My Little Rock Airman

by Brittany Fichter

The little café was busy when I walked in, mostly full of people with headphones, and laptops. But just as I spotted the table where they were sitting, someone caught me by the wrist. I looked up, ready to backhand whoever had grabbed me, just in time to see Derrick. He put his finger to his lips and nodded at the door. Once my heart had slowed, I let him lead me back outside.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” I said, rubbing my wrist. “Does this mean I’m uninvited to breakfast?”

  He laughed, but there was no humor. “Sorry about that. I just wanted to warn you that this meal is going to be…well, awkward.”

  I would have laughed, too, had he not looked so completely miserable. “What’s up?”

  “I know this is presumptuous on my part and really stupid, but…would you be okay if I asked you here to help suppress an atomic explosion of sorts?”

  “Um, sure?”

  “Because I know I’m going to get zero support from my parents. Zilch. At least in this arena.” He glanced back at the window. Did he really consider me that much of a friend? Or was he just that hard up for friends? “Also,” he continued, giving me a weak grin, “my parents like you. So they’ll be less likely to kill me if you’re present.”

  “That’s why we’re in public, isn’t it?” I looked back at the crowded room. “Because you don’t want a scene.”

  He gave me a sheepish grin. “You’ve met my mother. Can you blame me?”

  “Fine. I’ll try. But on the off-chance they do kill you,” I said, hoping to ease the anxiety evident in the lines on his face, “can I at least call dibs on your truck?”

  He stared at me for a moment then let out a laugh. It was good to hear that sound as we went back inside. But neither my joke nor the laughter was able to chase the sudden angst from my stomach as we wound our way through tables and customers to where his family was sitting.

  Jade was drinking a milkshake that was red, white, and blue. Mr. Allen was adding creamer to his coffee while Mrs. Allen stuffed enough napkins into Jade’s shirt to cover her in the Splash Zone at Sea World.

  I slid into the booth beside Jade, and Derrick sat next to me. Wow. Whatever it was, he didn’t even want to sit with his folks.

  “Mom, Dad,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Thanks for meeting me here on a Monday. I know you have work, so I’ll try to make this quick.”

  At the mention of work, I gave him a sharp look. Yeah, it was Monday, but it was also the Fourth of July. I’d even been given the day off. And they were still going to work?

  “I trust your trip to Colorado went well?” Mrs. Allen added a packet of sweetener to her tea. “You got back late enough last night.”

  “It was the only flight available.” Derrick cringed slightly, and I could only guess he was thinking about the cost of such a flight. “Anyhow, that’s what I’m here to tell you about. As of last Saturday…” He glanced at me. “Amy and I are officially done.”

  “What?” Mrs. Allen spilled her tea on her lap, which made her shriek as she hopped up and down in her seat, trying simultaneously to clean it up and demand answers from Derrick. Mr. Allen tried to help his wife while uttering words under his breath that I prayed Jade didn’t hear.

  Derrick gave me an exasperated look, and I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic smile. I’m sorry, I mouthed as the waiter arrived with our food while Mrs. Allen fussed about a new cup of tea. Only then did I realize I hadn’t gotten to order for myself. Still, somehow, I got the Greek yogurt with fruit that I would have ordered had I been given the choice. Stressed or not, Derrick seemed to know me better than I thought.

  “I knew it.” Mrs. Allen finally threw the wet napkin on the table and glared at her son. “You have one success in your life, and you manage to blow it up.”

  I stared at Mrs. Allen as she started covering her bagel with cream cheese with a violent passion. Never in my life had my parents uttered anything like that.

  “Mom, that’s unfair.”

  “No. No, what’s unfair is a son who goes to three years of college and quits.”

  “I joined the military.”

  “You quit.” Her hand shook as she continued to smear cream cheese all over what was by now a very battered bagel. “Perhaps I should just save the military the trouble of taking your application for OGF—”

  “OTS. It’s Officer Training School—”

  “Whatever!” She stopped to glare at him before resuming the spreading of her cream cheese. “And I can tell them how you’ll just quit. Just like you quit everything.”

  “I don’t quit ev—”

  “Track, basketball, karate…” His father began counting on his fingers. “Violin, French.”

  “You didn’t even give me a choice for half of those!” Derrick leaned forward in his seat. “I wouldn’t have had to quit if you’d listened to me in the first place and signed me up for soccer and guitar like I wanted.”

  I made myself busy wiping the milkshake from Jade’s face, wishing very much that she and I could excuse ourselves and make a dash for the door. This so wasn’t my drama.

  “You had the perfect life,” Mrs. Allen growled, putting the bagel down but not the knife. “Tell him, Gary. The perfect life.”

  “I still don’t see why you had to join the military.” Mr. Allen put up his hands helplessly. “I had you lined up to do consulting with Howard Conway. You would have made more than three times what you’re making now.”

  “Yeah,” Derrick said. “In five years. Maybe. If I’d done really well. But you don’t understand. I don’t want a high-powered…You know what? Forget it. You didn’t listen then just like you’re not listening now. Heck, you haven’t even asked why we broke up. You just assumed it’s my fault. As always.”

  Mrs. Allen sat back. “Because it generally is your fault.”

  A look crossed Derrick’s face that I wouldn’t soon forget. For just a second, he was a little boy. And he was hurting. “Excuse me, Jessie. I need to get some air.”

  I stood and let him pass. He stalked toward the front door. I glanced back at his parents, who were talking in angry whispers—mostly his mother—before grabbing my yogurt and following him.

  He was sitting on the edge of the raised flower beds in front of the restaurant when I found him. I sat beside him and said a silent prayer with a lot of pleading for words then started eating my yogurt. I had no idea of what to say now that I was actually here. I could say I was sorry he’d broken it off, but I wasn’t. The more I’d heard about Amy and the way she treated Derrick, and more importantly, Jade, the less I liked her. In truth, I was relieved. Derrick may not be my best friend, but that was not the kind of future I wished upon him.

  Life had suddenly gotten a whole lot more complicated.

  And he was right. His parents hadn’t even asked about the reason for their split. All they seemed to care about were Amy’s perfections. As if she was out of his league, and he was swinging high. No. Derrick could be awful, but he was also one of the most caring people I’d ever met. All you had to do was see the way he looked at Jade to know that.

  “Sorry you had to witness that.” Derrick didn’t look up from the straw he was twisting in his hands. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

  “No, I’m glad you did.”

  The look he gave me made me laugh.

  “Really,” I said. “No one should have to go through anything like…” I nodded back at the window. “Like that alone.”

  He gave me a grim smile. “Thanks. And I mean it. Believe it or not, that would have been a whole lot worse if you hadn’t been there.” He sighed and looked down at the straw. “At least they’ll be gone for the rest of the day, and I can ignore them and all their guilt tripping until tonight.”

  At that moment, Jade and her parents appeared at the top of the steps holding take-out boxes, and we both sobered up. From the look on Mrs. Allen’s face, Derrick wouldn’t be allowed to forget this for a long time. What an awful way to spend the Fourth of July.

&nbs
p; But then I had an idea.

  “Hey, your parents are going to work now, right?” I asked quickly as they made their way down the steps.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Why don’t you and Jade come spend today with my family?” I asked. “An airman shouldn’t have to spend Independence Day nannying alone.”

  He gave me a long, thoughtful look, his blue eyes piercing mine before his mouth curved up into a lopsided grin.

  “You know what? That actually sounds really nice.”

  And I would have been lying to myself if I didn’t say that the way he looked at me made my heart do strange things.

  24

  Complicated

  Jessie

  We hadn’t planned on doing any fireworks, but the moment I called my parents to tell them we were having guests, that changed.

  Of course, my mother was a little peeved with me at first for changing our usual tradition, which was to watch School of Rock while eating red, white, and blue popcorn covered in white chocolate with sprinkles. But the moment she heard that my two charges were without parents, in spite of the fact that Derrick was twenty-five, she was rolling out the red carpet. My dad was sent to the store to buy sparklers and snacks, and I was put to work cleaning.

  They arrived around five and were promptly stuffed with every kind of snack and grilled meat imaginable. Then as soon as it was dark, my mom and dad took Jade out to the end of the drive to do sparklers. They were like two kids again, laughing and exclaiming as they did silly things for Jade. Derrick and I sat in the folding chairs at the edge of the garage to watch.

  “Are you sure you’re not worried about my parents doing that with her?” I glanced at him.

  But to my surprise, he just shook his head and shrugged. “Nah. They’re fine.”

  “Are you serious?” I sat up.

  “What?” He laughed.

  “It took me weeks to earn your trust! And you’re fine with my parents? Just like that?”

  “Well,” he took a swig of beer, “they did keep you alive this long. But you don’t have any kids, so…”

  “I was responsible for your sister for an entire school year! And not just keeping her alive. I had to educate her, too. And twenty-plus other kids at the same time!”

  His smile was genuine now. “Look, I can honestly say that your whole family has made it into the circle of trust.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “Once you realized I wasn’t going to murder your sister in her sleep.”

  “Once the nannycam proved me right.”

  My mouth dropped. “You nannycammed me?” I slapped his arm, and he laughed even harder before reaching over and poking my arm.

  “What was that for?” I swatted his hand away.

  “Just to poke your buttons.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help smiling as he chuckled to himself just a little too hard. But when the chuckle was gone, that light in his eyes was gone, too.

  “Hey.” I leaned forward slightly to see him better. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just…this is what’s getting me.” He frowned down at his hands. It sounded to me like he’d been having this conversation with himself all day, but I was the first person he had the chance to actually tell.

  “I don’t even feel that heartbroken. Not like I thought I would. And I guess that makes me feel…guilty? Like, what if we’d gone through with it, and I realized I felt this way after?”

  “Well,” I said slowly, hoping I didn’t sound too trite. “You didn’t go through with it, though. Maybe God was…I don’t know. Sparing you that heartbreak so you wouldn’t have to feel like that when it was all over.”

  He gave me a pacifying smile, but his eyes didn’t meet mine. “That won’t matter to them.”

  “Your parents?”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t get the chance to tell them. They didn’t give you the chance.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing I do is good enough for them. And I didn’t even realize that’s not normal until I went to college and started meeting friends with families like yours. I spent a couple holidays away from home, and it dawned on me that some parents are actually proud of their kids.”

  My heart twisted as he talked. My parents had pushed me, for sure. And there had been a few report cards as a kid where I’d gotten the lecture about using study time wisely. But never in my life had I doubted their satisfaction in my accomplishments. In fact, their confidence was the reason for a number of my undertakings, such as grad school.

  “But I kept going,” he continued, “until my junior year of college. Dad had an episode with his heart. The doctor said it was from stress…big surprise. And it hit me that my parents weren’t getting any younger. Mom was forty-two when Jade was born, and I came to the realization that if something happened to them, I would be completely responsible for Jade.”

  “I’m curious,” I said cautiously. “Your dad said the job would have paid three times what you’re making now. Wouldn’t that have helped Jade?”

  “In five or ten years, maybe. But a lot of young interns in my field were barely able to survive. I didn’t know what I’d do if I ended up in charge of a medically delicate kid. And she really was delicate when she was little. She had heart problems and everything for a while. I didn’t have insurance, and I wouldn’t have been able to take time off with her. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford daycare. Not the kind she would need.”

  “So you joined the Air Force.” I stared at my popcorn. “That doesn’t seem like it would have a whole lot of benefits for her.”

  “Actually, you’d be surprised.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. “The EFMP is the program that makes sure all military dependents with special needs receive it.”

  “EFMP?”

  “Exceptional Family Member Program. They make sure that my duty stations are only in locations where she can receive the care she needs. It’s easier to get referrals for therapies, and they have advocates in case I’m put in a position where her needs wouldn’t be met. And our military insurance would cover all her basic medical needs and any special needs her doctors thought she required. Or it’s supposed to, anyway.”

  Guilt crept up my arms and legs as I listened. When I first met Derrick, I’d been sure he’d just joined to feel macho and for all the traveling. When really, it had cost him a lot. At least where his family was concerned.

  “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” I said slowly, “But I’m curious.”

  “Ask away.” He pushed the popcorn around in his bowl.

  “Everything with Amy and your parents and your moving here…everything seems to go back to last spring.” I waited until he met my gaze. “Around the time Jade came to school covered in scratches. She didn’t want to talk for weeks.” I paused. “She…she didn’t fall. Did she?”

  “Oh, she fell all right.” His face darkened. “But she did a lot more than that, too.”

  “That thing you can’t tell me about, right?”

  He leaned back. “Well, you’re here and practically family now, so you might as well know.” Then he leaned forward. “Jade, don’t chase people with sparklers! I’ll have to take those away if you don’t listen.”

  Practically family. Did he really mean that?

  “My parents,” he continued, “don’t like to talk about it because it makes them uncomfortable. Actually, it’s the reason I fought you so hard when you first got here. You were the first permanent caregiver to come after Jade’s little nanny incident.”

  I nearly interjected that I was a summer tutor, but the way his eyes tightened kept my mouth shut.

  “The nanny before you worked out okay for a few weeks. But she got distracted on the phone one day and didn’t see Jade slip out.” He ran a hand down his face, and when he spoke again, his voice hitched. “She was lost for hours. We had the neighbors and the cops all looking for her. I can’t…I can’t tell you what it felt like. I was back here visit
ing from Colorado at the time but was out running an errand when it happened. Those hours, though, not knowing where she was or if someone had taken her or if…” His voice cracked. “If someone was hurting her. It was a worse feeling than I’ve ever had in my life. And when we did find her, she was covered in bruises and cuts and was pretty shaken up.”

  “Where was she?” A renegade tear ran down my face as I imagined her lost and crying alone for hours.

  “On the golf course behind the house, in one of those big groups of trees. It was a miracle she was there, though, and not in a pond. They’re all over the course. She’d somehow squeezed between some of the fence posts in our back yard and made her escape there. She was crying like a baby. Just…wailing. And when my mom offered to take her from the cop who found her, she wanted me instead.” He finally faced me, his blue eyes standing out even more than usual against his red, tear-stained face. “And I knew at that moment that I had to get back to her. At least while she was little. I had to do my best to keep her safe while I could.” He cleared his throat and sat taller. “So as soon as I got back to Colorado, I prayed hard, pulled some strings, sent in my request to get transferred here.”

  I put my empty popcorn bowl down and stretched. “I thought you don’t get to pick where you move in the military.”

  He snorted. “You don’t. Usually. And even with friends in the right places like mine, it’s really hard. Thank God I got it, because it would have been really easy for them to say no.”

  “That’s why you didn’t want me to stay with Jade.” It was all making sense now. And totally not in the way I’d expected.

  He gave me a sheepish grin. “And again, I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t feel like I could—”

  “I get it.” I elbowed his arm. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “Hey.”

  I turned again, this time to see him giving me a genuine smile. It was gentle and yet, unflinching in its intensity. So much intensity. “Thanks again for having us over. We really needed this.”