Redeployment(21)

G parked in the street, got out, and walked over. The brunette smiled when he put his arm around her, and then she opened the door and let us all into a big room with a huge L-shaped couch in front of the TV. She said I could sleep in the room off to the right, and while she was in the bathroom, G pushed me and Thirty-eight into it.

There was a low bed with Transformers sheets, toys on the dresser, and small shirts and pants on the floor. Thirty-eight looked drunk and tired and confused, and also like she might bolt. Now that we were out of the club, I could smell her perfume. She had a slender body, a dancer’s body, and I thought I remembered her saying she taught ballet, but that could have been another woman. She had long black hair and small breasts, and her friend had touched me on the chest earlier, and I wanted her to touch me too.

I shut the door. She looked up at me like she was scared, and I was also scared, but I knew what I was supposed to do.

After Rachel, she was the second woman I’d ever slept with. The next morning we woke up, hung over, on those Transformers sheets, and she looked disgusted. Like I was unclean. Being in Mortuary Affairs, I knew that look well.

We didn’t stay long. The brunette had to pick up her kid, so G and I went off to get breakfast at Waffle House. G’s friend Haiti arrived in town later that morning, and I went off by myself and let G and Haiti do their thing. They ended up double-teaming some tourist, or at least they said they did. Either way, I’m glad I wasn’t there.

It was another three weeks before I got home and everybody thanked me for my service. Nobody seemed to know exactly what they were thanking me for.

I called Rachel up and asked if we could hang out. Then I drove out to her parents’ place. It’s in a development on the edge of town that’s full of shitty cookie-cutter houses laid out in twirly roads and cul-de-sacs. Rachel was living in their basement, which had been made out into a separate apartment. I went around to the back and down the stairs to the basement. Within a second of me knocking, she opened the door.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

She looked different from what I remembered. She’d gained weight, in the best way. Her shoulders had fleshed out. She had curves. She looked healthier, stronger, better. I was greyhound lean, and she’d never seen me like that.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, and then she smiled like it’d just occurred to her that that was the right thing to do. “You want to come in?”

“Yeah. I do,” I said. The words came quick and nervous. I forced a smile and she backed away as I walked through the door, but then changed her mind and stepped forward to hug me.

I held on and she tensed, after a second. She moved out of range and then spread her hands apart, as if to say, “This is my place.”

It was all one room, a bed with sky blue sheets and a desk shoved in a corner, exposed pipes running down the ceiling, and water damage streaking the walls, but she had a kitchen and a bath and, I guess, no rent. Better than the barracks, anyway. It looked completely different from when her parents had used it as a game room and we’d used it as a place to make out.

On the floor by the fridge, I saw a small water and food bowl. “That’s Gizmo’s,” she said. Then she called out, “Gizmo.”

She turned away from me. I looked around, too. We couldn’t see him, so I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the bed and saw eyes. A slender gray cat edged forward. I put out my hand for him to sniff and waited.

“Come on, cat,” I said, “I’ve been defending your freedom. At least let me pet you.”

“Come on, Gizmo,” Rachel said.

“Is he a pacifist, too?” I asked.

“No,” she says. “He kills cockroaches. I can’t get him to stop.”

Gizmo edged a little toward my hand and sniffed.

“I like you, cat,” I said. I scratched him behind the ears and then stood up and grinned at her.

“Well,” she said.

“Right.” I looked for a place to sit. The basement had only one chair. Optimistically, I sat on the bed. She pulled the chair over and faced me.

“So,” she said. “How you doing? Okay?”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

“What was it like?”

“I’m glad you wrote,” I said. “Letters from home mean a lot.”

She nodded. I wanted to tell her more. But I’d just got there, and she looked so much more beautiful than I remembered, and I didn’t know what would happen if I started talking for real.