Purple Hearts Page 7

  She giggled. “Sorry. I don’t know why that’s funny. Mine”—she wrote—“is my mother’s tembleque.”

  We went back and forth.

  I run six miles a day.

  About twice a month I sign up for yoga classes then cancel.

  I like RPGs. Fallout and stuff.

  I like to read critical theory and trashy magazines about celebrities.

  I don’t really like to read. I wasn’t good at school. I liked Huck Finn, though. And Where the Red Fern Grows.

  I like records. Vinyl.

  Me, too. My dad had some growing up.

  Things as big as My mom died to small things Cassie said couples know about each other even after a short time, like I wear boxers to bed. Cassie preferred a tank top and underwear. She pointed to all of her tattoos. Right forearm, some sort of lion with wings. A sphinx. Traditionally female in myths. Symbol of wisdom. Left forearm, the cycle of the moon. Upper right arm, flowers, apparently the same kind that grew in her mother’s yard. Upper left, a black star, for David Bowie.

  I showed her a scar on the back of my head. I told her it came from my father, by accident. I didn’t elaborate.

  We’d decided that whenever anyone got suspicious, we would start acting in love. Touching each other, laughing together, whispering secrets in each other’s ears. That would distract the person asking questions; either they’d think it was cute and understand the timeline more, or they’d think we were disgusting and understand the timeline more.

  We would Skype every two weeks, hopefully during times when other members of my company were present, in case they had to serve as witnesses as well.

  I gave her my health insurance forms to sign. We exchanged e-mail addresses.

  We agreed that my paychecks would be direct-deposited into a joint account we would set up later today at Austin Credit Union. She would withdraw her cut on the first of every month.

  Cassie’s leg had started to twitch under the table.

  “And now,” Frankie said, holding his camera, “is the perfect time to capture your proposal.”

  I looked around. “Here?”

  “Why not?” Frankie said. “It’s perfect. It’s in public. There are witnesses, but nobody to hear our conversation. And we can say you were so overcome with love you insisted on going immediately to city hall.”

  Cassie glanced at the fake velvet box Frankie and I had picked out from the Walmart Supercenter off 290. “Oh, lordy,” she said, and picked it up, unclasping it.

  “Don’t!” Frankie said, glancing in fear at the waitress. Cassie dropped it on the table.

  Frankie jutted his chin at me, speaking with his eyes. Do it. I guessed it was better the less staged it looked. We couldn’t rehearse this one. I looked at Cassie. She wrinkled her nose.

  I took her cool hand and pulled her up to a standing position. I made sure the waitress had paused behind her counter, watching. Here goes nothing.

  I cleared my throat, and got down on one knee. Cassie laughed, a genuine laugh that I felt move through her body. I laughed, too. “Look me in the eyes,” I muttered.

  She did. I started smiling, tried to stop myself, and realized I didn’t have to stop myself. I was supposed to be smiling.

  “Cassandra Lee Salazar, will you marry me?”

  She said yes.

  Cassie

  City hall broke the skyline of downtown Austin in angles, all slanted brown tile and sweeping glass. Frankie parked on the street, but I didn’t realize we weren’t driving anymore until the white noise of the talk radio had bleeped off and the car was quiet. I spun the too-tight gold band on my finger, trying to remember the chords I had found this morning, a rhythm for my heartbeat to follow so it would slow down a bit, stop jumping around.

  “Before we go in,” Frankie said, looking at us with sentimental eyes, like we were prom dates, “I have this idea. My parents do it in couples’ therapy.”

  “Your parents go to couples’ therapy?” I asked.

  George and Louise Cucciolo were the most in-love couple I knew. They were always making out in the kitchen when one of us went to get more snacks. They went to Italy every year on their anniversary.

  “Yeah, they like it. Helps them ‘grow,’ they say.”

  Luke and I glanced at each other and shrugged. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was, which was that it was probably easier to “grow” as a couple when you had disposable income to throw at marriage experts and trips to Europe.

  “Anyway,” Frankie continued. “When they’re having a disagreement or whatever, they start off the session by staring into each other’s eyes for thirty seconds.”

  “No,” Luke said, scoffing. “No way.”

  “Frankie,” I said, touching his arm. “I appreciate your effort. And you doing this. Everything. But we’re just going to go in there and sign some papers, take some photos. Okay?”

  “I’m not letting you get out of this car until you do it. Seriously. Elena and I do it, and it’s amazing. We can talk about anything.”

  “We don’t need to talk about anything, Frankie,” Luke muttered. “Except for financial stuff.”

  “As your future lawyer . . .”

  I couldn’t help it, I snorted.

  “Seriously,” Frankie said, and he started to raise his voice, which didn’t seem to be a familiar sound to either me or Luke. “You need to take this seriously. Because if anything goes wrong, they will bring a body language expert into that courtroom. I swear to God.”

  Silence. The idea of a courtroom infected our thoughts. The consequences that lay there. Jail. Money gone. Future gone.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Luke, get in the backseat with her.”

  I watched Luke come around the car, the black suit a little too short at the arms and legs, but cutting his form in all the right places. Wide, wiry shoulders, a runner’s waist, long legs that he shoved behind the front seat. He smelled like sharp, wet wood and herbs, probably Frankie’s cologne, too.

  At least everyone would understand why I’d be attracted to him.

  “And what are we supposed to be thinking about, anyway?” Luke asked.

  “Whatever comes to mind,” Frankie said.

  “Like what?”

  I almost said sex as a joke-not-joke but decided against it. I mean, we were in a backseat together. It was kind of funny, but not the time. I popped my knuckles and tried to focus.

  “All right,” Frankie said. “Look at each other in the eyes. Don’t break. Don’t laugh.”

  I laughed immediately. But then I took a deep breath. Do this for Frankie. Do this for Mom. Do this for the album.

  “One one thousand, two one thousand . . .” Frankie began to count out loud, but then fell silent. Three one thousand, four one thousand, five . . .

  I looked at Luke. I remembered those eyes from when we met last week, before he became an ass. The blue and gray, with long lashes under delicate brows. He had light purple circles underneath them.

  I could smell his breath, mint toothpaste and a hint of something else, not unpleasant, just warm. Lungs and nerve endings and bones, that’s all Luke was. Just like me, just like anyone else.

  He’d said he ran six miles a day. He must like to push himself. Yet it seemed like he’d been taught that man body must go with man thoughts, must be strong and never show otherwise. I didn’t envy that.

  In the corner of my eye I saw his hands, wide palms, smooth, thick fingers, resting on his thighs. Occasionally, they tensed.

  He had done something to his body that he was trying to undo, I could sense that being next to him now, and from the way he carried himself.

  Believe me, I told his sad eyes silently, I can relate.

  Luke

  Twenty-four one thousand, twenty-five one thousand, twenty-six one thousand.

  After this is stupid had drifted through my head a couple of times, I noticed Cassie had a freckle under her left eye, and some of the hairs in her eyebrows, full and
dark, were lighter at the tips.

  The freckle was a tiny island on the otherwise uninterrupted skin of her cheek.

  It was strange that I probably could have gone the whole year of knowing her, being “married” to her, without seeing it.

  I watched her blink and keep hold, and, goddammit, Frankie was right, maybe I grew a little more trust in her ability to stick with the whole situation. Not ability, I suppose, but desire to stick to it. I was thinking about earlier, about her being beautiful and breezing through every opportunity.

  She was, but the way she was looking at me now, eyelids almost twitching with the effort of staying put, I could tell she hadn’t let that be the thing she used to get by. If her appearance was how she defined herself, she probably wouldn’t be here, at the back door. She’d be at the front door with whatever person she wanted.

  Looking at her, though, erased every other possible life out of my mind. She was so unquestionably here.

  Cassie

  “Time’s up,” Frankie said, and all the sounds of the street and world came crashing back. The spell was broken.

  Luke cleared his throat, and grabbed his army-issued bag. “Let’s do this.”

  Our footsteps echoed in the foyer along with all the other footsteps of people Making Things Official everywhere—permits, lawsuits, licenses. I ducked into the bleach-streaked bathroom and pulled out my glucose meter. Who knew the next time I would be able to check my blood? I had no idea how long a city hall marriage would take. I had a weird vision of it being like Ellis Island, mile-long lines of women who looked like old pictures of abuela, flared skirts and rolled hair, their arms hooked around the arms of D-day survivors in uniform.

  When I emerged, I paused, watching Frankie and Luke mutter to each other. I took a deep breath, and walked toward them. The Travis County Clerk’s office was on the second floor.

  We shared the elevator with a woman and a man about our age, dressed in formal clothes. They had their arms around each other. The woman was holding a bouquet of daisies. Oh, God. These people were actually getting married. Luke and I stood with our shoulders barely touching, Frankie humming quietly along with the Muzak version of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” We were such a sham.

  As the elevator doors opened, the woman turned to me. “Y’all getting hitched, too?”

  “Yep!” I said, putting on a big smile. “This guy,” I added, slapping Luke on the back.

  Shit, shit, shit. Did people who love each other slap each other on the back?

  “That’s me,” Luke said. His swallow was audible. “I’m the guy!”

  “Say,” Frankie said to the couple as we exited to the wood-paneled hallway, pointing in both directions, “where is the room where the ceremonies are held?”

  “You already got your license?” the man said.

  “Right,” Luke said. He looked at me, his eyes searching. “The license.”

  “The license,” I repeated, looking back at him. Shit. “Not yet. We should do that.”

  “So cute,” the woman said. “You two look so nervous. Wedding day jitters!”

  “Because you can’t get married by an officiant until you’ve had a license for three days,” the man said. “Maggie and I learned the hard way last week,” he added, and they looked at each other, giggling.

  “Fuck” dropped out of my mouth. Luke was leaving the day after tomorrow.

  The couple’s giggle turned into nervous laughter, then faded altogether. The woman looked at me like I was bleeding out of my eyeballs. Her eyes traveled the length of my body, stopping briefly on the antler tattoo, then over to Luke.

  I grabbed Frankie’s arm. The Normals have picked us up on their radar. They know we’re not like them. Abort, abort.

  “But not for military, hon!” the woman said suddenly, pointing at Luke’s bag. “You in the service?”

  “Active duty,” Luke said, eyes on the woman, as if willing her to explain.

  “Actually,” she started, looking at her fiancé, “I think there’s an exception for the seventy-two-hour waiting period for active military?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  There was relief, but part of me had kind of wanted it all to be over, some clear obstacle that barred us from pulling it off. Up until now, it had felt like a harebrained scheme, just on my shoulders, which meant that if it didn’t work out, I shrugged it off and found another way. Now it was spilling into the wide world, with Luke and Frankie and clerks and strangers named Maggie.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse us,” Frankie said, putting on his most charming smile. “Thanks for your help.”

  The license was the easiest part. Blank spaces for names and social security numbers, and a line to sign. Cassandra Lee Salazar.

  I watched Luke sign Luke Joseph Morrow.

  Frankie snapped a photo of us standing at the counter, our hands barely touching each other’s backs.

  “Well, that’s it,” I said to Luke, and he nodded, glancing at me for a moment. He had been quiet through the whole thing. A lot of “yes, ma’ams” and “no, sirs.” He kept checking his phone, rubbing the back of his neck, like it was painful to be here.

  “You’re not even going to pretend to be happy?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “No one’s watching here.”

  I lowered my voice. “Yeah, but aren’t you relieved that it’s almost over?”

  “It’s not over for me. I’m on my way to Afghanistan, Cassie.”

  I stepped back. “Right.”

  Our officiant was a volunteer notary, a man who either knew God personally or had drunk three espressos that morning. He towered over Luke and Frankie and me in a hunter-orange polo, with a balding head and visible gold teeth. Frankie held up his phone, filming it all.

  “Any preference for prayers?” he asked.

  “Sir?” Luke asked.

  “Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, I got ’em all. I got the widest variety of Christian prayers. Catholic, too.” He counted on his chubby fingers, listing them in his deep accent as if he were giving us options for video game consoles at Best Buy. “Serenity Prayer, Hail Mary prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ prayer, any psalm, really, and that Corinthians one is popular, the one that goes ‘Love is patient, love is kind’?”

  I couldn’t wait to tell Nora about this guy. But then I realized: How the hell was I going to explain any of this to Nora?

  “There’s also the no-prayer option, being we’re in a government office. I’m happy to merely officiate over the proceedings.”

  “That’ll be fine—” I started.

  “Maybe the Serenity Prayer?” Luke said, his voice cracking just a bit. He looked at me for permission. “My mom used to like that one.”

  “Sure.” I shrugged. Next to me, Frankie nudged me with his elbow. “I mean, sure, sweetheart.”

  While the officiant dug behind his podium for a Bible, I remembered Luke saying in the diner that he had lost his mom. I couldn’t imagine. Well, I guess I could, considering I never had a father, but he was never mine to lose. For a second, I wished that my own mom could be here. Fake or not, she had always wanted to see me get married.

  “As you embark on this marriage— Wait, y’all gonna look at each other, or hold hands, or what?”

  Frankie nodded, encouraging us with a wave from behind his phone.

  I took Luke’s hands. I smiled at him like in-love couples do, with my eyes, a serene upturn of my lips, as if I had never been more sure of anything. He smiled back. It frightened me, how easy that was. As if all love was just fooling oneself until it was real.

  The officiant ahemmed, making a big show of closing the Bible and reopening it, as if he were starting from the very beginning.

  “As you embark on this marriage, God grant you both the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

  “Can’t disagree with that,” I said quietly.

  Lu
ke squeezed my hands. I couldn’t tell if it was a friendly squeeze or a warning squeeze.

  “Do you, Cassie, take Luke to be your partner for life? Do you promise to walk by his side forever, and to love, help, and encourage him in all he does?”

  I opened my mouth to say “I do,” but the officiant kept going.

  “Do you promise to take time to talk with him, to listen to him, and to care for him? Will you share his laughter, and his tears, as his partner, lover, and best friend?”

  I lifted my chin, waiting. That sounded like a lot of jobs for one person. If the real thing ever came along, I think I could be good at two, at best.

  “Do you take him as your lawfully wedded husband for now and forevermore?” The officiant looked at me expectantly.

  “I do,” I said.

  As the officiant asked Luke the same questions, I watched Luke listen, his eyes down, eyelashes brushing his cheek.

  “I do,” Luke said when the officiant finished.

  “By the power vested in me by the state of Texas, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  For a thick second we stared into each other’s eyes, as we had done in the Lexus, but this time we knew what the other was thinking. Shit.

  “Go on and kiss her, son!”

  The officiant was directing Luke to kiss me, as if I were his property now. Screw that. I took Luke’s face in my hands and brought his mouth to mine, hoping he would take it from there. Long peck or actual make out? Open mouth?

  Somewhere in between, it turned out. His lips were quite soft, yielding.

  After a long moment, he tried to pull away, but my hair had snaked its way around one of his suit buttons. The result was a painful yank of my entire head.

  “Ow!” I yelled. “Fuck!”

  “What happened?” Luke said, touching me in a genuine way for the first time that day.

  “That’s hair! That’s attached to my head!” I cried.

  “Wait, hold still,” he said, trying to disentangle the strand but pulling too hard.

  “Careful,” I scolded.

  “Sorry!” he snapped.

  Frankie put down the camera with a sigh. The next couple and their friends gathered near the entrance of the ceremony room, their made-up faces expectant and curious. I heard titters and frowned.