Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kelli
I woke up that morning to a couple of texts from Zack.
I liked texting with him because his messages were consistently kind and encouraging, and I invariably felt better about myself after reading them. I sat at the dining-room table reading over them while Renee cooked breakfast. I think she had this weird idea that we spent all our time sexting each other, but there was nothing in our conversations to scandalize my mother. He was just…sweet. He was my Zack.
“So,” I said to Renee as she scrambled eggs in the skillet, “I’m leaving for Texas tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh yeah? Do you need me to drive you to the airport?”
“No, I’m not going on an assignment or anything. Zack invited me to go home with him for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” Renee beat her spatula repeatedly against the side of the skillet, then set it down on the counter and looked at me.
“Yeah, he wants me to meet the rest of the family. Apparently, they’re farmers who live out in the country, which isn’t what I’d have expected from someone like Zack. He’s the most sophisticated one of the bunch. He’s got three brothers, and from what he tells me they’re all completely different.”
“Wait, how long are you going to be gone exactly? Did you ask your boss?”
“Two or three weeks, and yeah, he’s fine with it. I don’t think he was even paying attention.”
“Oh.” Renee turned and looked sadly into the distance, blinking once or twice. She said in a faint voice, “Okay. Cool.”
It was the tone of voice Renee used when she was performatively offended, and it raised my suspicions immediately. “Wait, are you mad about something?”
“No, it’s cool,” she said, in a tone that clearly conveyed the opposite. Reaching for the pepper shaker in the cabinet, she sprinkled it over the eggs with alarming energy.
“Are you sure you’re not angry?” I asked again as I watched her take out the salt shaker and shake it with equal force.
“No, you go and have fun on your trip,” said Renee. “Don’t mind me, just sitting here in this apartment by myself, recovering from a nasty and unexpected breakup. Don’t let my sufferings ruin your Texas vacation.” By now she must have emptied the salt shaker, for on saying these final words she turned and threw it at the garbage bin in the corner with all her might.
“Hey, I’m not trying to run out on you.” Perhaps I ought to have been angry that she was acting so childish, but all I could muster was a feeling of sympathy. “I wouldn’t have gone if Zack hadn’t insisted on it. He wants me to meet his family.”
Renee stirred the eggs aggressively. “You’re already further along in your relationship than me and Max. When he went home to Wisconsin last Christmas, I asked him if I could go with him, but he told me it would be too cold. Like I couldn’t just wear a coat or something!”
I sat there quietly for a minute, thinking. It was hard to ignore the feeling that Renee was jealous of my relationship with Zack. Not that she wished she was dating him instead, but that she wanted the sort of intimacy and easy closeness that existed between the two of us.
“Renee,” I said. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I think you would be happier if you broke things off with Max. Instead of waiting around for him to break up with you and then being miserable, you ought to take control of the relationship.”
“Maybe so,” said Renee quietly. “I didn’t want it to have to come to this, but you’re probably right. It just sucks that I’ll be doing it when you’re down in Texas, and I won’t have you here to console me.”
“We’ll make plans to Skype while I’m down there. I don’t like the thought of you being up here all by yourself.”
“I wish I had a cat,” she said sadly. Renee loved cats but had never owned one because I was allergic. Sometimes I got the feeling she still blamed me for that.
I continued to brood over my sister’s recent romantic struggles on my way to work. Since we were kids, it seemed like there had never been a time when we were both happy and at peace with the world. One or both of us was always on the verge of a breakdown, perhaps because we were so sensitive by nature, and the petty slights and cruelties of others, that the rest of the world seemed to shrug off so easily, left permanent scars. Sometimes it felt like our lives had been nothing but scars and heartache.
I left the apartment with a few minutes to spare, but an accident on the subway—someone had thrown himself in front of the train—made me ten minutes late. By the time I reached the basement at a quarter past eleven, the rest of the team was already going through the morning briefing. Despite this, Dennis was wearing his headphones, blasting “Everybody Hurts” at full volume.
“Aren’t we having a meeting?” I asked as I sat down. “Couldn’t you tell him to turn that down?”
“Already tried,” said Evan. “He couldn’t hear me.”
“I’ll text him,” I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out my phone.
Within moments, Dennis’s phone dinged. He picked it up, took one look at the text, and set it back down.
“As I was saying just before you walked in,” said Evan, “Shelley was present at the awards banquet yesterday and heard some rather interesting information. Shelley, do you want to tell us about it?”
Shelley held onto her notepad with both hands and smiled. “I stationed myself near the refreshments table during last night’s dance and heard several SEALS talking. Apparently, the rumor is that one of them is thinking about writing a book detailing his time in the service, which I think would make for an interesting story in itself—Kelli, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t come to the banquet.”
“I was there.” Both Shelley and Evan stared at me blankly. “Guys, I was literally there the entire time.”
“Anyway,” said Shelley, “there have been insider accounts of the Navy before but from what I understand the top brass frowns upon these memoirs because they threaten to expose the military’s internal workings. It will be interesting to find out whether the author intends to write a sanitized account of his time in the service—I’m assuming it’s a man; if it’s a woman, all bets are off—or whether he plans to throw caution to the wind and write a gripping exposé of Navy life.”
“Kelli,” said Evan, tapping a pen on the desk, and I felt an ominous feeling even as he said my name, “I think I would like you to cover this story.”
“Me?” I asked, feigning surprise. “Why?”
“Because you lived with these guys for over a month,” he replied. “You know them better than anyone else in this office, and if the author would be willing to confide in anyone, I think it would be you.”
A laugh escaped my lips before I could suppress it. “I think you overestimate how close I was to these guys. Most of them didn’t want anything to do with me even when we were living together, and they only spoke to me yesterday out of politeness and because my boyfriend would have murdered them if they hadn’t. They already see me as the Rita Skeeter of New York City, and the fact that I wrote an exposé on life in the Navy didn’t help that.”
“That expose is why I think you would be the perfect person to write this next article,” said Evan, sounding a little frustrated. “You ought to at least call the guy and see if he’ll talk to you. I’ll tell you what: if you can land this scoop before anyone else does, then I will make you a lead editor.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said without much conviction. “What’s his name?”
Evan turned to Shelley, who read the name off the front of her notepad. “His name is Zack,” she said. “Zack Savery.”