Beyond the Point(30)
“Oh lord,” Hannah groaned. “You two better not get me kicked out of this place. My grandfather would never recover.”
OVER THE NEXT few weeks, it seemed that Avery warmed up to Dani a little bit more every day. Once, she’d even laughed out loud at one of Dani’s jokes. It was small, but to Dani it felt like progress.
Baby steps.
During the day, their company soared to the top of the pack, always crushing the other companies in physical fitness tests. Soon it was clear that Avery had made a full 180-degree turn. When Dani and Hannah struggled to learn how to disassemble and reassemble their M16s, Avery came to the rescue, teaching them every step their platoon leader had glossed over.
“Do you think it’s true?” Hannah had whispered to Dani once Avery had stepped away, leaving them with their weapons. “All those things people said last year?”
Turning her lips into a frown, Dani shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Hannah answered. “I’m not judging her. I’m just worried about her.”
Dani worried about Avery too, but not for the reasons Hannah did. Hannah worried about the consequences—that Avery’s reputation would be sullied, or that she’d get kicked out of the academy. Dani worried about the feelings Avery hid beneath the surface. Avery rebraided her hair every few hours. She applied concealer to the minuscule imperfections on her face before they left the bunkhouse every morning. And Dani observed these little tics, gathering them up as evidence of the truth. For all the defiant confidence Avery wore on her face, she was supressing a whole lot of self-doubt, just beneath the surface.
As the days passed on, their company passed first aid training with flying colors, and with any moment of free time, Dani and Locke held their positions as reigning beach-volleyball champions. The only son of a single mother, Locke was from Brooklyn, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of soul music. He’d taken it upon himself to educate Dani at night, starting with James Brown’s Live at the Apollo spinning in his portable CD player. She relished the moments together, lying on his bunk side by side, with one earbud in his left ear, and the other in Dani’s right. His finger tapped the beat out on her thigh.
“See? That riff? That’s what I’m talking about.”
The only possible threat to Dani’s summer was the growing discomfort in her right hip. It wasn’t something she wanted to complain about, but at times the dull ache would give way to a sharp, slicing pain in her back that stole her breath. The only person who had noticed a grimace on her face was Hannah, but Dani told her not to worry. As long as she popped a few preemptive Advil every morning, she could endure. She had to endure. She’d never quit a single thing in her entire life, and she wasn’t about to start now.
THE MORNING OF the final field exercise, water poured out of the spout of an Army-green water buffalo into Dani’s canteen. The four-hundred gallon tank on wheels had been marked on the map she carried in her hands. They’d been in the woods for two days straight. She was dirty, tired, and thirsty, and even in the shade of the trees, sweat poured from her forehead, smearing the camouflage paint on her face, stinging her eyes.
“Too bad you can’t camouflage your blond-ass hair, Adams,” Locke said jokingly to Avery, who was waiting for Dani to finish at the spigot.
“Shut up, Coleman,” said Avery, stepping to fill her canteen. “Dani, can you get your boyfriend to leave me alone? I can’t get rid of him.”
“You know Navy’s not doing this shit,” Locke said, changing the subject. “They send us out to the woods with nothing but a compass and a map. Haven’t they heard of a GPS? Meanwhile, those Navy guys . . . they’re cozied up with some private chef bulking for the season. I’d put money on it. No wonder we can’t beat them. Have I told you? I’ve already lost—”
“Fifteen pounds. Yeah, you’ve told us, Coleman,” said Avery. “Do you think there’s a correlation between the amount of weight you lose and the age you act? Because . . . honestly . . . there’s an uncanny . . .”
“Oh?” Locke raised his eyebrows. “D, your friend’s a comedian!”
“Hush, you two,” Dani said. She fiddled with the radio in her hand until she heard static. “Get your water. We’ve got to get back.”
Together, the three of them tromped through the woods in a row, holding their M16s at the ready like they’d been taught. The entire day had gone by without a hitch, which worried Dani more than she wanted to admit. In the morning, before the sun came up, they’d met their company commander at a small outpost near the woods and outfitted all of their M16s with laser attachments. He’d passed out a bunch of folded “injury” cards, which they were supposed to unfold if the laser sensor on their chest was hit. Then he pointed into a glorified sandbox where a scene of wooden figurines illustrated the area they were meant to protect. An outhouse stood on the south side next to a general purpose medium tent, stretched out for shade where they’d been told to convene for lunch. The water buffalo station was a half mile to the north. A safe zone existed in the eastern section, up a tall hill, near a make-believe Red Cross station. They had from dawn until dusk to maintain the area while keeping a lookout for the OPFOR—a fake opposition force made up of soldiers from Fort Drum. They all knew the ambush was coming, but so far, there was no sign of them. Dani knew they needed to get back to the rest of their platoon, and fast. Out here alone like this—she felt suddenly like they were being watched.