Beyond the Point(81)

“Dude, don’t give in. You’ve got to push through.”

After dropping their bags at Dani’s flat, Will and Joel took off for Buckingham Palace, while Locke and Dani walked to the pub next door for lunch. Locke ordered a pint of beer and a basket of fish and chips, while Dani ordered her usual, an undressed Caesar salad with chicken. Her doctor would have been proud.

Sitting across from him, Dani couldn’t help but notice how little he’d changed in the two years since they’d left West Point. He’d lost the football weight, so his body looked thinner, but his smile was still just as mischievous.

In the weeks since the Gelhomme presentation, life at work had become even more unbearable for Dani. This visit was the only thing that had pulled her through the rainy days of spring, days in which Laura Klein had continued to act cold and distant, sending most of her communication via e-mail, even though Dani’s desk was mere feet from her own. Luckily, Paul Duval hadn’t just bought E & G’s commercial campaign recommendations—he’d decided to expand the advertising budget by 10 percent. Laura Klein had accepted Dani’s apology, but they both knew she had no choice.

In preparation for Locke’s arrival, Dani had outfitted the guest bedroom in her apartment with a king mattress positioned to best appreciate the impressive view of Notting Hill’s pastel row houses. His friends were a surprise, but Locke had promised Dani that Will and Joel would be happy crashing on air mattresses. Taking a personal day, Dani had spent the morning cleaning and blowing up two twin air mattresses in the home office. At half past ten, she’d jumped in her SUV and headed to the airport.

Scarfing down the fried fish, Locke told stories about Fort Hood, his soldiers, his unit, his family. She noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Amanda—and wondered then if they were even together anymore. Locke paused and washed down the food with half his beer.

“What?” he said. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

In truth, Dani was enjoying the feeling of sitting across from someone that she knew so well. She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been in London until Locke was seated across from her, picking his teeth with a toothpick.

“Just thinking,” she said finally. “Do you ever wonder how your life would have gone if you’d done something different?”

Locke focused his brown eyes on Dani’s, and after a pause, said, “Different than the Army?”

“Yeah. Like, what if you’d played football for USC instead of West Point. Or . . .”

“Of course. Sometimes I wonder if I would have made it to the NFL or something. But you can’t think that way.”

“Why not?”

“It’s easy to imagine an alternate reality better than the one you’re in. No one ever imagines an alternate reality that’s worse. I can’t question all the decisions I’ve made. I’d drive myself nuts. Where’s this coming from?”

Dani put her fork down. “Sometimes I wonder why I even went to West Point. I look at all of you, going off to war, and I think, what was all that for? Why did I go through all that pain, just to abandon ship?”

“You didn’t abandon ship.”

“Well, I didn’t get on it.”

“That’s not your fault,” he said. “Let me ask you this. If you could go back, what would you do differently?”

At this, Dani grew quiet. The truth was, when it came to choosing where to go to college, she wouldn’t have done anything differently. She’d been so confident in her decision, so convinced that West Point was her destiny. Only now, her destiny was beginning to feel like a dead end. Locke’s skin shined under the dim pub lights. The clear whites of his eyes glimmered around his brown pupils as he waited for her answer. The only thing that she would change was sitting right in front of her.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we . . . ,” she started.

He looked down, picked up his fork, and took a bite of fried fish.

“If we’d what?” he said, his mouth full.

“If we’d given it a shot. You and me.”

The silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Locke sighed and finished off his beer.

She’d splurged on a shiny manicure the day before, and it reflected the pub’s sconces as her fingers danced around the edge of her water glass. She wanted to tell him that it was all for him. The hair, the nails, the new outfit she’d bought to wear when she picked him up from the airport. She wanted to tell him that she’d been dreaming of his visit for months, and wanted every day to be perfect so he’d come back again and again and again until he never left. Instead, she just shrugged. He reached for her hand and squeezed it on top of the table warmly.

“D,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”





20


Spring 2006 // Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

You know, it’ll be the whole family,” Avery stated over the sound of the Foo Fighters on the radio. Her manicured toes tapped the beat on the dashboard of Noah’s 1986 BMW. A black M3 coupe, it had charm, dignity, and a plug-in air freshener to mask the scent of his cigarette smoke.

“You mentioned that,” Noah said between drags.

She smacked his arm. Like usual, Noah looked calm, confident, and unfazed by the fact that his car was barreling down the highway toward certain disaster. And yet, Avery felt extremely concerned. She knew how critical her father could be. And worst of all, her brothers would be home. That, in and of itself, would prove to be a challenge. But Noah had promised he’d rather be celebrating Avery’s father’s sixtieth birthday than be at Fort Bragg alone. No amount of warning had deterred him.