Beyond the Point(90)
“‘Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends’—Locke and Amanda—‘if God loved you in this way, you also must love one another . . . There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear. . . .
“‘We love because He first loved us.’”
She paused and looked at Locke, whose face was still and serious. In his dress blues, dark jacket and blue pants with gold stripes on the side, Locke looked devastatingly handsome, just as he had the day she’d met him, on the back of that truck at Camp Buckner. So handsome, in fact, Dani found it difficult to look him in the eye. But she did anyway, wiping a tear from her cheek, knowing that this was the most loving thing she could do for a friend.
At the reception, Locke’s saber sliced through the first layer of a three-tiered cake. Twinkle lights hung around the white reception tent, millions of little gold orbs. And while Amanda swayed with her ring bearer on the dance floor, Locke pulled Dani in for a hug near the open bar. For a moment, Dani thought he might ask her to waltz, like they’d learned to do so many years ago. But then, in a pang of deep sadness, she realized those days were over.
“You got a little emotional up there, McNalley,” he said, pinching her elbow.
Dani took a breath and held it, wondering if it was too late. What would it matter now if she told the truth? What would it change?
“Of course I did,” she said, turning her eyes to meet his.
They stared at one another, and in that moment, Dani saw recognition. A slight nod of his head. A longing in his eyes and hers that spoke clearly, even as they said nothing at all. I thought it would be you, her eyes told him. And he squeezed her hand. I did too, he didn’t say. Dani looked down, satisfied that it was over.
She sighed. “You better get out there.” Amanda was waving him toward the dance floor as the band struck up the next song.
Later, Dani stood underneath that white reception tent, among the twinkle lights and candles, watching. With every turn of Amanda’s gown, the life Dani had written for herself unraveled. The person she thought she would marry had married someone else. The friendships she thought would survive anything now felt as thin as smoke. The future, once a destination, had become a cloud of confusion. Nothing was clear. Nothing was certain. And yet, she’d still put on that dress. That was something. And when the song changed and Amanda reached her open arms toward Dani, she still found the power within her to dance.
“DO YOU HAVE anything a bit more feminine?”
A week after Locke’s wedding, Dani stood in the dressing room at her favorite store in London, inspecting her reflection in the mirror. The retail associate waiting outside the velvet dressing room curtain was a slender brunette with blunt bangs and thick-rimmed glasses. She looked young, Dani thought—younger than Dani, which felt strange, since she still felt like she’d only just graduated from college. Could there actually be people working in the world that had graduated from college after her? Nonsense.
“Have you seen the new gray lot we got in?” the girl asked, her accent posh and British. “It just arrived this week. I’ll grab one. You’re a U.K. size twelve, right?”
Dani hated to think she shopped here so often that this woman knew her size.
“Right. Bring a ten too, just in case.” That was the other resolution Dani had made, after eating a Nutella crepe that morning at the market. She needed to get back to clean eating like the doctors told her to, to keep her arthritis from flaring. And she needed to join a gym. It was time to revive the athlete inside. It was a thin plan, full of vanity, she knew. But sometimes, when the future looks foggy, you have to draw your own map.
An hour later, Dani left AllSaints with a slate-colored leather jacket that draped open in the front. No zippers. No buckles. Just the perfect cut in the perfect color, with all the promise she’d desired. As she made her way back to her apartment, the sun teased London, dropping little specks of gold onto the ground. It was the perfect temperature for an afternoon coffee—decaf, of course. After the wedding, she’d been following doctor’s orders—but before she could duck into the coffee shop on the corner, Dani heard a familiar sound.
They say sound and smell are the senses that connect most to our memory. The hollow bounce was like a laugh, a clarion call from the past. So full of meaning and regret and nostalgia and promise. She felt transported in her spirit to her driveway as a kid, then to the gym at West Point. The game she’d so wanted to leave behind, she couldn’t fully abandon. It was knitted into her skin, into her senses. The sound made her heart beat faster.
A chain-link fence encircled a court to her right. The five-on-five pickup game looked like it had been raging for quite a while, based on the amount of sweat that had gathered on the boys’ faces. They looked to be teenagers—thirteen or fourteen, Dani guessed. There was one black kid among the white boys, all equally lost in the game. They shouted and shuffled, playing shirts against skins, as the boy with the curly hair dribbled, shoulder down, and pushed into his defender. The defender fell and the game stopped. No ref blew a whistle. No one yelled or started cursing. The offending player offered his hand, and the defender stood up and took the ball to start the game again.
Mesmerized by their ungraceful steps, botched passes, and poor shots, Dani had to keep herself from laughing out loud. They were terrible. But they didn’t care. They kept right on playing. Dani wondered if they were even keeping score. She wondered if the score even mattered.