Purple Hearts Read online

  Cassie

  The day after the barbecue, a couple of hours before The Loyal’s last rehearsal before the show tomorrow night, I made my way to Toby’s. And I was on a mission.

  So the thing about Luke, the thing about him kissing me on the cheek in a fairly regular, natural way, and my recent tolerance and even fondness for the nickname “honey,” and my saying I’d like to get used to you. So the thing about that was, I didn’t know. I was pretty sure these were surface-level gestures that had been made complicated only because I had seen him naked. Combine that with a cute dog and a cute baby running around his cute family, with the cute dad making cute burgers, and bam, you’ve got yourself Lifetime movie feelings.

  Toby, as I’d decided today, was a real person with whom I had a real thing going on. I wasn’t saying Luke wasn’t real, but the circumstances through which I began to care for him were not. They were fabricated. Completely. So that detracts a certain legitimacy from said caring, does it not?

  But that didn’t stop me from caring about Luke, and, in fact, I’ll be damned if it didn’t punch me right in the face with the fact that I was ready to care for someone. I was ready to share the space I’d built. And it should be with someone who wasn’t about to limp out of my life, leaving a trail of take-out boxes and dog hair and painkiller bottles.

  And that someone was Toby. Toby with the Arkansas gap in his teeth, who was an encyclopedia of music and had nimble, rhythmic hands that had been backing me up for a year now.

  When he opened his door, I pulled his face toward mine.

  “Um, hey,” he said between kisses.

  “I’m getting a divorce soon,” I told him. “You know that, right? Luke and I will be divorced when he gets discharged.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I also think . . .” The words caught. “I think you and I should give the living together thing a try.”

  “Wait, Cassie, really?”

  “Really.” The way his eyebrows drooped at the ends, eyes wide, that grateful smile. He was adorable. I took his shoulders. “I mean, it just makes sense, you know? We’ve known each other for so long.”

  “And you don’t have to sign a lease or anything, you know,” he said.

  He glanced at my hands, which were now unbuttoning his shirt. “Let’s not talk logistics right now.”

  I unbuttoned his jeans, and they fell. It was time to show each other that we weren’t going to be that boring couple who goes out to eat and farts quietly while they watch TV and meets in the bedroom where they hump each other until they fall asleep.

  “We’re going to live together,” I said, lifting my shirt. “And sometimes,” I continued, slipping off my cutoffs, “I’m going to be getting ready for work.”

  Toby was still standing there, jeans at his knees, watching me.

  I walked past him to the bathroom. “And I’m going to want it so bad,” I said, hopping onto the counter next to the sink, opening my legs. “That you’re going to fuck me right then and there.”

  “Wait,” Toby said.

  I stared at him. In the twelve on-and-off months I’d been removing my clothes around him, I’d never heard hesitation in his voice.

  “I feel like this is special,” he said. He stepped out of his jeans and walked toward me, a soft smile on his face.

  That was fine. He didn’t want to dirty talk. I could still work with this. He stood on the tile, kissing me small and slow in a line, starting at my ear, down to my shoulder.

  I pulled him into me by his lower back, and noticed he wasn’t hard.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stepping back. “Can we just take a second to talk about the timeline?”

  I tried to keep the mood going, hooking my finger in his shirt, looking at him with doe eyes. “Later.”

  “It’s also weird to have sex with you while I can see myself in the mirror.” He pointed behind me. “Plus I bet this counter is really dirty.”

  “Isn’t that kind of hot, though?”

  He scrunched up his face. “Eh. I’m not drunk enough to ignore it.”

  “Okay,” I said, hopping off.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his hands circling my waist. “Is it weird that I want to just savor this without a hookup?”

  “No need to be sorry,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “It makes sense.”

  “We’re the real deal now,” he said, between pecks at my neck.

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting on the bed.

  “Aw, damn, Cass,” he said, running his fingers through my hair. “We’ll try bathroom sex again.” We lay together, Toby draping his arms around me. He pulled me tighter. “We’ll have plenty of time,” he whispered.

  Luke

  Once Cassie left for Toby’s, I asked Rita if I could borrow her car, and drove to where Johnno used to live, hoping he would still be there. I knocked on the puke-green door, a gym bag full of cash hooked to my cane. Bass pounded from inside. Empty cans of Monster Energy and Lone Star littered the stoop. Under the peep hole, somebody had ground the letters I C U.

  Yep, telltale Johnno markings. I pounded harder.

  Kaz opened the door, a blunt hanging from his lips. I had forgotten how huge he was. I was six foot two and came up only to his nipples.

  “Here,” I said, and lifted the bag. I’d been saving every penny I could of my paychecks since I deployed, and I’d cashed my savings, but I finally had twenty-five hundred dollars. How I was going to find twenty-five hundred for the final payment in a month was a problem for another day.

  Kaz took the bag.

  “Tell him to come in here and count it out,” I heard Johnno yell.

  “It’s all there,” I called. “You know how to reach me if it’s not.” I was borrowing Rita’s car. I had to get back so she could go to her hair appointment.

  Kaz grabbed my shoulder and ushered me inside.

  Three minutes later, Johnno confirmed it was all there. He lounged on the futon with the gun sitting on his belly, stockinged feet resting on the coffee table next to the pile.

  When I stood up to leave, Kaz blocked my way. “We’re not done yet.”

  “You’ll get the rest in a month, like we agreed.”

  “We have some new información,” Johnno said, picking dirt out of his fingernails.

  “What now?”

  Johnno picked up the gun, aiming it at me like a teacher’s pointer. “How would you explain your situation with Ms. Cassandra Salazar, in your own words? Go.”

  I swallowed. My hand started to fidget on the cane. “Married.”

  Johnno waved the gun. “Go on.”

  I said nothing. I looked around the room for an answer, a weapon.

  “We’ve been keeping tabs on you, bro. Making sure you’re not going to ghost. And here comes Cassie’s hot ass, so natch we’re gonna follow that.”

  I was clenching my bum leg, hoping the pain would distract me from the fear rising up. “Do y’all just sit in the Bronco all day spying on people?”

  Kaz was on his phone, muttering, “Sometimes we go to Buffalo Wild Wings. That’s some good shit.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Kaz,” Johnno said.

  Kaz glared at Johnno, then back at me, and continued, “We found out where she works, and where her mom lives.”

  “I said shut the fuck up!” Johnno yelled. Even in the midst of dishing out threats, Johnno was such a child. “We also found out that she goes home with some other dude all the time.”

  Kaz commiserated. “Why you gonna let her play you like that, bro?”

  Johnno held up a finger. “No, he knows.”

  Kaz looked at me. “You know?”

  “You and Cassie are medieval-times married, aren’t you? You just did it for the extra army cash. Confirm or deny.”

  I pounded a fist into my palm to keep from swinging my cane across his pocked face. If I did, Kaz would be on me like a bull rhino. “You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

  “Okay, here’s a choice,” Johnno said, sudd
enly sitting up, gun swinging in his bony hands. “You either pay us fifty thousand dollars, or we report you to army police.”

  I stood. “You’re out of your mind!” Kaz was in my face in a second, chest to chest. “I couldn’t get that kind of money if I wanted to.”

  “That’s what you say every time,” Johnno said, pointing to the pile. “And then there it be.”

  I pointed to Johnno. “You can fuck off.” To Kaz, I said, “Please move.”

  With a nod from Johnno, Kaz stepped aside.

  “Fifty K, magic man!” he yelled after me, erupting into a cough. “Make it appear!”

  “Not gonna happen, dude,” I called, and slammed the door.

  Once outside, my breath caught in my lungs. My vision zeroed in and out. I C U. I leaned on my cane, hoping I wouldn’t pass out.

  They could hurt me, but they wouldn’t kill me if they really thought I could produce fifty K. But they’d already staked out Cassie’s place, and I doubted they’d stop there. He knew where Jake lived, about my dad’s garage. He wanted that money, one way or another, and I didn’t have a prayer’s chance of raising it on my own.

  Cassie

  Mom made me beans and rice, a fact of which I was made aware by her calling me to say, “I made extra beans and rice.”

  “Then why don’t you put it in some Tupperware?” I’d responded.

  “Just come over and eat it.”

  We hadn’t spoken since the fight in my apartment. The absence of her daily texts about the names of actors she recognized but couldn’t place, her voice mails summarizing the habits of her plants growing outside the duplex, her invitations to help her “wash the rich people toilets,” were like little holes poked in my days. The stillness of my phone was enough at times to make me look up her name, but then I remembered she wouldn’t want to speak to me, either.

  She wanted to speak to her daughter the law student, maybe, or her daughter the paralegal, but not me.

  When she called, I waited to answer until the last second before it hit voice mail, my heart pounding.

  Now we sat in the kitchen on Cord Street over the steaming bowls of red beans and white rice with ham and sofrito and Sazón con Azafran. We made small talk about the dry heat, the novels she’d read recently, the new pots she’d purchased, how Tía MiMi was doing in San Juan. But everything was foreign, too cold.

  I was sitting in the same chair where she used to pull a comb through my tangles until I cried. Then she’d cover her hands in coconut oil and massage my scalp until I stopped, clicking her tongue as I’d fall asleep right in the chair.

  I’d dressed for the occasion. I wore a black jumper and above-the-knee socks and my law firm flats. She hadn’t mentioned anything, which was her way. One should not get awards for meeting reasonable standards.

  When dinner was over, I steeled myself, ready. I knew her logic. No use in ruining a good meal with unpleasant talk.

  She poured a mug of tea for each of us. She finally cut the silence. “Does what I was saying the other day make sense?” The only other sound was the tick of her cactus-shaped clock.

  I breathed in steam, trying to stay calm. “Yes, but that wasn’t why I got upset with you.”

  “Then what was your fuss about?”

  My calming breaths stopped.

  She sensed this, and clarified. “I know you are always going to do what you want to do, Cassandra. You have always been very independent. So I don’t understand why my opinions and advice make you so upset.”

  I kept my voice measured. “If you know they won’t change anything, why do you say them in the first place?”

  She considered, staring at the counter behind me. “Because I care.”

  I set down my mug. “Exactly. Me, too. That’s why they make me so mad. Especially when you brought Luke into it.”

  “But I was just stating facts,” Mom offered. “Luke is your responsibility . . . ,” she continued.

  “Mom, I know. I know. But sometimes I’m not looking for facts.” I swallowed, taking her hand across the table. “At that moment, I was looking for you to be proud of me.”

  She suddenly looked very sad, her eyebrows knitting together.

  “Luke and I, it could work out, it could not, but your support is what really matters.” I pointed at her, then to myself. “You and me, we’re forever.”

  “Oh, Cassie.” A smile broke under her furrowed brows, her lips quivering.

  Now it was my turn to fight tears. I wiped them away.

  “I am very proud. So proud it hurts. I should—listen. Have you guessed yet, mija?” she asked, picking up her empty bowl.

  “Guessed what?”

  She held out her hand for my dish. “Who your father was?”

  I handed it to her. “No,” I said.

  “He was a musician,” she said, her back to me as she stood at the sink. I froze. Of course. Duh. Of course. Then she laughed. “He wasn’t even that good. In fact, I can guarantee you are better than him.”

  I swallowed a million questions, savoring each word. Not because I cared about my nonexistent dad. But because my mom was the one telling me.

  “I wish I had a picture of him but I think I burned them all.”

  I laughed. “That’s okay,” I said. She turned to me. “Really. I don’t care. You’re all I need, Mamita.”

  She opened her arms to me and I embraced her. We didn’t move. “I’m sorry I don’t tell you enough how proud I am of you,” she said.

  “Me, too. For everything,” I said into her shoulder.

  “I won’t try to talk you into being a lawyer.”

  “At least for a while.”

  “Yes, for a while,” she amended.

  “So, you agree with me?” I asked, my chest tightening. “That I can actually pull this off? Because a tour and an album means money, Mom. And if I do well, I can make another album, I can even teach lessons in my spare time . . .”

  “I always have believed that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ha!”

  “I wasn’t just worried about your ability to take care of yourself, Cassandra,” she said, squeezing me. “I’m also worried you’re going to leave me forever.”

  I brushed her head, feeling tears well in my eyes once more. “I’m not going to leave you forever.”

  “If you become famous at music you will. You’ll move to Los Angeles or something. You tell me I should get a life, but I think I should get used to being alone. Except for MiMi.”

  We let go, and I looked at her brown eyes, her dimples, the lines that formed when she smiled. I took a deep breath. “Mom?”

  She raised her eyebrows, sarcastic. “Yes, it is me, your mom.”

  Nice to know we’re back to normal, at least.

  “Will you come to my show tomorrow night? There’s a song I want you to hear.”

  “Of course I will be there,” she said.

  I smiled big and we went back to finishing the dishes, my tense muscles falling still with the running warm water and the lavender soap smell and the texture of the thick clay bowls I had washed so many times as a girl.

  I felt larger than I had when I came in, towering against the sink and the task and the counter at my hips, not only because I was bigger against this house now than I was in my memories. I felt big because my mother had said she was proud, and this time, she meant she was proud of all of me.

  Luke

  Something buzzed in the silence. I bolted upright on the couch. I heard the sound again, rattling the kitchen table. I felt around. My phone was on the armrest, where I’d left it. Cassie must have left hers here before she went to Toby’s. The ringing stopped. I sat up and hobbled my way across the room and picked up the phone.

  Five missed calls from “Mom.” At 2:16 a.m. This did not seem good.

  The phone buzzed again in my hand.

  I answered.

  “Ma’am?”

  She was breathing hard. “Mija?”

  “Ma’am, this is Luke.”

/>   “Oh. Is Cassie there?” Her voice was shaking. I sat up fully.

  “She’s at . . .” Toby’s I finished silently. “She’s out tonight. Is everything okay?”

  “Someone has come into my house. My window is broken.”

  I gripped the phone tighter. “Have you called the police?”

  “Twenty minutes ago. They’re not here yet. I’m outside and worried the person might still be in there.”

  “Okay.” I paused, my head racing. She shouldn’t be alone. “What’s your address? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I moved faster down the stairs than I ever had, adrenaline overpowering the pain. Rita hadn’t said a word when I told her, just grabbed the keys from a hook near the door.

  “Go,” she urged.

  I used Cassie’s cell to call Toby’s phone on the way, panic cutting through what should have been an awkward conversation. Cassie’s sleepy voice immediately turned sharp as I spoke.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said before the line went dead.

  When I arrived at Cord Street fifteen minutes later, Cassie’s mom was crouching next to a Camry, her keys spiked between her fingers.

  “Marisol?” She jumped when I said her name.

  She held a finger to her lips and pointed to the bottom floor of a duplex not unlike Cassie’s, except this one was light yellow, surrounded by flowers, bushes, bird feeders. “Cassie’s checking it out,” she whispered.

  “Oh, good, she got here?”

  “Just now.”

  “Cassie,” I called lightly.

  She emerged from the side of the house, holding a baseball bat, squinted, and jogged over to me. “Oh, thank God.”

  Without thinking, I opened my arms. Cassie moved into them, squeezing. I could feel her fingertips trace the middle of my back as her hands clenched. “Are you all right?”

  “Yep,” she said, her breath on my shoulder. For a second, everything else faded.

  Other than us, the street was lifeless. Kids’ bikes were scattered on the lawn of the apartment complex next to Marisol’s house. A streetlight flickered at the end of the block.