Making Faces(27)

“And you're The Scarecrow, dumbass. Wasn't he the one who didn't have a brain?”

“Yep. Scarecrow sounds badass, don't you think, Grant?”

“It's better than Dorothy,” Grant laughed. He'd made the mistake of wearing his red wrestling shoes to the gym one day and the rest was history. When they weren't on patrol or sleeping, they were working out. There just wasn't much else to do in their down time.

“Why don't you click your heels together, Dorothy, and get us back home?” Paulie said. “Hey, and how come you didn't get a nickname, Beans?”

“Um . . . my name is Connor. I think you just contradicted yourself.” Beans was beginning to doze off.

“We should call him Munchkin . . . or maybe Toto. After all he's just a little dog with a big bark,” Jesse said.

Beans was alert immediately. “Try it, Jess, and I'll tell Marley about the time you made out with Lori Stringham in the wrestling room.” Beans had always been sensitive about his stature. It made for a great 125 pound wrestler, but wasn't especially helpful anywhere else.

“Brosey's The Tin Man because he doesn't have a heart. Poor little Fern Taylor found that out the hard way.” Beans tried to turn the attention back to Ambrose, ribbing him once more.

“Brosey's The Tin Man because he's made of metal. Damn, how much did you put up on your bench today, Brosey?” another member of the unit butted into the conversation. “You are a freaking monster! We should call you Iron Man.”

“Here we go again,” Jesse moaned. “Hercules and now Iron Man.” He resented the attention Ambrose always garnered and didn't pretend otherwise.

Ambrose laughed. “I'll let you beat me in an arm wrestle tomorrow, Witchy Poo, okay?”

Jesse chuckled, his irritability more an act than he cared to admit.

The tent quieted down until the occasional snore and sigh was all that was heard in the darkness. But Ambrose couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about what Beans had said. Rita Marsden was beautiful. She'd taken his breath away. He’d thought he was in love with her until he’d figured out he really didn't know her at all. Rita wasn't smart. Not in the way he wanted her to be. He hadn’t been able to figure out why she was so appealing in her little notes and then when they were together she was so different. She was beautiful, but after a while, she really wasn't very attractive to him at all. Ambrose wanted the girl in the letters.

His eyes shot open in the dark. The girl in the letters was Fern Taylor. Did he really want Fern Taylor? He laughed a little. Fern was a little bitty thing. They would look ridiculous together. And she wasn't hot. Although she had looked pretty good at the prom. Seeing her there in her gold dress, dancing with his stupid friends, had surprised him and ticked him off. Guess he hadn't forgiven her completely for the stunt she and Rita pulled.

He had tried not to think about Fern, about that night at the lake, and he'd all but convinced himself it was just temporary insanity, a last desperate act before leaving home. And she hadn't written like she’d said she would. He couldn't blame her after everything that had happened. But he would have liked to get a letter. She wrote good letters.

Homesickness shot through him. They definitely weren't in Kansas anymore. He wondered what he'd gotten himself into. What he'd gotten them all into. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't Hercules and he wasn't The Tin Man. He was The Cowardly Lion. He'd run away from home and brought his friends with him, his security blanket, his very own cheering section. He wondered what the hell he was doing in Oz.





Iraq





“Marley said Rita's getting married,” Jesse reported, his eyes on Ambrose. “Your ex is getting hitched, Brosey. How does it feel?”

“She's a fool.”

“Whoa!” Jesse cried, surprised by the vehemence from his friend. He thought Ambrose was over Rita. Guess he was wrong.

“You don't still like her, do you, Brose?” Grant asked in surprise.

“No. I don't. But she's a fool to marry Becker Garth.”

Beans shrugged. “I've never had a problem with Garth.”

“You remember when I got suspended in ninth grade?”

Beans shook his head that he didn't, but Paulie lit up with the memory.

“You smashed Becker's pretty face in! I remember. But you never told us why.”

Ambrose adjusted his sunglasses and shifted his weight. They, and about one hundred other soldiers and marines, were on guard duty outside a high-security meeting of the Provisional Iraqi Government. It was cool to think maybe different factions could come together to form some governing body, that they were making progress, though some days Ambrose wondered. It wasn't the first time he'd played bodyguard, though in Bailey Sheen's case it had come after the fact.

“I forgot about that!” Grant crowed. “You didn't get to wrestle Loch Haven. Coach was pissed.”

“He wouldn't have been quite as mad if he knew why I felt the need to pound Becker,” Ambrose said wryly. He supposed enough time and distance had passed for him to share the story without violating confidences.





January, 1999





Ambrose knew Becker Garth. Becker was a senior and the girls all seemed to like him and think he was hot. That always made other guys sit up and take notice. Ambrose had noticed him because Becker had started wearing his hair like Ambrose, which Ambrose didn't like. Becker was dark haired too, and when he tossed his chin-length hair back from his brown eyes, he looked too much like Ambrose for comfort.