Purple Hearts Page 10

  That was not part of our agreement, what we did.

  Whose idea was it? Had she come on to me, or had I come on to her?

  We didn’t even get along.

  Maybe that’s what we were doing. We were trying to fuck ourselves into liking each other.

  “Do you want me to take you to the airport?” she asked, yawning again.

  “No,” I said. “Thanks,” I added.

  “It’s no big deal,” she started, then caught my eyes in the mirror.

  I avoided them. “I want to go alone.”

  “When is the cab getting here?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “I can take you . . .” She pretended to look at an invisible watch. “Literally now.”

  I let out a laugh despite myself. It made much more sense. And it dissipated two out of the thousand circulating thoughts. I wouldn’t be late. She didn’t hate me. “Thanks. It’s probably better for appearances anyhow.”

  I took a swig of mouthwash from the tiny bottle near the sink.

  “So,” she said as I swished. “Last night.”

  I shook my head, keeping the mouthwash in longer than I needed to, hoping she’d drop it. Too many bad thoughts remained. I couldn’t find the right ones even if I wanted to. Everyone knows you’re faking. You’re not one of them. You’re going to have no one. You’ll be alone. You’re going to die. You’re going to die alone. The liquid burned my gums.

  I spit.

  “I don’t feel awkward,” she said, leaning against the door frame. “I mean, we’re married. Married people do that sometimes.”

  “Yeah.” I walked past her in the doorway, still smelling the cucumber of her shampoo. I pushed it away. I found a pad of paper in a drawer in the bedside table, and lugged my bag on my back.

  “Word,” she said, grabbing her purse and giving me a winning smile. “Awkward silence it is.”

  “I don’t feel awkward. I’m just focused.”

  “I get it, I get it,” she said. “I mean, I don’t fully get what it feels like, but, yeah. I get it.”

  I closed the door and we descended down the stairs. Cassie jogged over to drop the room key in the slot next to the lobby.

  We got into the Subaru.

  “Here,” I said as we clicked our seat belts. I handed her the piece of motel stationery on which I had written Jacob’s phone number. “You’re my next of kin now.”

  She kept her eyes down, reading. “I know.”

  She put it in her pocket.

  “If anything happens to me, they’re going to come to you.”

  Cassie took a deep, shaky breath, backing out of the parking space. “Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  The morning light shone through the windshield. So much buildup for deployment, so much training for this day, and it was finally here. No turning back. Whether or not I was a coward, whether or not I deserved to make my life better, it was already decided for me. Either I would get through the next nine months, or I wouldn’t. Starting today.

  At the American Airlines drop-off, Frankie and Armando stood, their eyes on every car that passed. When they saw us pull up, they jogged over. I got out of the car.

  “Damn, Morrow!” Armando said. “We thought you were going to miss the flight.”

  “Let’s go, dude,” Frankie said.

  Cassie stood next to the driver’s side, the car idling.

  “Salazar, come here,” Frankie said. Cassie came to the other side of the car, and they embraced, speaking quietly to each other. They parted, and Frankie and Armando made their way to the curb, waiting.

  I took my bag out of the trunk, and as I passed her, I brushed my hand on her shoulder. “Well,” I said.

  “So your brother, Jacob,” she said, touching her pocket. “I guess, have you made arrangements with him in case of, uh, emergency?”

  I nodded, squeezing the straps of my bag. “Jake would take care of things.”

  “Jacob Morrow,” she said. “In Buda, right?”

  “Right.” I got closer to her, speaking low into her ear. “You can tell him about us. Just make sure that you come up with a story for my dad.”

  She nodded. “Skype in a couple weeks?”

  “If there’s access, yes.” A car behind Cassie’s honked. We ignored it. A pigeon came fluttering down to her feet. We both glanced down, and when we looked up, we realized Armando and Frankie were still looking at us. As far as Armando was concerned, we were still husband and wife. Not only were we married, this would be the last time we saw each other for almost a year. And we were in love. Cassie took a deep breath. One more time.

  I leaned down, closed my eyes, and this one was right on target. Soft. She took my face in her hands. My fingertips found her waist. For a moment, the world went quiet. We breathed each other in.

  I lingered there until Frankie shouted. When I took a step back, I still couldn’t quite let go, even as she got in the car and drove off. Even as I boarded our flight and I watched Texas and everyone I knew fade away.

  Cassie

  I was pacing outside Nora’s house, eating handful after handful of raw almond slivers out of a plastic bag, wearing a fringed shawl and high, black witchy boots. Reality check: Every detail surrounding the last two days was very real, and yet did not fit together, like pieces of various jigsaw puzzles. Luke and I were married (the piece with the ring on a finger), we had consummated (hotel key), and I had his handwriting in my pocket in case I forgot his family name. We had woken up (his bare shoulder), gone to the airport (the plane icon), and I had made out with him in front of all of his friends like the nurse in that World War II photo, but with less back flexibility. We would now be thousands of miles apart for longer than we had known each other. Where did all of it lead? All I knew was that it was Fleetwood Friday, and my first deposit of one thousand dollars would arrive in two weeks.

  “Come on, Nor,” I muttered, checking my phone. I had asked her to meet me early before practice tonight so I could make sure I didn’t invent all of this out of some delusional psychotic episode due to low blood sugar. I needed her to tell me everything was going to be okay.

  She pushed open her screen door and made a fart noise, wearing her usual Fleetwood Friday–appropriate tunic, her long black hair feathered under her top hat. I ran past her inside and down to the basement.

  She came clomping down the steps in platforms, eyeliner in hand. “What is the fuss, Cass?” she called.

  I stood in the middle of her basement, hands on my hips. “I did it.”

  “Did what?” She had to step sideways because of the boots.

  I took a deep breath. “I married an army guy.”

  She stopped in the middle of the steps. “Wait. What?”

  “ ‘Go army’? ‘Count the benefits’?” I echoed the language of the brochure. “Remember when that Armando guy proposed?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I did that.”

  Nora came down the rest of the stairs, furious. “You married that Armando guy?”

  I held up my hands. “No, not him—”

  “Thank God.”

  “But that other guy. Luke. Frankie’s friend. The asshole from the bar.”

  Nora sat on the bottom step, eyes wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or confused or admiring me or all three. She set down the eyeliner next to her and folded her hands.

  “Except he’s not really an asshole,” I said. “It’s nuts. I can’t even believe I went through with it myself.”

  “So it’s done?” she said. “You’re actually legally married?”

  I lifted my finger. “The Walmart ring is at home, but yeah.” My gut twisted, staring at her. She stared back. Nora was usually the fuck yes person in my life. When I asked her for a drink the night we met at a Father John Misty show, fuck yes. When I broke up with Tyler, a big fuck yes. When I asked her to form a band, fuck yes. Even when I told her that Toby and I hooked up behind a hay bale at the Harv
est Festival shortly after he started playing with us, a minimal but present fuck yes. There was no fuck yes yet.

  “Well.” She shrugged. “You’re insane.”

  That would bring the tally of important people in my life calling me insane up to two out of two. “Am I?”

  “And yet.” She held up a finger. “All things considered, it was kind of my idea. Remember when we were at your apartment and we were talking about rich people we would marry for benefits? That was me. This is a Countess LuAnn, Bethenny Frankel Skinnygirl margarita situation.”

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I was pretty sure it was reality TV. And after the big leaps of the last couple of days, I was ready to listen to her talk about reality TV as long as she wanted to. I had my best friend on my side. I wanted to cry with relief. “Sure, Nor. It’s all you.”

  “Okay,” she said, concentrating. “Where did you do it, how did you do it, why didn’t you call me, and what are you going to do now? Go.”

  I told her everything, still popping almonds. From the moment I’d formed the idea after she left my house to the embarrassing proposal at Frankie’s to the shocking on-board-ness of Luke, to the day at city hall and the disaster at Chili’s. When I came to last night, I paused.

  I tried to make my voice casual. “So, yeah. Now he’s deployed, and we’ll Skype every once in a while, and that’s it.”

  She stood up and got closer to me, narrowing her eyes. She smiled. She smelled like rose petals. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

  I breathed in a mouthful of almonds, coughing, then laughing, then coughing more. Nora cracked up with me, patting my back. When I recovered, eyes watering, I said, “How did you know, you psychic?”

  “I saw you two together, Cass. There was some heat, queen.” I looked at her, suddenly confused. “Some real heat,” she muttered, pulling her phone from her pocket to use as an eyeliner mirror. “And not just anger.”

  “I mean,” I started, thinking back to last night. Thinking back to crying out as he pushed me against the wall. “I thought he was cute, but . . .” Thinking of this morning, how slowly our lips let go. “Whatever. We are so awkward together. We piss each other off constantly. He’s, like, this conservative bro. Maybe I have a thing for bros.”

  “You don’t have to justify it to me!” She tossed the eyeliner toward me. I missed it. It clattered on the floor.

  Right. It was her idea. Kind of.

  But Luke, specifically, was not her idea. And in any other circumstances, I would have never seen Luke again after that night at the bar. Maybe I would have run into him again through Frankie, but we would have never even remembered each other’s names. And now we were entwined. There was another mismatching jigsaw puzzle piece: Luke’s silver-blue eyes.

  I heard the door open and close upstairs. Toby. It was time for practice. I got nervous.

  “Okay, Nor, this is an absolute, military-grade secret.”

  “Ha!” She squatted near the case for her bass, flipping the levers on the lid. “Duh.”

  “Swear.”

  She did a budget John F. Kennedy impression. “ ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,’ I solemnly swear not to reveal this classified information.”

  Toby came down the stairs, wearing a fantastically crisp white shirt over his broad shoulders, a red bandanna, and his dusty brown hair pulled into a ponytail. “Very festive Mick Fleetwood, Toby,” I called.

  He grinned. “Long time, no talk, Cass,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  As we set up, Toby came near where I was bent, and plunked a few notes on the electric piano. “Oh, by the way.”

  I looked up. In his hands was a shiny, brand-new vegan cookbook. “I saw this and I was thinking about you today, so . . .”

  Nora released a large cough. I looked over at where she was innocently plugging in her bass. I couldn’t be sure, but I could have sworn I heard her say something underneath it. “Bad timing.”

  Luke

  My small, donated German laptop sat on the green tin table that also served as the place for cards, for clipping fingernails, for unwrapping milky British chocolate, for putting lotion on blistered palms after maneuvering a heavy gun all day, for setting up a mirror to shave. Our room at Camp Leatherneck was about half the size of our dorm rooms at Fort Hood. Fake wood paneling and exposed pipes that didn’t keep the cold out at night.

  We were in temperate country, in Helmand Province. The heat was bad, but the frigid nights were worse.

  It was me and Frankie and a kid from the division we didn’t know too well, Sam Adels, the only other redhead aside from Davies. Everyone called him Rooster.

  Both Frankie and Rooster were over at the community room, the bass from someone’s R&B shaking the thin walls, so it was kind of pointless to Skype with Cassie. We didn’t have anyone to fool.

  But we had said two weeks, so I was here, online.

  In a lot of ways, this place was good for me. Sobriety was a gift I received every morning. Clarity. Blinding sun. Everything I had to fear was outside of me, and the ways I would fight it were established, unquestionable.

  I woke up, I ate, I bent next to Clark over a huge engine, repeating his words, writing down parts and drawing diagrams, following his lead.

  Then we’d load up and take the rickety roads up and down the Kajaki Dam into the villages, negotiating with the Afghan National Army (ANA) at checkpoints. The elders of the villages would speak to the translators, the translators to the captains. We’d hand out blankets to the women, licorice to the kids, passing through herds of goats and volleyball games. Still, we were on full alert at all times.

  I watched for Cassie’s name to go green in the Skype window. I looked closer at the icon she’d chosen as her contact photo. A man in red and gold robes, smiling and pointing. I realized it was the Dalai Lama. Spokesperson for world peace. Funny, Cass.

  “Hi!” she said when the call came through. “Hello?”

  Slight delay. We waited for the video to load.

  “Hey. I’m alone, by the way,” I said.

  “Got it,” she responded.

  I took in her face. She looked different. Her hair just reached her jaw, framing her face with thick, black waves. “Did you cut your hair?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice a bit tinny through the speakers. “I look exactly like my mom now.”

  I laughed.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said, sighing. “I told Nora about us.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “Everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out. “Okay. Um. Why?”

  She avoided looking at the screen. “It’s just . . . I wouldn’t not tell my mom and best friend I got married.” She looked up, hard.

  “All right. Just, maybe better to . . . you know. Keep it as simple as possible. Uh, so.” She was wearing her wedding dress, the one that revealed her tattoo. “Are you dressed up?”

  “What can I say? This is a special occasion,” she said, giving me an exaggerated wink.

  I coughed, trying to cover up a heat I felt on my neck. “For real?”

  “Nah, I’m going out.”

  With a dude? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. “So you got the money okay?”

  “Yep, thank you,” she said, biting her thumbnail.

  I cleared my throat. “Everything else going good?”

  She nodded, giving me a genuine smile. She was wearing lipstick. Maybe she really was going on a date. “Everything’s going well, yeah. I’m playing another show next week.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “How are things over there?”

  “Good.” I looked behind me, gesturing at the room. “Pretty magical accommodations.”

  She snorted. “Living that army life. Are you promoted to a general yet?”

  I matched her sarcasm. “Soon enough. Just have to get my nature badge.”

  We laughed.

  When the laughter di
ed, she started fidgeting. I picked up a deck of cards and shuffled it from hand to hand. I lowered my voice in case anyone could overhear. “I don’t really know what to talk about. With you. Other than pretending to be married.”

  Cassie bit her lip. “Yeah, we should have covered that in the meeting at the diner, huh?”

  “What if we try now?”

  Voices came down the hall. Frankie and Rooster were coming back.

  Cassie said quickly, “E-mail me. Tell me things that are important about your life, like some conversation we’re picking back up on. Just be careful so that it can’t be used as evidence we don’t know each other.”

  I found myself smiling, surprised at her scheming. She gave me a nervous smile back, shrugging.

  “Okay,” I said, and jerked my head toward the makeshift door.

  She cleared her throat, understanding. Frankie and Rooster came in, laughing.

  “Not if I don’t first, dude,” Frankie was saying.

  Rooster passed behind me, glancing at the laptop screen.

  “So I guess I’ll see you in another couple weeks, baby?” she said, leaning forward, putting on a pouty face.

  I blanked, trying to stay casual. I had made a mental list of “married” things to say, but most of them were just normal things with the word “honey” tacked at the end of them. “I—I don’t want to wait that long, either. Honey.”

  “Uh oh, are we interrupting?” Rooster asked, wiggling his eyebrows, leaning over my shoulder.

  “Hi, I’m Cassie,” she said in her high, wifely voice.

  “My wife,” I said, gesturing toward the screen as if he didn’t already see it. Ugh, idiot.

  “Hey, Cass!” Frankie said, taking the spot on my other shoulder.

  At the sight of his face, Cassie’s act broke for a second. “Frankie! You good?”

  Frankie blew her a kiss. “Never better!”

  My blood pressure rose. “Well, Cassie has to go. We’ve been at it for an hour, so.”

  “Girls’ night!” she said, fluttering her hands.

  “Bye-bye now,” I said.

  Frankie cleared his throat, muttering something that sounded like “love.”

  “Oh,” I said, my hands up instinctively, telling her to wait. Oh, God. I looked to the left of her, hoping it appeared to Rooster like I was staring fondly at the screen. “I love you.”