As You Were (19 page)
Authors: Kelli Jae Baeli
Brittany took off her jacket and tossed it into the front seat before she got back into the Nissan and tore into the cigarettes
. So much for my hard-won non-smoker status. No electronic cigarettes to be had at convenience stores,
she told herself glibly, striking a match from the book she had picked up at the register inside. Brittany inhaled the smoke from the sucker-stick thin cigarette, released it slowly, coughed a little, and sighed. She buckled the seat belt, and made her way out of the lot onto I-25 again, toward Colorado Springs.
Brittany chain-smoked, drank coffee, and tried to push the depression away. She could not stop thinking about Tru, or what she had done to her. She had been naked with Travis in the
shower, intending to share his body in the most intimate fashion, and redemption ridiculed her on behalf of the young woman who sat, inconsolable, in their living room. Even if Tru had allowed her to say something, it would have been feeble and pathetic. She didn’t understand how it happened herself, how could she explain it to Tru? It was like her brain went on vacation, and all she could think about at the time was what Travis told her to think about.
An indefinable time filled with remorse and tears brought her to Highway 50, and she eased right onto it, still unsure of where she was going. She was driving as if to escape her misdeeds, flee her stupidity, but she could not get away from herself.
Brittany leaned over carefully and moved the Visa card from the glove box to her purse. She had paid it off, intending to buy Tru something special...and now she had to use it to survive away from Tru...starting with a hotel room. She wanted to be far, far away from the portrait of Tru’s wounded expression painted in her memory, but distance had not released her from the guilt crawling up her throat at maddening intervals. An opposite direction had seemed the best defense against such an overwhelming foe. She could find no sense in it, no way out.
It had seemed justified at the time. When Travis told her about Liz, she stopped thinking straight. Or rather, she started thinking “straight,” she mused with chagrin. Brittany, in a sudden attack of misjudgment, had let Travis convince her that bitterness was righteous. He had called after Tru left for her concert, and insisted he come over to talk to her about something urgent. When he had arrived, he had confessed that the night Tru didn’t come home, was the night she had been in that hotel shower with Liz. The next day, Tru had made an excuse about a flat tire, no jack, and a dead cell phone battery. She had at first suspected her of some sin, but the battery on the cell had, indeed, been dead, and the jack had, indeed, been in the garage. She defaulted to trust, as she always had with Tru.
After Travis told a different story of that night, Brittany found herself growing more and more confused, and more angry as he gave her sordid details. When he made sexual overtures to her she silently agreed that it would be a lesson Tru would never forget. But the moment she had stepped into that shower with him, the shame bubbled up; the fallacious verdict revealed itself. The few moments they were together had only made her feel horribly vulgar. She began to feel dizzy, sick.
Travis had tried to convince her to continue, even said he loved her. Travis knew little about love, and far too much about deception. So she elbowed him away, in favor of a pot of coffee. But her trip to the kitchen had been halted when she discovered that Tru had come home early.
Tru had always shown her tenderness and affection, yet Brittany had always been afraid of such openness. Open doors terrified her, made her feel vulnerable, and though she trusted Tru, she still felt inclined to slam doors. Only this time Tru had done the slamming. How was she to deal with that?
Her ill-conceived plan had backfired, and for the first time in a long time, she had to seriously consider life without Tru there to give it meaning. She thought of Travis and his hand in the whole mess, and shivered, alternately hating him and hating herself for being a pawn in his game. She should not have had the wine. It was a crude sentencing that she had brought down upon herself.
Brittany turned the heat up a notch, and clicked on the radio, an effort she hoped would take the chill away and block her desolate thoughts. She glanced at the radio knobs with the Coke caps she had glued on them, and recalled the day she had done it when Tru remarked that the inside of her car needed a little personality. Brittany turned the volume Coke cap until the sound swelled the memory from her head. “What About Love” by Heart came on the classic rock station, and others like it after that. The lyrics of each song jeered her, ridiculed her act of betrayal, and she turned the radio off again, unable to bear the brutal reality.
The truth was, no man had ever made her feel the things that Tru had. No man had ever offered her tenderness, friendship, and loyalty. Brittany swept the back of her hand over her eyes, the tears coming fast and hard, though she had been sure she could cry no more. She had wanted
to punish Tru, but the punishment had not fit the crime. Indeed, perhaps, there had been no crime. Only a scheme by a man who professed to be their friend. The knowledge of Travis’ motives had come far too late.
Brittany’s moral churnings were siphoning her strength; she would have to stop at the first motel she saw.
The blacktop glistened with the freezing rain, and she stared at it. Brittany wanted to go back. She wanted to make it right, explain what had really happened, and what hadn’t. She would have to face Tru again, the hurt and betrayal in her eyes—try to explain—
Maudlin, she checked the rear view mirror as if she might see Tru in it, but saw only the dim eyes of another late-night traveler’s headlights some distance behind her. She focused ahead of her again, taking the curve carefully, and then she saw the deer bounding across the roadway, by the bridge. It was beautiful. It froze, its round dark eyes shining in her headlights. It was too close—
She stomped her brakes, afraid of hitting the animal, remembering all at once Tru’s frequent warning:
Don’t try to swerve or brake—hit it, or you’ll—
The Nissan slid, fish-tailed, and struck the guard rail of the bridge. Aloft in a wingless metal projectile, the river rushed toward her. She saw Tru’s face above a teacup, the steam framing the picture.
I love her,
she thought, before the car plunged into the icy river.
The deer watched, alarmed, steam coming in great puffs from his flaring nostrils, pawed the ground, and escaped into the woods beyond the bridge.
...Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save, where you are, how happy you make those...
~Shakespeare
23
Fort Lee, Virginia, 2001
THEY SAT IN THE BACK WITH THE BAY WINDOWS and the plants. After eight weeks of basic training, all soldiers made a beeline for Burger King for that elusive fix of fast food; and the obsession didn’t seem to wear thin until several more weeks into Advanced Individual Training. Tru and Brittany were no exception, and after a hectic day of marching to and from Quartermaster School classes, endless cleaning and organization, it was a given that they would be filling their growling stomachs with cheeseburgers and fries. Some good old American junk food.
After they had finished, a light rain began to patter on the Plexiglas of the solarium, and Tru thought of the paradox of rain falling over but not on the plants.
Brittany, ever vigilant, continued the line of questions she had begun in their last class of the day. “Is she in our class?”
“I never said that.” The game had worked. It was only a matter of time before the intriguing hints she had tossed casually in Brittany’s direction, would be confronted by curiosity. A slight, off-handed remark, and Brittany was immediately sucked into a jealousy she didn’t know she possessed.
“Is she in our company?” Brittany probed again.
“Yes.”
“Fifth Platoon?”
“Yes.”
“Which class?”
“Thirty-five.”
“That’s our class, Tru.” She jammed her straw into the lid of her cup. “You said she wasn’t in our class.”
“No. I said that I never said she was. But she is.”
It’s working like a charm. We’ll see how ‘unconcerned’ she really is about my sexual liaisons, the little rat...
“You’re a royal bitch,” she decided emphatically.
“I know it.” Tru smiled, enjoying the upper-hand for once in this psychological warfare that had been exclusively Private Jabot’s domain. She now had knowledge in demand.
In demand,
Tru decided
, only because she truly couldn’t stand it if she were not the only woman I was hormonally hot for.
“Is she white?”
“Yes.”
“Is it Stone?”
“She’s not my type. It’s someone who measures up to my standards. You know, someone with intelligence.”
Brittany thought this over for a while, then went through the class role, naming all the females she could recall.
After Tru sat there watching Brit’s cigarette burn down in the ashtray, puffing on her own and feeling quite smug; even helping her recall the names, Brittany said, “Did I name her?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Tru shook her head. “Figure it out, yourself. You’re the one with the astronomical I.Q. I’m sure you’ll come up with the answer if you concentrate.”
She squinted at Tru, and a glimmer fluttered in her eyes which Tru could not discern: Anger? Frustration? Intrigue?
Private Jabot picked up the remaining half of her smoldering cigarette and inhaled severely, as if to force an answer from it.
Private Morgan’s lips thinned into a knowing grin. “This pisses you off, doesn’t it?”
She feigned apathetic ignorance, lifting her eyebrows. “What?”
“You can’t figure it out.”
“I wasn’t thinking about it. I was watching the rain.”
Tru nodded, not at all convinced of her apathy.
“I mean, I’m curious, but I’m not obsessed with it.” Brittany drummed her nails on the table, and reached for another cigarette as if to light it, then put it back into the pack, quickly.
Tru took a sip of Dr. Pepper and put out her cigarette while she opened the book of poetry she had brought along, letting herself become involved in it, as Brit acquiesced to the cigarette, smoked it quickly, then tapped it out like a miniature jackhammer in the flimsy tin ashtray.
“Okay. It can’t be Shore, considering you can’t stand her.”
“She’s a dumbass. Remember...” Tru put her finger to her temple as punctuation. “Intelligence.”
“Is it Bright?”
“Bright?”
“Well, the name, obviously, and I see you two talking at break, and she seems down on men.”
“Bright is a real sweetheart, but I’m sure she’s straight as an arrow.”
“That doesn’t seem to stop you,” she blurted.
Tru grinned into her book as Brittany got greener by the minute. “Besides, she’s black, I told you who we’re talking about is white.”
“So...she’s white, she’s intelligent—”
“Attractive—” Tru offered softly.
Brittany frowned at Tru, the choices becoming very limited now. She was, horror of horrors, baffled. “Tru. This is—okay! This is driving me crazy. You’re driving me crazy!”
“Brittany Jabot! You’re trying to make this hard, like I do in class with the P.E. forms. The answer is simple. It’s right under your nose...or behind it, anyway.”
She teethed a fingernail, thoughtfully, then Tru’s last statement registered. Her eyes went wide and she stared at Tru—an expression, Tru noted, not unlike a walleyed pike. Tru laughed and waited, raising her brows expectantly.
“Is it me?!”
She laughed again, almost sorry the game was ending.
“It’s me?!” Then she paused, puzzled.
Tru helped her out. “All I said was I may not be alone at the hotel. That doesn’t necessarily mean that person would spend the weekend. It could only mean a few minutes of conversation— sort of like what you do when you get out of Jim’s bed to come talk to me.”
Brit punched her hard on the arm. “You Harpy!”
Tru laughed harder, rubbing the bruise that had certainly begun to form there.
“What the hell—why—”
“Look. Here’s the point—” Tru drew a conical figure on her open notebook with an arrow at the apex.
“That’s not a point. This is.” She grabbed the hand Tru held the pencil with and poked the end of the lead into the paper.
“That’s a dot, Brit.”
“Not on a map.” She seemed strangely pleased with this inane bit of Army map-reading information. Perhaps she had no interest in Tru’s point by this time.
“Whatever. Anyway, the point is, I was exemplifying the way a person’s imagination can blow things out of proportion, and completely miss the obvious.”
“You were not. You were trying to make me jealous.” Brit looked out the window, her knee bouncing up and down under the table in an agitated fashion. “You’re a royal bitch.”
Tru leaned over to look at her eyes. “You’re impressed. I stumped you.”
“I’m impressed,” she admitted.
“You’re also uncomfortable because for a few minutes Brittany Jabot did not know the answer.”
“You’re a bitch, Tru. You really are.”
Tru released a shrill giggle. “I’m basking in it. Basking, I tell you.”
“You’re a basking Harpy,” she reconfirmed. “Let’s go to the PX.”
Once outside, Tru matched strides with Brittany, adjusting her cap and, by rote, measuring the distance between the bridge of her nose and the bill with two fingers. “Are you upset about what’s been happening between us?”
Brit plunged her hand into the side pocket of her BDU jacket and came up with a hot apple pie she had hoarded from lunch. “Why should I be? It was no big deal. It didn’t mean anything.”
Tru broke stride and stopped. Brittany paused and looked back at her. “You coming, or not?”
Tru gasped, shaking her head, feeling a thousand little arrows go through her. Was this another example of Private Jabot’s ability to jerk the rug out from under a victorious opponent? Unable to find words, she caught up and they began walking again. Once the shock dissipated, she became angry.
Brittany glanced over at her, chewing the pie from its cardboard holder. “Okay. Spill it. What’s wrong?”
“You’re so proud of how fuckin’ smart you are, figure it out,” Tru said venomously.
“Ooo!” she heckled, delighted by the fire in Tru’s tone. “You’re hurt because I said that it was no big deal—that it didn’t mean anything.” Brittany slowed her pace and cleared her throat, her voice softer. “You don’t understand, Tru. I can’t let myself think any other way. Our time together has been very special to me, you know that.”
“It didn’t mean anything, but it was special. You’re a walking contradiction, Jabot.” Tru rammed her hands into the front pockets of her pants.
“Tru, if I admitted...
certain things to myself, that would be like opening a door all the way that’s already half open.”
“What do you think is behind that door? A dank, dismal dungeon full of wicked little monsters? Look at me. Do I look like a monster?”
“No not a monster...” She studied her facetiously. “Well...
maybe...” she offered. “Except for that cute little nose of yours.”
“Oh, lay off the nose, will ya? Damn.”
“A basking Harpy with a cute little nose...” she teased.
She displayed her middle finger. “Sit on it and swivel, Jabot,” Tru snapped.
“In your dreams, Morgan.”
“How’d you know?”
A captain was headed in their direction, and they performed the ritual hand salute. Brittany waited until the officer marched out of earshot and then asked, “Did you salute him with one finger, too?”
Tru walked faster. “Shut up, you.”