Beyond the Point(45)
People get court-martialed for this shit, Avery thought. But did they? Really? With all that was going on in the world, would the Army really prosecute her for a little fraternization? Surely not. Avery felt painfully stupid, but not just because her head was pounding. Two days ago, she’d been sitting across from a female soldier having a conversation about this exact same subject.
On Friday afternoon, a girl with dark brown hair had appeared in Avery’s office, having just arrived at Fort Bragg from Advanced Individual Training. The girl wore tight jeans and an even tighter white T-shirt. Thick eyeliner encircled her blue eyes; a slick of gloss accentuated her lips. With curves and a slight tan, this new private had all the flair you’re supposed to have when you’ve just graduated from high school: dewy skin, bright teeth. She looked nothing like a soldier. Sitting in front of a woman in civilian clothes, Avery couldn’t help but think how unfeminine and ridiculous she must have looked in her Army combat uniform. Loose at the thighs and tapered at the ankles, her ACUs looked like a better fit for MC Hammer, and the jacket was a size too big, with a black nameplate on her right breast pocket. Instinctively, Avery had touched the patch of acne that had appeared on her jawline. Wasn’t she too old for zits?
“Welcome to Fort Bragg, Private Bradley,” Avery had said, replacing the beginnings of jealousy with the voice of authority. “I’ll be your direct superior from this point forward. If you need anything at all, if you have any questions, you can bring them to me.”
“Yes, sir.” The girl blushed. “Ma’am. Sorry.”
As Avery thumbed through the girl’s file, the new soldier chewed her fingernails. Eyes wide and anxious, she appeared dazed and jittery, just like Avery had been back at West Point on those first days. Cleavage threatened to spill out of the private’s shirt, like she’d dressed for a job interview at a strip club, not the U.S. Army. Had this kid looked in the mirror before walking in here?
“How old are you, Private Bradley?” asked Avery.
“Eighteen. Nineteen next month.”
Eighteen. The number flashed before Avery’s eyes. When Avery was eighteen, her civilian life had ended, too. Four years had passed since then, but somehow, seated at her own desk with West Point behind her, twenty-two felt ancient. In minutes, this new recruit would head back to the barracks, where an onslaught of twenty-something males would see her as their newest opportunity for conquest. Unfortunately, it was Avery’s job to keep that kind of drama to a minimum. Her boss had sent out a memo the week before, reminding his lieutenants that certain STDs disqualified soldiers from readiness for deployment. Apparently chlamydia was making a comeback.
The girl had been sitting on her hands. Something about her oozing sexuality and ignorance had felt deeply embarrassing to Avery, like interacting with her former self. She refused to make eye contact, but instead kept looking at the items on Avery’s desk: a half-eaten paper pint of oatmeal, a green juice in a clear plastic container, a framed photo of three girls standing in the middle of New York City. Watching the private’s eyes widen with anxiety, Avery felt a sudden wave of compassion—a desire to keep this girl from making all the mistakes she’d made at eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. She wanted to tell her that even the nicest, most innocent-looking men could stab you in the back. In the heart.
“You just finished high school?”
“Yes, ma’am. Last spring.”
“First time away from Mom and Dad?”
The girl nodded, smiled.
“There’s no easy way for me to say this.” She tapped the papers together into a stack, trying a firm and strict tone on for size. “It’s very important that you carry yourself professionally here. I can’t have you getting involved with anything that might distract you or your fellow soldiers from training. Because, to be completely honest, that training could save your life one day.”
The girl sat up straight. Her eyes had a vacant and subtly terrified expression, like a deer on the verge of being flattened by an SUV.
“I’m just saying, be on your guard,” Avery continued, trying a softer approach. “As far as any of these men are concerned, there’s only one woman in uniform . . . and it’s you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” she’d said.
“What you do reflects on all of us, Private Bradley.”
Avery had known, seated there on Friday afternoon, that she was engaging in a losing battle. But she had to try.
DOWNSTAIRS IN THE kitchen, Avery pulled a carton of eggs from the refrigerator and a skillet from the cabinet. As a single second lieutenant, she had plenty of storage space that she didn’t need and didn’t use. Most of the cabinets were hollow and empty. She hadn’t had the luxury of registering for everyday china after graduation like Hannah and Tim. Shouldn’t girls have an I’m single but I still want to cook registry? Or an I may never get married so someone buy me sheets shower? Avery thought so.
And yet, all the Pottery Barn linens that Hannah and Tim had received as wedding presents were still in boxes. Avery knew, because she was the one tasked with collecting any delivered packages while Hannah was at Sapper School in Missouri and Tim was at Ranger School in Georgia. Three sets of perfectly good five-hundred-thread-count sheets sat in boxes in the Nesmiths’ house, while Avery suffered under itchy cotton bedding that deserved to be in a Motel 6 Dumpster. It would have been easy to steal—no, borrow—the newlyweds’ new goose-down comforter, but Avery hadn’t resorted to theft. At least not yet.