by Naomi Niles
“There’ll be plenty of champagne at the reception,” I replied. “Anyway, I don’t mind drinking orange juice. It always reminds me of breakfasts with my mom.”
Renee smiled as she brought the glass over to the table and set it down. “You’re sweet.” She allowed her hand to linger on my shoulder for about half a second too long.
I was debating whether I should leave and go find Kelli when she emerged from the back bedroom. She was wearing a long strapless white dress with gold sequins and a pair of black heels, and she had pinned up her hair in a beehive like a secretary from a 1950s workplace drama. “You ready to go?” she asked.
I threw a wary glance at Renee, who was staring miserably at her reflection in the microwave. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
As we were making our way through Midtown a few minutes later, I asked her, “Is your sister okay?”
“She’s been having a rough time lately,” said Kelli. “Apparently her boyfriend is thinking about breaking up with her.”
“He thinks ?” I said in disbelief. “He doesn’t know?”
“That’s what I said! It really feels like he’s stringing her along, just toying with her affections to see how she’ll react. I think maybe he wants to see if she’s really committed to the relationship, almost like a test, but it seems needlessly cruel. I told her she should just go ahead and break up with him.”
I didn’t know enough about the situation to have an opinion. We had only spoken for a few minutes, but Max seemed like a decent guy. “You excited about the banquet?”
“Yeah. Woo.” Kelli shook one hand in the air as if waving a flag. “Can’t wait.”
“That’s about how I feel.” We turned onto the feeder road, where a man in a yellow vest motioned for us to move forward. “For the amount of time we’re gonna be spending there, they better at least feed us right.”
“It must be nice to only have to worry about the feed,” Kelli said in an acid tone.
I pulled the car over to the side of the road and brought it to an abrupt halt.
“Hey,” I said gently. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just—well, I wouldn’t be going to this meeting unless you really wanted me there. I don’t know if you realize how scary this is to me.”
“What, do you think somebody’s gonna stab you?”
“It isn’t funny,” said Kelli. She stuck out her lip in a pouty way. It would have been adorable if she hadn’t been mad at me. “I’ve been really hurt, and I have no idea what to expect when I go in there.”
I reached over and laid a hand on her knee. “Listen, sweetums: you’re my date and I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. Anybody in there wants to mess with you, they’re gonna be messing with me.”
“If you say so,” said Kelli. I pressed on the gas, and we continued on our way.
As it turned out, though, she had nothing to worry about. When we entered the grand ballroom a few minutes later, with its long tables covered in fine linen cloth, cut-glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and hundreds of red, white, and blue balloons, the room froze for a second. Then, the hundreds of SEALs and their guests erupted in spontaneous applause.
Carson was the first to run forward and greet us. “You two are still dating?” he exclaimed, as if it was unheard of for a man to go out with the same woman for longer than a few days.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ve been dating since I got back.” When Carson gaped at me in astonishment, I said, “You know this. We were literally just talking about it.”
Carson blinked rapidly and directed his attention to Kelli. “This man giving you a hard time?”
“You know, he’s alright,” said Kelli, twining a strand of my hair around one finger. She looked more at her ease after the welcome we had just gotten. “I think I might keep him around for a bit longer before I trade him in for a younger model.”
Carson laughed as if it was the funniest thing he had heard in weeks, which it probably was.
While they were catching up, I noticed Sergeant Armstrong waving me over from the other side of the room. “Excuse me for a second,” I told Kelli, and I went over to see him.
Armstrong shook my hand firmly. “You glad to be back in the states?”
“I’m glad to be out of Libya, that’s for damn sure,” I replied.
It was strange to see Armstrong here in a setting like this. He looked slightly uncomfortable, like he would rather have been back in the barracks doing leg sprints.
“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” he said. “There’s a recruitment job that’s opened up in our Brooklyn office. I think you’d be the perfect man for the job, and I wouldn’t hesitate to write you a recommendation?”
“Me? Really?” I felt flattered; Armstrong’s was about the only praise that had the power to move me.
“Don’t act so surprised,” he said, grabbing a grilled asparagus and a cup of sparkling water off a passing tray. “You’re intensely enthusiastic about your job, and you have a passion for it that inspires people. Plus, you’re one of the better communicators in our platoon. If you want the job, you can have it.”
I don’t know what compelled me to say it; maybe I was still so taken aback that I wasn’t thinking straight. “It’s really kind of you to offer me the position,” I said, “but I don’t know if I’m gonna have time. Right now, I’m writing a memoir, and God only knows how long that’ll take. A year, maybe.”
Sergeant Armstrong’s face fell; he looked disappointed, but there was something else—was it worry? Alarm? Whatever it was, I immediately began to regret having divulged my secret.
“Well, anyway, think about it,” he said, clapping me once on the shoulders. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
He left. I watched him go with an uneasy feeling, wishing I could take back the words I had just said. He didn’t look too happy, and I was left to wonder if it was really possible to lose a person’s good opinion so easily.
Chapter Twenty-Six Kelli
The refreshments table over by the choir stand had summer sausages, smoked salmon cakes, salted crackers, five different kinds of cheese, toasted ravioli, Greek spinach dip, asparagus, and pistachio bruschetta. These alone almost made the trip worth it, but what I was really after were the drinks. There was a bubbly, fizzy drink the pale amber color of ginger ale. I wasn’t much of a drinker—I hadn’t taken my first sip of alcohol until I was twenty-three—and I couldn’t tell the difference between champagne and sparkling punch, but I knew this was one of the two, and I liked it.
Zack and Carson came looking for me and found me standing over against the refreshments table. I was holding a clear plastic cup and sucking on a Thin Mint. Carson held up a lumpy pear, out of which he had taken exactly one bite.
“They really didn’t skimp on this, did they?” He motioned to the table with its perfectly folded napkins and chocolate fountain. “Almost makes me wish we could have one of these every day.”
“I, for one, will be glad when it’s over,” said Zack, echoing my own feelings. “I can’t wait to go home and get out of this uniform, maybe play some Mario Kart.” I had an odd feeling he was trying to make himself sound lazier than he really is. If I had to guess, he would be working on his secret book all night.
“Same,” said Carson, setting the pear down on a corner of the table and picking up a piece of dark chocolate. “If I wasn’t here, I’d probably be chilling in my apartment eating a frozen pizza. One of those gross, messy pizzas you can get in the freezer aisle at Wal-Mart for like two dollars, that come out of the oven just dripping in grease.”
“Okay, now you’re making me hungry,” said Zack, walking over and grabbing a paper plate off the stack. “If they actually served those pizzas here instead of whatever this is, it might have been worth getting out of bed for.”
“You mean you don’t like eating mini peppers stuffed with goat cheese or whatever the hell this is?” asked Carson
sarcastically. He shook his head and made a tsk-ing noise with his tongue. “And I thought I knew you.”
“There’s only so much you can learn about a man when you’re forced to eat the same meal together every day for ten months.” Zack bit the end off of a stuffed pepper, made a disgusted look, and scraped it onto my plate. “Kelli, if you thought the Congo was bad, you should’ve eaten with us in Libya.”
“Was it really that bad?” I asked Carson.
Carson took a bite of his pear. “Let’s just say I won’t complain if I never have to eat Spam again in my life.”
“Almost makes me appreciate the salmon cakes,” said Zack, spearing a white cheese cube with a toothpick and putting it in his mouth. In the process, he jostled me with his elbow, and the fizzy drink went flying out of my hands onto the carpet.
“Sorry about that,” said Zack, throwing the stain on the carpet a regretful look. “Damn good drink.”
“At least there’s plenty more of it,” said Carson. “Anyway, what’ve you got going on tonight? Wanna come over and play Smash Bros.?”
I had rather hoped that Zack would be coming back to my place. I turned back to the refreshments, trying not to make it obvious that I was listening to his response. I filled one of the smaller plates with cheddar cheese cubes and dark chocolate, and then, because my appetite for that sparkling drink was insatiable, I grabbed a second cup. But my hands must still have been slippery from when Zack jostled me, for the cup slipped out of my fingers the second I picked it up. Fizzy amber-colored liquid spilled all over the front of my dress.
I swore under my breath, and for a second it was hard to see clearly because I was so mortified. Zack and Carson were still talking about getting together that night and didn’t seem to have noticed what had happened. I murmured an apology and ran to the back of the room, toward the restrooms.
There, I surveyed the damage. It was even worse than I’d feared: the liquid had soaked through the top of the dress, exposing my blue bra to public view. I swore again, loudly, and slammed my fist against the mirror as if thinking my reflection was somehow to blame for what had happened.
All at once, I was transported back to my first year in high school. I was fifteen, and we had just returned from Somalia where I had spent most of my childhood. Things like Nintendo and going to the movies with friends on a Friday night and deodorant were foreign concepts. And I remembered sitting in the cafeteria on the first day and crying because the other girls had done up their hair in lovely braids, or had cut it fashionably short with bleached blond highlights, and I had no idea how to wear mine, and it was just a long, tangled mess. And there were stains on the front of my dress and a mysterious smell followed me everywhere and no one wanted to sit next to me.
When Zack knocked on the door of the bathroom about twenty minutes later, I was sitting in one of the stalls, crying.
“You okay, shortbread?” I heard him say. “I don’t want to come all the way in there because I don’t want to get in trouble, but when you didn’t answer my texts I thought I ought to come check on you.”
“I’m fine,” I said, though the lump in my voice instantly gave me away. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
When I emerged into the hallway leading back into the main room, I found him standing there waiting for me.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s this,” I said, motioning to the front of my shirt. “I didn’t want to come out because I didn’t want to embarrass you. I was afraid this was going to happen, because it always happens, because I’m such a screw-up and I can’t seem to go anywhere without embarrassing myself. And I just wish—”
I paused, my eyes drawn to a shiny gold medal pinned on the front of his uniform that hadn’t been there thirty minutes before.
“Zack,” I said, my face burning with guilt and shame. “You didn’t tell me you were getting a medal .”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly going to brag about it,” said Zack, though he puffed his chest out proudly. “Anyway, the real prize was the jealous looks on the faces of all those guys when they saw us together. You know when you were down in the Congo, half of ‘em were scheming ways to get you in their beds. But none of ‘em did.”
“So maybe it’s your safety I should be worried about.” I placed my arm in his and led him out of the hall, beginning to feel better. “Why didn’t you invite your family?”
“They couldn’t make it,” said Zack, “but I’m flying back home to Texas in a couple weeks, and they wanted me to let you know you were welcome to come along. We’d have to find a place for you to sleep, but it’s no big deal. My mama would love to have you.”
I nodded eagerly, tears springing back into my eyes but not from sorrow. “Yeah, I’d love to go. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Texas.”
“You think you could get off work?”
“Yeah, I’m sure I can talk my boss into letting me work remotely for a few weeks.”
When we got back to the table I draped one of the cloth napkins over the bodice of my dress. It was a slightly more off-white color than the dress itself, but no one made a big deal out of it, and I spent most of the reception with my body pressed close to Zack’s. We danced some old-timey dances while a brass band played Miller and Fitzgerald.
I drank another three cups of the fizzy drink, and by the end of the night I couldn’t tell if I was floating because of the alcohol or because I was drunk on the lights and applause and music. It felt like one of those nights we had every so often in college where me and a couple of friends stayed out until all hours watching the stars glitter in the night sky and celebrating the fact that we were here for this short moment.
I was reminded of that on the way home as I rested my head on Zack’s arm and stroked his rough skin. I liked the feel of him next to me, his scent and warmth. Every now and then, I was thrilled just to discover anew that he existed at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven Zack
First thing I did when I woke up the next morning was to text Kelli. I’d started doing it a few days ago, and now it was becoming a morning habit.
Hey doll, I said,
Thanks again for joining me yesterday. I know it took a lot of courage to walk into that room, but I hope it was worth it. Bonus: you made me the envy of every man there. [kiss-and-wink emoji]
She texted back while I was putting in my contacts:
Thanks for that. I’m still wondering if I should have gone. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much .
I texted her back as soon as I had finished:
Hey, what are you on about? Any man there would’ve been lucky to have you as a date. You didn’t embarrass me at all, silly. If anything, you made me look better.
I kept the phone in one hand as I brushed my teeth and washed my mouth out with mouth wash. Kelli wrote back:
If you say so. I don’t always know how I come across to others, so it’s nice that there’s someone I can trust who doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot.
To which I replied:
Baby, I think the world of you .
I waited a few minutes to see if she would respond, but she never did.
I was running low on breakfast items, so I made myself a milkshake and fried up the last of the sausages in the skillet. There was no use going out and buying more groceries when I’d be leaving in a few days for my mother’s. They hadn’t always been the greatest parents, but one thing they had excelled at was making sure we were well-fed. I was looking forward to sitting down to another one of her breakfasts.
After my morning workout, I threw on a blue Polo shirt and a pair of khakis and went over to Carson’s apartment.
“IT’S OPEN!” I heard him holler the moment I knocked.
I found him lying on the couch in the living room with a comforter wrapped around his waist; he was naked from at least the waist up. “Cover your eyes for a sec,” he said as he sat slowly up. “I need to throw some pants on.”
“God, Carson, couldn’t you have d
one that before you told me to come in?” I replied.
But Carson didn’t seem phased by my complaints. “What are you all dressed up for?” he asked as he wriggled into his blue jeans. “You and Kelli about to go golfing?”
“Carson, you and I were supposed to go golfing,” I said, trying my level best not to sound irritated. Being friends with Carson could be exasperating at times. “Remember, we started planning it before we even left Libya?”
“I wish I could go, man,” said Carson, fumbling around in his pockets for his phone and finding it on the coffee table. “I’ve got things I’ve gotta do this morning. You’re welcome to come along if you want.”
“What things?”
Carson glanced around as if afraid of being overheard, despite the fact that the apartment was empty. “So I was making out with some chick last night, and she stole my wallet.”
I stared as if I hadn’t heard him correctly. “She stole your wallet while you were making out? Like a pickpocket?”
“I went out to Murphy’s Bar and met this beautiful girl, Kayleigh. She’s young and funny, and she seemed really into me, and we got to talking and I asked her if she wanted to come back to my place. We came up here and messed around for a bit, and I think she must’ve slipped something into my drink, because when I woke up it was early morning, Kayleigh was gone, and I couldn’t find my wallet.”
“She drugged you?” I shouted.
Carson glared coolly at me, his ears burning red. “Didn’t say I was proud of it.”
“Well, how are we supposed to find this girl? Do you know anything about her, other than her name? If that even is her name?”
“Yeah, I know some things about her,” said Carson, sounding offended. “I know where she goes to school. I think I might drive over there and hang out in the gym until she gets out of class. You wanna come with?”
“You sure this is a good idea?” I asked as I followed him downstairs to his car. “If this girl thinks you’re stalking her, she could call the police.”
“Let her!” Carson shouted. “I’ll tell ‘em the bitch stole my wallet.”
