Matt & Zoe (17 page)

“Heels down,” she instructs Mary. “Now kick.”

Mary kicks, but it’s such a slight kick I’m not sure Eeyore even noticed.

“Kick harder,” she says. “You won’t hurt him. But you’ve got to tell him what you want.”

Mary does it again, kicking harder, and Eeyore begins to walk.

Zoe walks sideways, keeping an eye on the girl.

“Eyes on where you’re going,” Zoe says. “Hands at your side. I want you to ride to the barrel, then circle it and come back. Okay?”

Unlike Jasmine, Mary perches on the animal, back rigid, arms tense by her side and clutching the reins as if she might fall off any second. She nods at Zoe’s words, a short jerk of her head.

“Mary, I want you to relax just a little. Eeyore can tell you’re nervous. He won’t hurt you, he’s a very gentle horse. When you get to the barrel, turn with your whole body, all right? Eyes back on me! Eyes back on me! Lead him with your whole body!”

As she calls out the words in a confident tone, I keep an eye on Zoe. She’s a natural teacher, though I don’t know if she realizes it. She watches both girls and their horses as they circle the training ring, her feet shoulder width apart, shoulders loose, her attention focused and intense.

I take a deep breath as I watch her. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. I’m attracted to her of course—that’s a given, she’s a beautiful woman. But this is different. She’s gentle. Smart. She passionately loves her sister, and by the looks of it, her horses. Her life.

It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to be with someone like this. Not since high school and Carlina. But as I watch her here in the sunlight of the morning, calling out instructions to the two girls on horseback, I realize I want her more than anything I’ve wanted in my life. High school infatuation was just that—infatuation. This desire… it’s something new, and far more powerful.

I do that sometimes (Zoe)

A little after noon, Mary’s mother picks her up. The horses are grazing happily, and it’s long past time to get some lunch. As Mary is driven away, Matt says out of the blue, “Do you guys want to grab some lunch? Maybe up at the common?”

The words come out forced. Then again, most of the morning, he seemed a little off. I caught him looking at me oddly several times, and I’m not comfortable with the feeling I get when I look at him. A little like I haven’t eaten and my thoughts are unfocused and confused. Plus, I spent way too much time today
looking
at him.

Which makes me lightheaded.

“Okay.” I don’t know who answered him, because I sure wasn’t ready to. Despite my reluctance, I find myself driving in the van, Jasmine at my side, following Matt up to the Village Common.

The Village Common is a mixed residential and shopping area across the street from Mount Holyoke. A bookstore, several restaurants, shops, offices. Dad used to spend a lot of time at The Thirsty Mind, a coffee shop lined with shelves filled with one dollar books. In fact, that was one of the few things we did regularly together when I was in high school. At least once a week, after school, I’d go up to the coffee shop and spend the afternoon with my dad there. We didn’t do anything—I studied and he graded papers. The thought of walking into the Thirsty Mind right now fills me with fear. Almost as much fear as I have when I think about going into the garage.

I still haven’t gone in there since I got home.

Matt parallel parks his car and I pull in behind him. I don’t get him. Doesn’t he have anything to do? I know the teachers are on strike, but … what does he
normally
do on Saturday mornings? I’m sure he doesn’t spend them shoveling horse shit. I guess I’m still a little gun shy after Chase, because I don’t want to open up even a little.

I don’t know the first thing about Matt Paladino.

Except that my heart beats a little faster when he’s near me.

He steps out of the car in front of us, and for a second I just sit there looking at him as he unfolds from the seat in his blue jeans and shirt.

He’s too good to be true. And I’ve been down that road before. I’ve never felt so conflicted in my life.

“Zoe? Zoe?” Jasmine’s voice is high pitched and irritating.

“Yeah?” I say, shaking my head.

“Are we gonna go?” Her eyebrows are raised up in the air, and I realize I’ve been sitting here, lost in thought.

Here’s the thing. I try to stay pretty put together. Every dick in America thinks that women shouldn’t be in the military, and especially that they shouldn’t be in combat. Sometimes I feel like I have a responsibility to represent my gender, to show that I can be just as tough as the guys. I have to pretend that I don’t have nightmares, that I don’t get scared, that I don’t sometimes think about the things that happened and get sick and afraid for my soul. When I think about it, part of the problem with Chase wasn’t him at all. It was
me.
He’d ask me what was wrong and I wouldn’t say. How could I?

I can’t even admit it all to myself.

I sluggishly get out of the car, suddenly feeling defeated.

Matt gives me a quizzical look, raising an eyebrow. “You okay?”

I fix a smile on my face. “Of course.”

Jasmine jumps up and down and says, “So what are we having for lunch? What are we having? What are we having?”

“Sushi?” I ask. “I’ve been wanting to try Iya.”

He gives me a sheepish look, even as Jasmine shouts “No!” in horror.

“I’ve never had sushi.”

“Oh, well, then you have to try it. Trust me.”

So I lead the way into the Japanese restaurant. My Japanese is
very
rough—I lived there for a year, but my language skills are pretty sparse. It turns out to not matter—our waitress is blonde haired and blue eyed and clearly not from Japan.

I dispense with Jasmine’s objections by ordering chicken teriyaki for her, but Matt and I spend ten minutes discussing the menu. He settles on the flying tiger roll—shrimp tempura, salmon, avocado, spicy mayo.

Soon enough, our food arrives. After the waitress steps away, Matt leans close and grins. “Hey… they forgot to cook my fish.”

I laugh. “Trust me.”

“Are you sure you aren’t trying to kill me?”

I nod. “I’ll prove it,” I say. I grab my chopsticks and snatch a piece of his roll and take a bite.
Oh, my.
This place is
good.
I close my eyes, savoring the flavors. “Go on,” I say. “Try it.”

Reluctantly—and with considerable difficulty—he picks up a piece and puts it in his mouth.

I’m immediately rewarded with wide eyes. He chews as Jasmine says, “You’ll never get me to eat that. Eww. Dead fish.”

“Better than live fish,” Matt says. Then he smiles. “A lot better. That was delicious.”

“Actually… in Tokyo you can order live sashimi.”

His eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

I nod. “It’s delicious, but … I couldn’t eat it.” Internally I wince. I actually had nightmares after the night Chase and I ate
ikizukuri
—fish prepared alive. It sounds crazy, but—I saw people torn apart, I’ve seen people I knew, people I was friends with, screaming their lungs out in pain and horror after roadside bombs.
People.
The thought of even a fish suffering like that—I couldn’t deal with it.

Don’t judge. I’m well aware that a hamburger comes from an animal, as does the bacon I love to eat. At least some attempt is made to kill them humanely. I can’t
stand
seeing anyone suffer. Involuntarily, my mind goes to Iraq.

You know, when those idiots in Congress talk about women not serving in combat? They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Sure, I wasn’t infantry. But most of my tour in Iraq, I was detailed to an infantry platoon. Who else was going to search women during midnight raids? You can’t imagine what it was like. Night after night sometimes. Break down the doors of suspected insurgents. Wailing of women and children in the background, the men laying face down, wrists ziptied behind them. I’d search the women as the men were searched by my infantry compatriots. I can’t count the number of children I saw crying as their fathers were carried away.

I went through
every
danger the men did. I went through the firefights, the mortar attacks, the roadside bombs, the ambushes. I still had to put up with the harassment, the occasional grab at my ass, the stupid comments and names. The jerks who figure if you’re a female in the military you must be a nurse or a whore.

I take a deep, cleansing breath. Be
present.

Both Jasmine and Matt are staring at me.

“Sorry,” I say. I feel heat on my cheeks. Awkwardly, I take a drink.

“You went away there,” Matt says.

“I do that sometimes.”

He looks me in the eye with an expression that seems to say
I understand.
But I know he doesn’t. That’s the kind of lie that can lead to heartbreak. I’m not interested.

I need to steer my state of mind
anywhere
else. This is crazy. What the hell is wrong with me that suddenly all I can think of is Iraq?

“What’s the latest on the strike?” I ask. Inside, I’m pleading with Matt to take the bait and shift the conversation to safer ground.

He takes it. “I think the school committee is going to cave. The downside is that the union is going to end up getting fined, for sure.”

“Why? What kind of fine?”

“Well, it isn’t legal for us to strike. Last time it happened in Massachusetts, the local teachers union got slapped with a hundred thousand dollar fine. But they won. I think we will too.”

Jasmine says, “I want to go back to school. The strike is stupid.”

“I want to go back too, Jasmine.”

“Will you still come see us when school starts again?”

I swear to God my heart stops beating. I don’t breathe, and I don’t think he does either for a second. Then he nods, eyes on me. “Yeah, if that’s okay with you and Zoe.”

Chapter Eleven

You're safe (Zoe)

A heavy fog sits on South Hadley, the kind of thick white fog that hits when a foot of snow rests on the ground and the air gets warm. The kind of fog that keeps you from seeing more than twenty feet ahead of you. The kind of fog that suffocates.

I’m outside in the fog in my nightgown, the one I haven’t worn since high school, and it is cold. Something is wrong. I don’t know what it is. I hear somebody crying. Whimpering really. It’s a forlorn sound, sad and lonely and full of so much grief it’s like touching a live wire.

My feet are bare, and I’m walking down the middle of College Street. Abbey Chapel is to my left, its brown, Gothic stone rearing up high in the fog and darkness like a raging horse, oppressively dark. I walk a little faster, but my feet are blocks of ice, and I can actually feel pain shooting up my ankles and calves from the cold. I need to get home and I don’t know why my father hasn’t picked me up from the Village Common. I need to get home now.

Something is behind me.

Or someone.

I begin to run. My feet slide a little on the ice, the road hasn’t been plowed very well, and the fog is getting thicker and whoever is out there is getting closer and closer. The college is now behind me, and I’m running down the hill, my feet slipping out from under me and on either side I can see prisoners, cowering beside the road in their rags, hands tied with zip ties, the stink of horse and sweat and fear overwhelming even in the cold and fear shoots through me.

I have to get home.

Ahead, I can see it. The house, on the right side of the road, and the house is dark, no lights on except one in the garage, in Dad’s workshop.

I run for it. I can hear the grumbling from the prisoners, the shuffling of feet behind me, and I want to cry out in fear. Dad will be in his workshop, he’ll be in the garage tinkering on a puzzle and we’ll be warm and safe in there and I get to the garage and the
door is locked.
I can hear them behind me, whoever it is, and I start to scream.

I bang on the door, hard, with the flat of my palm. The crying and whimpering is louder than ever. I curl my hands into a fist and bang on the glass. I can
see
the light inside, and there is Dad’s silhouette. The door is open and I cry out and run inside, wrapping my arms around him.

Oh, dear God, I’m safe. He shuts the door behind me and curls his arms around me, and I can feel something wet running down my face as I push my face against his sweater, something wet and warm and I pull back and look.

“You’re safe, Zoe,” he whispers, his voice sibilant. His face is split, lips and left cheek and cheekbone flayed open, eyeball half exposed, crazily rolling around in its socket, and a bubble of mixed spit and blood forms in the gap between his teeth.

I shriek in terror and push away.

***

It’s dark and I’m in my room. Sitting up, my heart is pounding and I wipe sweat off my neck. The whoosh of the blood pumping in the vessels of my ears barely drowns out my breathing.

Dear God.

I gasp for air. I’m in my room. It was a dream. It was a nightmare. I’m at home.

Then I hear crying and for a second terror strikes through me again. It’s a high pitched moan, a mix of terror and incredible grief. I reach over and switch on my light.

I can still hear the crying.

Jasmine.

I stumble out of bed, the blankets falling to the floor. I’m still disoriented, the terror of the nightmare thick in my throat. I open the door and walk down the hall, my feet causing the boards in the center to creak like crazy. Then I open Jasmine’s door.

She’s laying face down, knees pulled up under her, and she’s sobbing and moaning.

“Hey,” I whisper. I move toward her, dropping to my knees beside the bed. I reach out a hand and run it down her back. She cries harder.

“Jasmine? Was it a dream? Are you okay?”

She just wails louder. I reach out and lift her off the bed and she wraps her arms and legs around me, crying even louder than before, great gasps of air followed by loud wails.

“What is it, baby?” I whisper. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I pat her back as I say the words, knowing they aren’t even true.