by landmines.”

  “God, that’s incredible,” said Carson. “And by incredible, I mean horrible. I’m so sorry you went through that.”

  “Well, I’m always glad to meet a fellow SEAL,” he replied. “Nobody else really understands what they put us through. It can be lonely.”

  “That it can,” I said, raising my glass slightly.

  “Anyway,” he said, “don’t worry about paying for your meal. It’s on me.”

  We were both so taken aback that we didn’t really know how to respond. “That there’s a good man,” said Carson as we emerged from the pub a half-hour later, both carrying ice cream cones. “I don’t care what anyone says, the men and women of the U. S. SEALs are some of the most decent, God-fearing people in the whole dang world.”

  We continued on our way up the sidewalk, but we soon found our path blocked by about a hundred protestors, many of them carrying signs that read “End the War!” and “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” One of the signs even had a picture of Dwight Eisenhower on it, but I couldn’t get close enough to see what it said.