Something Like Normal (6 page)

As I follow her to the produce section, I notice her jeans are faded to white in spots with a circle worn into the fabric of the right back pocket where someone once kept a can of dip. Thrift store jeans. I used to buy most of my clothes from thrift stores, too. I liked that they were already broken-in and soft from wear.

On the way, she gives me a tutorial on choosing the freshest tomatoes, but I’m not really listening. I’m thinking about Becky Michalski. Why would my dad have an affair with her? She’s unremarkable, especially compared to Mom. Seems to me, she’s the ultimate loser in this scenario. Going from Don to my dad is kind of a lateral move.

“Travis, are you in there?” Harper is waving her hand in front of my face.

“I nearly punched my dad today.” I’m not sure what possesses me to blurt this to Harper Gray in the middle of the produce section of the Winn-Dixie, but there’s something I trust about her.

“Why?”

“He’s cheating on my mom.”

“I… wow, I’m sorry.” She looks up at me and what I see in her eyes isn’t pity or even satisfaction that karma is coming back to bite me for the way I treated her in middle school. She just looks sad. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Those are the words that come out of my mouth, but then I find myself leaning against the vegetable bin, telling her everything. Including the part about getting my mom drunk.

Harper smiles at that. “That’s sweet… in a weird sort of way.”

She moves so we’re both blocking the avocados, her arm brushing against mine. It makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. “My mom left when I was ten,” she says. “She went back to Denmark to take care of my grandma, who was dying of cancer, and never came back.”

“Oh, shit. I had no idea.”

“It was a long time ago.” Her shoulders lift in a careless little bounce that seems to have more care in it than she lets on. “For a long time I thought it was my fault. Like, if I had been better, she wouldn’t have left. Then I realized it had nothing to do with me and I wanted to punch her. Only she wasn’t here.”

An old guy comes up and we have to move out of his way. Harper leads me to a bin filled with rubber-banded clumps of herbs. They all look the same—green and bushy—but she explains we’re looking for basil.

“Have you had any contact with your mom since she left?” I ask, handing her a bundle of basil.

“She sends me birthday cards every year,” she says as I follow her to the pasta aisle. “Only she puts Danish kroner in the card instead of American dollars. It’s not even worth getting converted.” Harper drops a couple of boxes of penne pasta in the cart. “For graduation, she sent me a ticket to Copenhagen.”

“Did you go?”

“Yeah… she, um, lives in this communal house in Christiania with a bunch of other people, so the entire time I was there she was either painting in her studio or getting stoned with her twenty-two-year-old boyfriend. I slept on a couch that smelled like cat pee.”

“That sucks.”

She nods as she grabs a can of black olives from the shelf. “Copenhagen was cool, though. I went to LEGOLAND by myself and got this cute keychain.”

Harper dangles her keys from the end of her finger. The keychain is a little yellow LEGO duck.

“Did you punch her?”

“No.” Her nose crinkles when she smiles. “But I don’t miss her anymore.” We stop at the seafood counter. “You order a couple of pounds of shrimp. I’ll get the bread and cheese and then we’ll be done.”

Right now, if Harper asked me to swim out into the Gulf of Mexico and catch the shrimp with my bare hands, I’d do it. By the time the guy behind the seafood counter is finished wrapping the shrimp, she’s back with a long loaf of bread and a block of hard white cheese that’s definitely not the processed orange goo I’ve been eating. I still have no idea what I’ll be cooking, but it looks impressive. Too good for the Michalskis. Too good for my dad.

“So it’s just been you and your dad?” I ask, trying to imagine what it would have been like growing up with only Mom. “I’m surprised he never got remarried.”

“He’s never really dated that much,” Harper says. “But now… I don’t know. He spends a lot of time e-mailing back and forth with some woman he knew before he met my mom, which—it makes me feel weird.”

She pushes the cart into the checkout lane, and when the cashier is done ringing it all up—including the stuff in her basket—I pay the bill. “So what do I do with all this stuff?”

“I’ll write it down for you.”

“You could come over and—”

“I think you can manage.” Our eyes meet for a moment and I look for something. Anything. But then her gaze falls to her flip-flops with a shyness that kills me in the best possible way. She reaches out and gives me a playful punch in the arm. “Adapt and overcome, Marine.”

I laugh. I want to say more, but she starts getting that deer-in-the-headlights look, as if she might bolt any second. I unlock the Suburban and take out the notepad my mom has kept in the center console of every car she’s ever had. Our fingers touch as I hand it to Harper, and her cheeks go pink. Interesting. Frustrating, but interesting.

“It’s really simple,” she says, writing something on the pad. “Roast the tomatoes, sauté the shrimp, boil the pasta, toss the ingredients together, then grate some cheese over the top. Serve the bread on the side.”

“Sounds foolproof.”

“Yeah, well…” She hands me the notepad. “You’re cooking it.”

We stand there in the parking lot, just looking at each other. The afternoon sun brings out slivers of gold and red in her hair and the freckles on her nose—and again I have the urge to kiss her. Instead, I reach out and give her hair a gentle tug. “Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No problem.” She waves me off in a little it-was-nothing-gesture, but I’m pretty sure it was something. I’m just not sure what.

I hear music pumping from the house before I’m even out of the car. At first I think it’s Ryan, but it’s not the ridiculous pop metal crap he likes. It’s Aretha Franklin wailing about R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Uh-oh.

I open the door and my mom is sitting at her favorite spot at the kitchen island with a glass of white wine at her elbow. Her eyes are red and swollen.

“Are you okay?” I ask as I place the grocery bags on the counter. “What happened?”

Mom turns down the stereo and rubs her nose on the sleeve of a ratty old football T-shirt that used to be mine. She only wears cast-off shirts when she’s cleaning house. “I told him to leave.”

“What?”

“Your dad,” she says. “When I woke up, we had the same fight we’ve been having for the past year about what a terrible, neglectful person I am because I’ve been worried sick about you. So I canceled on the Michalskis and told him to stay wherever he stayed last night until he hears from my attorney.”

“Damn, Mom. Way to grow a pair.”

A hiccup-giggle escapes her, then her eyes fill with fresh tears. Oh, shit. Not more crying. “Did I do the right thing, Travis?”

It would be easy to lie and say yes. I don’t care if Dad stays or goes, but she loves him.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe this is all my fault.” She reaches for her cell phone. “Maybe I could call—”

“No.” I cover her hand with mine. “He needs to decide what’s important.”

“You’re right. It’s just that—he’s still my husband.”

“I know.”

Mom sniffles. “You bought groceries?”

“Yeah, so, you know, turn up your music or whatever,” I say. “I’ve got it under control.”

Her eyebrows lift over the rim of her wineglass, but she doesn’t protest. She cranks the volume on Aretha. Not as loud as it was before, but still loud enough that we don’t have to talk. Which is good, because I don’t know what I could possibly say to make her feel better.

“Do you need some help?” she asks.

“I can do it.”

The corners of her mouth pull up in a tiny smile. “You’ve always been this way.”

“Like what?”

“Independent,” she says. “Stubborn. As soon as you could talk, your answer for everything was ‘Me do it’ and you’d get angry if I tried to help you. Even then you were trying to get away from me.”

She takes a sip of wine. “I only took the job at your school so I could have a little part of your life. I always envied that your dad got to spend so much time with you.”

“Really?”

“I give you credit for sticking with football as long as you did,” Mom says. “Especially when you hated it.”

“Well, just so you know,” I say, pulling the tomatoes from the plastic bag, holding all three of them in one hand. “I was never trying to get away from
you
.”

“You have no idea how happy that makes me.” Except she starts sniffling like she’s going to cry, and I don’t want that again.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah, Trav?”

“How do you roast tomatoes?”

She smiles. “Would you like some help?”

I nod. “Yeah, I would.”

Chapter 5

It’s a quarter to five and I’m still awake.

I dress in the dark, then take the keys to the Suburban from the hook next to the garage door and drive with no destination in mind. US 41 is empty this time of night, but I enjoy it. My mom always assumed I was up to no good when I stayed out all night, but most of the time I was just driving around. I think about turning the SUV north and heading to North Carolina, but I don’t have my stuff and I’m not really allowed to go back yet.

We were back from Afghanistan a couple of days when Sergeant Peralta—my squad leader—called me aside.

“Just wanted to check in,” he said. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because you seem like you’re dragging ass. That’s not like you.”

The nightmares were keeping me up most nights. “Just tired, I guess.”

“Listen, I’m concerned that you’re not dealing with Charlie’s death,” he said. “As a friend, I’m telling you that you need to get your shit together before anyone higher up the chain notices.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need to go buy a brand-new Mustang and shack up with a stripper.”

Peralta laughed, because we’d just finished sitting through a two-hour stand-down on money management—basically, that we shouldn’t throw it away on expensive cars, blow it at the casino, or marry girls who would spend it all and dump us for another Marine. Thing is, I wasn’t sure what he was saying. Did he want me to see a shrink? And what would happen to me—to my career—if I did?

“You’re a good Marine, Travis, and I want to see you succeed,” he said. “So I strongly suggest you take two extra weeks beyond the two-week post-deployment leave to work things out.”

“Are you making this suggestion as a friend, too?”

“I’ll leave that up to you to decide,” he said.

I didn’t want to use that much of my leave—and I sure as hell didn’t want to come home—but it was an order wrapped in a suggestion. And I respected Peralta too much to disobey.

I pull into the parking lot at the Waffle House, one of the few all-night places in town. I go inside and Harper is standing behind the counter, wearing a gray uniform shirt and black apron. Her hair is scraped up in a knot. When she sees me, her eyebrows pull together for a second before her lips stretch into a fake smile. “Hi, welcome to Waffle House.”

“You work here?” I sit on one of the stools. There’s a button pinned to her apron that says
If I had half a mind I’d still be twice as smart as you
.

She rolls her eyes. “No, idiot, I just wear the shirt so I can get free food.” I laugh as she reaches across the counter and plinks my forehead. It’s a playful gesture. A welcome change from punching me in the face. “Are you stalking me, Travis?”

“What? No!”

Her eyebrows lift as she crosses her arms over her chest—as if she doesn’t believe me—but she doesn’t look mad. “You’ve shown up where I’ve been four times in the last three days.”

“Completely coincidental,” I say as she puts a coffee cup on the counter and fills it from a full pot. “Except, you know, for the time I showed up at your house, but that was more like… unintentionally intentional. The question is, do you mind?”

She ignores me. “Are you going to order?”

“Let’s try the All-Star again.”

“Over easy with bacon?”

I grin. “Aw, you remembered.”

She flips me off, calls my order to the grill cook, and turns back to me. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Eating at Waffle House?”

“No, I mean
tonight
tonight,” she says. “After you go to sleep and wake back up again.”

Not really sure where she’s going with this, since I’ll probably stay awake, but whatever it is, I’m game. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?” The way she smiles makes me wonder what I’ve just agreed to do. “Perfect. I’ll pick you up at nine p.m.”

“So what are we doing?” I ask, glancing into the backseat of the Land Rover. Lying across the seat is a small shovel, along with a black plastic tarp and a flashlight with a piece of red film covering the lens. “Burying a body?”

Harper throws a devious smile in my direction. “Maybe.”

So fucking cool.

“We’re nest-sitting.” She hands me a large foam cup of coffee.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, we’re in the middle of sea turtle hatching season,” she explains. “It’s been fifty-five days since this one particular nest was laid, so tonight should be the night.”

I’m not an especially romantic person, but when a beautiful girl invites a guy to the beach at night, sea turtles are not usually involved. Also, this is not something I’d have expected from Harper. “So we’re… helping?”

“In a sense. We give them as many advantages as we can without disturbing the natural process,” she says. “I brought you because I figured you’d be good at digging.”

Marines carry small folding shovels called entrenching tools. E-tools, for short. We use them to dig holes for sleeping, burning trash, fighting, and taking a dump. So, yes, I am very good at digging. “That the only reason?”

She gives me a tiny bit-lip smile that knocks the wind out of my chest. “Maybe.”

On the way to the beach, Harper explains that I’ll dig a trench from the nest to the water while she sets up the tarp. It’s attached at intervals to wooden stakes so it can be positioned around the nest and along the trench. A funnel to keep the baby sea turtles pointed in the right direction and keep away raccoons, crabs, and anything else that might want to eat them.

“So how long have you been turtle-sitting?”

“A couple of years,” she says. “I’m planning to study marine biology.”

It’s tempting to make a joke about Marines and biology, but her smile says this is important to her, and I don’t want to ruin it with a stupid joke. “That’s very cool.”

“What about you?” Harper presses a button on the CD player and Joe Strummer sings about redemption. “Do you think you’ll go to college when you’re done with the Marines?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve still got a lot of time left, so I’ve been thinking about doing the basic recon course.” Not sure why I’m telling her this, but it’s as if I can’t help myself. I swear, if anyone wants to torture secrets out of me, apparently all they have to do is put me in a room with her. I only joked about recon with Charlie, but now that I’ve told someone else, it feels even more like a real option.

“What does that mean?” she asks.

“Reconnaissance Marines are kind of like special forces,” I say. “Sort of like how the Navy has SEALs or the Army has Rangers.”

“So basically you want to do something even more dangerous than you’re already doing?”

I laugh. “I guess.”

“You like the Marines, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Except for the part where people shoot at you, it’s not all that different from any other job. There are things I like and things that suck,” I say. “So where are you going to school?”

“The College of the Atlantic. It’s up in Maine.” She parks the Rover in a spot in the deserted beach lot and cuts the engine.

“That’s pretty far from home.” I open my door. Pretty far from anywhere I’ll be, too, which kind of sucks.

“Not as far as Afghanistan,” she says.

“Good point.”

Harper gets out of the car as I start taking the supplies from the backseat. She opens the door opposite me. “COA has a really good marine science program. One of the best, really.”

“I had no idea you were so smart,” I say, stepping out onto the sand. “Or that you still played with Barbies when you were thirteen.”

She laughs and punches me on the arm. “There’s a
lot
you don’t know about me.”

“I guess,” I say. “But I, um—I’d like to.”

She goes quiet as she kicks off her flip-flops, and she reminds me of a turtle, sticking her head out to investigate, then pulling back at the first sign of danger. I want to tell her I won’t hurt her, but what proof does she have of that? Thing is, I don’t want to hurt her. Harper brings out something different in me than Paige. Something better. At least, I want to believe that.

“So…” I change the subject. “The eggs?”

“It could take all night for them to hatch.” Harper moves past me and I fight the urge to grab her arm and stop her, momentarily forgetting there are no bombs buried here. In Afghanistan, they could be anywhere. One time we were sweeping a road because we knew there was a bomb on it, but even with a metal detector we couldn’t find it. We gave up, got in the truck, drove a little farther down the road, and hit the bomb we’d been looking for. None of us were hurt—just a little tossed around—but it messed up the truck. Even after my brain gets the memo that we are not going to blow up on Bonita Beach, I can’t stop my eyes from scanning the sand for explosives.

“Is this a problem?” she asks.

For a moment I have to remember what we were talking about, but then I look up at her, the sea breeze lifting the stray hairs around her face. “Nope, not a problem at all.”

The nest is on a dark portion of the beach, not far from a three-level house with a caged pool. The house is still shuttered for the off season. It’s quiet. Only the soft
whoosh
of the waves and the round white moon, scattering its reflection across the water. If I’ve missed anything about home, it’s this.

Harper leads me to a miniature crime scene. The nest looks like the remnants of a washed-out sandcastle, marked by a crisscrossing of yellow caution tape and a warning sign to stay away.

“The tarp goes here.” She points the red flashlight beam at a spot above the nest, then sweeps it to the water side of the nest. “And the trench starts here. All the way down to the water.”

“How deep?”

“About ankle.” Harper starts unrolling the tarp. “It has to be deep enough to keep them from climbing out and heading for an artificial light source.”

I start digging. The sand here is more dense than in Afghanistan, where it’s the consistency of powder. It came out with my snot when I blew my nose, from my ears when I swabbed them, and the first spit when brushing my teeth was always brown. At one of our outposts there was a well, and sometimes we washed in the irrigation canals, but we never were truly clean.

I’m halfway to the water when I hear a splintering crack.

I’m crossing a shallow canal between fields with Charlie and an Afghan soldier behind me, when a round from an AK-47 zings past me like an angry bee.

I slide into the canal at once, the muddy water filling my boots and creeping up the legs of my trousers. Charlie is standing still on the edge of the canal, an unmoving target.

“Charlie, get down!” I try to scramble up the bank to grab him, but slip as the mud crumbles beneath my boot, my hand clutching at his ankle. “Get your ass down!”

He slides down the canal bank as a shot cracks over his head. The Afghan soldier on my other side fires his automatic weapon,
spraying blindly at where he thinks the Taliban are hiding. I peer over the edge of the bank, trying to figure out where the fire is coming from.

Crack!

“Travis!” Harper’s voice cuts through the memory and, just like that, it’s over. Except I’m lying on the sand and she’s standing over me with a broken stake—the source of the splintering sound—in her hand. My heart is racing so fast I’m afraid it’s going to explode, and I can’t catch my breath. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“No.” I didn’t mean to say that. “I mean…” I’m so embarrassed, I can’t even look at her. Also, the wetness of the sand has penetrated the front of my shorts, and my nuts are cold. “I’m fine.”

That firefight happened on our very first patrol and it happened so fast that I don’t know if Charlie froze out of fear or if he thought he was invincible. And even now I don’t remember if he fired his weapon. All I know was that he was lucky that day.

Harper sits down beside me and reaches for my hand. Her fingers graze calluses, ruptured blisters, and scars from cuts that took too long to heal because my hands were always dirty. She doesn’t say anything. She just squeezes.

“You should probably stay away from me,” I say, resting my head on my knees. “I’m a mess.”

“That was really scary,” Harper says. “You were yelling and I had no idea what to do. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you.”

“It fucking sucks.” I grab the shovel and fling it away as hard and as far as I can. “I just want to be normal again.”

But what has been done can’t be undone. My best friend is dead and I’m never going to be the same Travis Stephenson.

Harper doesn’t look at me as she pushes to her feet and walks over to get the shovel. I’m filled with white-hot rage at her for being so kind, but it burns itself out by the time she comes back. “Maybe,” she says, holding out the shovel, “it’s time to find a new normal.”

“I, um—I’m sorry.”

She smiles at me. “Don’t apologize, Travis, just dig.”

Half an hour later, I collapse on a sheet Harper spread beside the nest. My T-shirt is sticking to my skin, so I pull it over my head before I lie back. Stars freckle the sky, and the sand beneath the sheet is cool against my warm skin. That was the one really amazing thing about Afghanistan. There are no city lights to clog the night sky, so it feels like you’re seeing the whole universe. I close my eyes.

“Nice trench.” Harper drops beside me on the sheet and hugs her knees to her chest. “You did a good job.”

“So now what?”

“We wait.”

Harper shivers a little. August in Fort Myers is usually sweltering, even at night, but there’s a front moving in and the sea breeze has kicked up a little. I hand her the sweatshirt I brought. “Do you think they’ll hatch tonight?”

“There are signs,” she says. “The nest has collapsed a little in spots. Just small shifts in the sand that suggest movement. We might only get one or two tonight, or we might get all of them.” She gives me the type of smile that makes me care about sea turtles. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Perversely, yes.

“I can think of worse ways to spend the night.”