Iraq
“Marley said Rita's getting married,” Jesse reported, his eyes on Ambrose. “Your ex is getting hitched, Brosey. How does it feel?”
“She's a fool.”
“Whoa!” Jesse cried, surprised by the vehemence from his friend. He thought Ambrose was over Rita. Guess he was wrong.
“You don't still like her, do you, Brose?” Grant asked in surprise.
“No. I don't. But she's a fool to marry Becker Garth.”
Beans shrugged. “I've never had a problem with Garth.”
“You remember when I got suspended in ninth grade?”
Beans shook his head that he didn't, but Paulie lit up with the memory.
“You smashed Becker's pretty face in! I remember. But you never told us why.”
Ambrose adjusted his sunglasses and shifted his weight. They, and about one hundred other soldiers and marines, were on guard duty outside a high-security meeting of the Provisional Iraqi Government. It was cool to think maybe different factions could come together to form some governing body, that they were making progress, though some days Ambrose wondered. It wasn't the first time he'd played bodyguard, though in Bailey Sheen's case it had come after the fact.
“I forgot about that!” Grant crowed. “You didn't get to wrestle Loch Haven. Coach was pissed.”
“He wouldn't have been quite as mad if he knew why I felt the need to pound Becker,” Ambrose said wryly. He supposed enough time and distance had passed for him to share the story without violating confidences.
January, 1999
Ambrose knew Becker Garth. Becker was a senior and the girls all seemed to like him and think he was hot. That always made other guys sit up and take notice. Ambrose had noticed him because Becker had started wearing his hair like Ambrose, which Ambrose didn't like. Becker was dark haired too, and when he tossed his chin-length hair back from his brown eyes, he looked too much like Ambrose for comfort.
But that was where the similarities in their appearances ended. Becker was wiry and on the small side, his muscles defined and lean, like a jockey or a runner. He was about 5”8 and big enough that the girls still flocked around him, but Ambrose was much taller, even as a freshman.
Maybe because Becker was smaller than the freshman, or maybe because he was jealous, he liked to poke at Ambrose. Just jabs, innuendos, side comments that made his group of friends snicker and look away. Ambrose ignored it for the most part. He had very little to prove and wasn't bothered too much. His size and strength made him less intimidated and less vulnerable to bullying than the other boys his age. And he comforted himself by imagining Becker in the wrestling room trying to hang with him or any of his friends. But Ambrose wasn't the only one Becker liked to torment.
It was fourth period, right before lunch, and Ambrose asked to be excused from English on the pretext of needing to use the bathroom. Really, he needed to check his weight. He had weigh-ins at 3:00 for the duel against Loch Haven. He was wrestling 160 but that morning he'd been at 162. He could sweat two pounds off, but just getting to 162 had been work. He had started the season at 172, and there wasn't much wiggle room or fat on his big frame to allow for weight loss. And he was still growing. He had a month until district championships and two weeks after that, state. The next six weeks would be brutal, and he would be hungry most of the time. Hungry equated to ornery, and Ambrose was very ornery. When he walked into the locker room and was greeted by darkness, he swore, hoping something wasn't wrong. He needed to see the scale. He felt along the wall, trying to find the switches. A voice rang out in the dark, making him jump.
“Becker?” the voice said nervously.
He found the lights and flipped them, flooding the lockers and benches with light. What he saw made him curse again. In the middle of the tile floor, Bailey Sheen's wheel chair had been tipped over onto its back, and Bailey was hanging helplessly with his thin legs in the air, unable to right himself or do anything but beg for help in the darkness.
“What the hell?” Ambrose said. “Sheen, are you okay?”
Ambrose ran to Bailey, eased the chair back onto its wheels, and sat Bailey up straight in his seat. Bailey's face was flushed and his shoulders shook, and Ambrose wanted to hurt someone. Badly.
“What happened, Sheen?”
“Don't tell anyone, okay, Ambrose?” Bailey begged.
“Why?!” Ambrose was so angry he could feel his pulse pounding behind his eyes.
“Just . . . just don't tell, okay? It's freakin' embarrassing.” Bailey gulped and Ambrose could tell he was mortified.
“Who did this?” Ambrose demanded.
Bailey shook his head and wouldn't say. Then Ambrose remembered how Bailey had startled him by calling out a name while Ambrose had been searching for the light.
“Becker?” Ambrose asked, his voice rising in outrage.
“He just pretended he was going to help me out and then he tipped me over. I'm not hurt!” Bailey added, as if being hurt would make him weaker. “Then he turned off the lights and left. I would have been okay. Someone would have come. You came, right?” Bailey tried to smile, but the smile wobbled and he looked down at his hands. “I'm glad it was you and not an entire gym class. It would have been really humiliating.”
Ambrose was beyond speech. He just shook his head, the scale forgotten.
“I don't come in here if someone's not with me because I can't open the doors by myself,” Bailey offered by way of explanation. “But Becker let me in, and I thought my dad was in here. And I can get out by myself because the door swings out and I can just push it open with my wheelchair.”
“Except when someone tips you over and leaves you hanging upside down,” Ambrose said, anger dripping from his comment.
“Yeah. Except then,” Bailey said softly. “Why do you think he did that?” Bailey looked at Ambrose, his face troubled.
“I don't know, Sheen. Because he's an asshole with a little pecker,” Ambrose grumbled. “He thinks picking on people who can't or won't fight back will make his pecker bigger. But it just gets smaller and smaller and he just gets meaner and meaner.”
Bailey howled with laughter, and Ambrose smiled, glad that Bailey wasn’t shaking anymore.
“You promise you won't tell anyone?” Bailey insisted again.
Ambrose nodded. But he didn't promise not to make Becker pay.
When Ambrose entered the lunchroom, he found Becker seated at a corner table, surrounded by a group of other seniors and several pretty girls that Ambrose wouldn't mind talking to under different circumstances. Ambrose gritted his teeth and walked to the table. He hadn't told his friends what was up. His friends were wrestlers, and Ambrose was probably going to get suspended for what he was about to do. He didn't want them getting in trouble with him and hurting the team’s chances against Loch Haven. He probably wouldn't be wrestling tonight. Guess it was okay that he was a couple of pounds over his weight.
Ambrose brought his fists down on the table as hard as he could, spilling people's drinks and making an empty tray clatter to the floor. Becker looked up in surprise, his curse ringing out above the din in the lunchroom as milk splashed in his lap.
“Stand up,” Ambrose demanded quietly.
“Get lost, Gorilla boy.” Becker sneered, wiping at the milk. “Unless you want to get the shit beat out of you.”
Ambrose leaned over the table and shot his right hand out toward Becker's face. His flat palm connected squarely with Becker's forehead, thumping his head back against the wall behind him.
“Stand up!” Ambrose wasn't quiet anymore.
Becker came out from around the table and lunged wildly for Ambrose, his sharp fist catching Ambrose across the bridge of his nose, making his eyes smart and the blood start to stream from his left nostril. Ambrose swung back, catching Becker across the mouth, then again in his right eye. Becker howled and went down in a snarling heap. Ambrose grabbed the collar of his shirt and the back of his jeans and stood him up again. Becker swayed. Ambrose had hit him hard.
“That's for Bailey Sheen,” he whispered in Becker's ear, honoring his promise to Bailey that no one would know what Becker had done. Then he released Becker and turned away, wiping his nose on his ruined white shirt.
Coach Sheen was striding toward him, his face red with anger. Apparently, it was his turn at lunchroom duty. Damn Ambrose's luck. Ambrose followed him meekly, willing to take whatever punishment was his, and true to his word, he didn't utter Bailey Sheen's name even once.
“I'm getting married, Fern.” Rita shoved her hand beneath Fern's nose, an impressive diamond on her left ring finger.
“It's beautiful,” Fern said honestly and tried to smile, tried to give her friend the reaction she obviously wanted, but she felt a little sick inside. Becker was very handsome and he and Rita looked so good together. And Ty, Rita and Becker's baby, would have both his parents under one roof. But Becker scared Fern. Fern wondered why he didn't scare Rita. Or maybe he did. Some girls were drawn to that.
“We want to be married next month. I know it's soon, but do you think your dad would marry us? He's always been so nice to me. Your mom, too. We're just going to have a little party afterward. Maybe I can get a DJ and we can dance. Becker's a good dancer.”
Fern remembered Rita and Becker dancing at the prom, Rita glowing with new love, Becker trying to control his temper when Bailey had interrupted and stolen a couple of dances.
“Sure. Dad would love to. Pastors like nothing better than a wedding. Maybe you could have your reception under the church pavilion. There's power and tables. We can get flowers and refreshments and you can wear a beautiful dress. I'll help.”
And she did. They planned frantically for a month, finding Rita a dress that made Sarah Marsden, Rita's mother, cry and dance around her lovely daughter. They sent out invitations, hired a photographer, ordered flowers, made mints, crème puffs, and homemade chocolates, and filled the Taylor's garage freezer to overflowing with their efforts.
The morning of the big day, they wrapped white twinkle lights around each column of the pavilion and moved the tables covered in white lace out onto the lawn lining the pavilion so the concrete floor beneath the pavilion could serve as the dance floor. They filled yellow vases with daisies for centerpieces and tied yellow balloons to every chair.
They put daisies in the church, too. Fern was the maid of honor, and Rita had let her pick her own dress in whatever shade of yellow she wished. Fern found Bailey a yellow tie to match and he escorted her down the aisle in his wheelchair. Fern carried a bouquet of the cheerful flowers, and Bailey had a daisy pinned to his black suit coat.
Becker wore black as well, a yellow rose pinned to his lapel that matched the roses in Rita's bouquet. His hair was swept back from his high cheek-boned face, reminding Fern of Ambrose and the way his hair had fallen to his shoulders like a young Adonis. Ambrose's long hair was gone now, and Ambrose was gone too.
She still thought about him more than she should. He'd been in Iraq for a year. In fact, it had been eighteen months since he first left for basic training. Marley Davis, Jesse's girlfriend, attended the wedding and she told Fern the boys had only six months left on their tour. Marley said Jesse had asked her to marry him when he got home. She seemed thrilled at the prospect. Jesse Jr. was the same age as Rita's baby, Tyler. But where Ty favored his mother, baby Jesse favored his daddy, his brown skin and kinky black hair making him a little replica of his father. He was adorable, happy and healthy, and already a handful for his young mother.
When Rita walked down the aisle and made her solemn vows to Becker Garth and he repeated them in return, both sacred and sweet, Fern felt her heart swell in hope for her friend. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe Becker loved her like he said he did. And maybe love would be enough. Maybe the promises he was making would inspire him to be a better man.
From the look on Bailey's face, he didn't hold out much hope. Bailey sat beside Fern in the front row, his wheel chair parked at the end of the long pew, his expression as wooden as the bench. After all, he and Rita were friends too, and he worried just like Fern. Bailey had been subdued since Rita's announcement. Fern knew he had feelings for Rita. But she thought he'd moved beyond them, sort of the way she'd outgrown her infatuation with Ambrose Young. And maybe that was his problem . . . because Fern really hadn't outgrown anything. But Rita was a mother now, tied to Becker in a way that was permanent and final. Still, old feelings had a way of resurfacing just when you thought they were gone forever.
“’Til death do us part,” Rita promised, her face lovely in its sincerity.
When Becker kissed her smiling lips, sealing the deal, Bailey closed his eyes, and Fern reached for his hand.