Until We Fall

by Jessica Scott

  “Well, it does sound a little crazy when you put it that way.” I sip my tea. “Caleb was…interesting. And fascinating. Did you know he’s an Old Grad? He was one of my problem cadets, apparently, our firstie year.”

  “I didn’t know you knew him.” That seems to have caught his attention. “We were in the same battalion. He was a serious fuck-up as a lieutenant.”

  “I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard you say anything…harsh about anyone.”

  Sam narrows his eyes at me. “He… Let’s put it this way. He didn’t have his shit together.” There are so many different ways I could interpret that statement. “But…”

  “You don’t need to finish that thought. This is going exactly nowhere. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t have his number. He was helpful and, well, I don’t need any distractions from work. Not this month, anyway.”

  He shakes his head. “No one dies thinking ‘wow, I really wished I’d worked harder’. You need to take some space and time for you, Lini.”

  I shake my head. “What makes you think he’s part of that space and time?”

  He shrugs and damn it, I wish he wasn’t so damn nice all of the time. “I can hope that maybe someone will come along and help you…feel like you again. I know how important your studio is and I know you can get there without needing to depend on anyone.” He grips my shoulder. “But this life is too short to go through it alone. And if I had to bet on one thing, it would be that the universe didn’t put him in your basement for him to disappear on you without a reason.”

  I roll my eyes and bump my shoulder into his. God, but I love this man. Why couldn’t my own family be as supportive of me and my life as this man I love like a brother? “You should write novels, Sam, because that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Look. Just…never mind. Let’s talk lighting.”

  I’m not sure why he changes the subject but I’m grateful. I can handle the teasing. I can handle the urging me not to work so hard.

  I can’t handle the worry I see in his eyes when he looks at me.

  Because it makes me feel incomplete. Like my healing from the attack in Syria isn’t over.

  I want it to be. I want to be me again. Whole. And I want to get that way on my own terms. I don’t want to be fatalistic and depend on the universe. I don’t want to challenge the universe to destroy something in my life.

  I just want…to be myself again.

  * * *

  Caleb

  Bruce doesn’t do counseling. Which is definitely not what I expected when he dragged my ass out of that alley a few months ago. I fully expected some hippie group therapy meetings about finding a higher power and admitting you have a problem.

  Granted, he did sort of get me to confront that I had a massive fucking problem when I was in the throes of the DTs.

  Kind of hard to go yep, everything is fine when you can’t stand up without heaving your guts up and are pretty sure there’s one of those little alien things running up and down your spine.

  I deeply regretted any life choices that involved binge-watching the Aliens movies before I dried out.

  I do not recommend that. At all.

  But I survived and now I work in one of those Maker Spaces where people come to use the 3D printer or the tools. My job is weird. He doesn’t ask me about staying sober. Doesn’t ask me about how late I stay at the shop to avoid not sleeping. He can see when I close the shop up at night and set the alarm. He trusts me to shut it down at midnight per his instructions.

  No, we work on furniture, we talk about life, the universe and everything in between. But in the spaces between actual meetings, I’m on my own, working on whatever furniture project needs to be done and trying to find the pieces of me that are either still missing or still being reconstructed.

  It’s the strangest therapy I’ve ever even conceived of. And oddly enough, I’m doing okay. I’ve managed to stay sober. Almost four months. Every day, it’s a struggle. Some days are harder than others.

  But working with my hands is good. I like it a hell of a lot more than sitting in classes at business school, where my mind wanders and questions the futility of it all.

  Building takes a concentration. A flow.

  It turns out, I like working with my hands. I guess I forgot that after my mom died.

  I walk into Bruce’s office bright and early. Funny thing about not sleeping: you’re always the first one at work. His office looks like a construction foreman’s office—a rickety metal desk covered with scattered paperwork and folders and a thousand misplaced sticky notes. A coffee maker, with a pot that hasn’t seen the inside of a scrub pad in this decade at best, leaves the room filled with the smell of slightly burnt coffee. The floor, though—the floor is what busts me up every time I walk into his office.

  It creaks. The kind of old wood creaking that is guaranteed to announce the killer is approaching during a horror movie. I guess this is what it feels like to walk into a waking dream where you’re not entirely sure you’re going to hit a fantasy or a nightmare.

  Maybe they’re one and the same.

  Today, though, something stops me at the door. Maybe I’m overtired. Maybe I’m just cranky, but standing in the doorway to Bruce’s shop, I’m hit with a sense of familiarity that physically hurts. I can practically hear the gentle tinkling of the wind chimes in the corner of the shop. The smell of fresh sawdust is clean and crisp and damp. I am suddenly ten years old, standing in the doorway of my grandfather’s woodshed where he used to spend hours a day building things and drinking away memories of Vietnam.

  It was a memory I’d long forgotten until just now. One I’d apparently buried after I lost my mom and the life we had.

  Bruce strolls out, his pepper-gray hair covered by a red bandana that’s striking against the sun-damaged tan of the skin on the top of his head. “Was starting to wonder if you were going to show up.”

  “Isn’t there a standing threat to hunt me down and kill me if I don’t?” He reminds me of my old first sergeant. Don’t get it twisted—he will show up at my apartment. He’s done it.

  So I try to make sure I show up every day.

  “Yeah, well, glad you took me seriously.” He’s gruffer than usual today.

  It’s easy to fall into the bullshitting that soldiers are famous for and that I find I miss something terrible. There’s something comforting about talking shit to the men to your left and right when you’re sitting in the woods in the cold and the dark.

  “What are you working on today?”

  “We’ve got a new job. Come on; I’ll show you real quick before we have to be where we’re going.”

  I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I have no idea how I got here except that Bruce sat me down and told me that being a drunk fucking sucked and ordered me to come to his woodworking shop. Said I looked like I needed something to do with my hands.

  At the time they’d been shaking because I’d needed a drink, so I guess he wasn’t too far off.

  We walk past two-inch thick, long wooden planks spread out on a workbench. They’re at least eight feet long. They’re dingy gray and look like they’ve been out in the woods for far too long.

  “This is going to be a table?” I’m skeptical, to say the least.

  He runs a gloved hand over the edge. “Funny thing about wood. You can beat it up. You can burn it. You can warp it. But if you apply enough pressure and heat, you can remold it. Shape it into something beautiful.”

  He sounds like a lover caressing his partner’s skin.

  “So how does this work?”

  “Well, first we’re going to scrape off the old. Rough sandpaper to take off the outer layer that’s protected the inner layers.”

  This is quite possibly the strangest therapy I could have imagined. But whatever. He’s not wrong. I need something to do with my hands.

  “But this piece is warped. It doesn’t even sit flat on the table.”

  He grunts an
d points to a furnace-looking thing. “That’s what the kiln is for. We apply heat and pressure, and it’ll be flat as the day it was planed.”

  Okay, then.

  I follow him out to his truck and get in, glad I actually was able to eat breakfast before I came to the shop today. Food is still challenging sometimes. For several seconds neither of us speak as he drives.

  “So did you get into woodworking first and the saving of souls came second, or was it the other way around?” I ask as he pulls to a stop in front of a flashing railroad crossing sign. I find myself suddenly needing to know why he found me and kicked my ass into sobriety. Funny how I never questioned it before now.

  He shoots me a quick look. I can’t decide if it’s fuck you, smart ass or something else.

  I shrug and watch a passing train. “Just curious,” I mumble. I can’t figure out what his problem is today.

  Bruce drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “I was one of the thousands who were told ‘thank you for serving’ after Desert Storm and then given my marching orders when the Army decided to downsize. I tried a couple of corporate jobs but they just didn’t work. Got myself divorced because I was drinking too much and pretending I was still a stupid enlisted guy. My uncle scooped me up—kind of like I scooped you up—and taught me how to keep my hands busy. So I think the woodworking came first. And I don’t know a damn thing about saving souls.”

  “So you just woke up one day and decided that scooping up random drunks and putting them to work with things that can dismember them was a good idea?”

  “Well, this ain’t the Army anymore, so I can do my own risk assessment. And if I really thought you were going to show up drunk, you’d be drying out somewhere else first.”

  I shake my head and say nothing, the unexpected jab at my struggle with sobriety slicing at me. I like Bruce. I can’t say why because he’s somewhat cranky and likes to drop surprises in people’s laps without warning. But today, he’s off. Grumpier than normal.

  “So, how goes the not-drinking thing?”

  Ah, another question I don’t really know how to answer. “Good. Except for the not-sleeping part.”

  He makes a noise. “I think I’ve got a solution for that.”

  I glance over at him and say nothing. I don’t know where we’re going.

  But I think I’m okay with that.

  9

  Nalini

  The old Calhoun warehouse is prime real estate. It’s nestled between the already gentrified area around the Durham Bulls stadium and the old tobacco district that’s still being restored one building at a time, and somehow I snagged a bargain that should have been illegal. Well, given that the previous owners were using it to grow pot…it pretty much was illegal.

  I’m not complaining, even if I do think they need to legalize weed, especially for medicinal uses. Who knows; maybe if I can make a go of things with the yoga center and they legalize marijuana, I can expand into medicinal herbs.

  I grin. I’ve clearly spent far too much time in a college town. Though, to be honest, I’ve never really had a problem with other people smoking weed. I’m pretty sure my paternal grandmother was smoking all the time when she was studying yoga. Not that that was sanctioned by Guru Iyengar.

  Looking at the job in front of me, though, I might need to start. Standing inside the entrance at the top of a flight of red brick stairs, I survey the sheer magnitude of work ahead of me. My chest tightens.

  Everything has to go. There are places where the floor is caved in, revealing a dark chasm some people might know as the basement, but I’m thinking aka the stuff of nightmares. A good chunk of floor will need to be reframed and replaced, but if Sam’s idea works, that hole in the floor near the stairs is going to be opened up to the two basement studios.

  It’s daunting, to say the least.

  There are rows of tables and hanging lights. The cops already took all the weed – at least I hope they did. I really don’t feel like dealing with disposing of any remains. The only thing I was definitely able to confirm about the building was that it had been used strictly for pot, not by meth dealers cooking their product. If there had been meth in here, I might just as well burn the place to the ground. The chemicals left over from that process are a whole new level of toxic.

  The same cannot be said for the product of the recently convicted weed growers, aka the former tenants, however. That’s the biggest reason I was able to get the property so cheap—the bank wanted to recoup their investment and anyone occupying the space and paying for it is better than anyone who is not. I have no idea why the former owners were growing weed in the middle of downtown Durham, nor do I want to know how or why they ended up getting busted.

  However, that means I’m now the proud owner of weed-growing equipment that the police didn’t confiscate for some reason.

  Maybe I should hold on to it for when they finally legalize marijuana. The thought makes me snort and the sound echoes in the wide open space. This is North Carolina. They’ll vote for a Democrat before they legalize pot. At least the people outside of the Triangle would. Those in the Triangle—the area anchored by North Carolina State, the University at Chapel Hill, and Duke—with Raleigh and Durham in there, too—well, they’ve definitely got some pro-weed tendencies.

  Sunlight spreads across the dusty floor, filtering in through massive windows colored with dust and age. The effect is somewhat haunting.

  I glance over at the caved-in hole in the floor. It’s not that far from the stairs and the light filters down into it then disappears like it’s some kind of black hole sucking up everything. “This is how horror movies start,” I mumble. Maybe Sam is right and I should hire someone to do this for me. I’m not a big fan of cellars and the one below me seems like the perfect place for some high-powered psychopath to have buried some bodies.

  And wow, are those some comforting thoughts. It’s really the mark of complete insanity how I’m standing here freaking myself out.

  What I need to do is get some damn work gloves and get started.

  But that’s the problem with massive projects: they’re overwhelming.

  My phone vibrates in the back pocket of the beat-up jeans I wear for work when I’m not in yoga pants. I frown looking at the screen, then answer on speaker phone. I hate holding phones up to my ear. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.”

  Stephanie White and I will never be friends. At least not any time soon. She’s the executive director of the Wellness Center on campus and she and I used to be very close. I trusted her and she connected me with more than one young student who was struggling with a variety of issues. She linked me up with Kelsey Ryder, who has been a regular at my studio since she arrived on campus.

  But Stephanie and I have recently parted ways over her contracting with a company for the new yoga studio at the Wellness Center that I vehemently disagree with and…yeah, unfortunately, I’m taking it personally.

  It’s not easy for me to ignore when someone advocates for a yoga program that denies everything that makes yoga what it is, and instead turns the practice into a bastardized fitness program for rich women in hundred-dollar yoga pants. It’s not like I was going to start holding Hindu ceremonies there. Though I would have, had they asked me to.

  I take a deep breath. I can do that in my own space. The door closing on campus means the one here, in this warehouse, has opened. I can do this.

  “I wasn’t expecting to reach out, if we’re being honest.” Her voice is polished and smooth in a way that mine will never be. She reminds me so much of a younger Princess Leia before she was General Organa. Poised. And she’s always three steps ahead of everyone around her. “But I’d like your assistance on something.”

  I bite back a smart-ass comment. I don’t believe in Hell but I briefly wonder if they’re holding the Ice Capades there.

  Then I decide the universe doesn’t need me burning any more bridges. I don’t have nearly enough to spare. “I’m listening.”

&n
bsp; She makes a quiet noise, barely audible. “Despite our differences about the Wellness Center, I would like to invite you to a panel on multiculturalism in a secular age, on campus next week. The Wellness Center has been dealing with a lot of…friction on campus from the Indian student body —”

  “Wait, hold on a sec.” And there goes my self-control. I suck in a deep breath and hold it before I speak in a deliberate, epically false calm. Lying is sometimes a life skill. “You shot down my proposal for an Iyengar center on campus—which has a sizeable Indian student body, remember—to replace it with some bastardized commercial practice that is so patently ripping off Indian culture and is widely known in India for problematic proselytizing that targets the vulnerable, and you want me to come participate in a panel? To what? Help soothe things over for the mess you and the Board of Directors made?” There I go, breathing deliberately again. But I don’t yell. I don’t even raise my voice. No matter how badly I really want to. Releasing the fury gripping my lungs would be so cathartic.

  “There’s no way I can convince you that decision was out of my hands, is there? The studio we ended up contracting with is connected to a powerful alumni family. This is way bigger than you and me, Nalini.”

  I smile coldly, despite knowing she won’t be able to see it. “It’s not that it went to someone else. It’s that it went to this particular company. I warned you and the board that this company has a problematic history in India, but you didn’t want to hear it. And now you want me to be the token brown woman to help you out of the completely foreseeable backlash that I warned you about.”

  “I understand you’re angry and you have a right to be.”

  Honest to god, I almost snap at the patronizing tone in her voice. It’s a miracle my head hasn’t exploded.

  “Look, there are some very important people who are highly upset about the Wellness Center and we’d really like your help to start a conversation. To get people to listen to both sides of the issue.”