Purple Hearts(20)

Once she got here, Cassie, Frankie, and I were going to lay down the details of the nine months to come. Frankie was documenting everything as evidence just in case, God forbid, the legitimacy of the marriage ever had to hold up in court.

“They’ll pick apart every detail,” he was saying, showing me the time-stamped captions to each photo. “How you met, the proposal, everything. So I’m your witness. Look excited,” he finished, pointing the camera at me.

I raised my eyebrows, tried to open my eyes wider.

Frankie reviewed the photo. “I said ‘excited,’ not like someone just stuck their thumb up your butt.”

“Shut up.”

“There’s a smile.” He took another photo. I pulled my Moleskine out of my army bag and set it near my empty plate, ready to exchange lives with Cassie. Or “Cass,” as Frankie said I should call her. That still didn’t feel right.

The door to the diner opened, and Cassie walked in. My eyes were drawn toward the antler on her breastbone, visible in her low-cut dress. Her black hair flowed in waves from her face, blending near her shoulders with the S-shaped silhouette of her body under her dress. It made me nervous, how beautiful she was. Beautiful people had one-track minds. You learn that in adolescence, when looks start to matter. Everyone steps out of the way of beautiful people just for the pleasure of watching them pass. They never have to learn how to make do, how to compromise, never have to learn how to find their way into the back doors of places. And this was definitely a back door.

“What?” she said, approaching the booth. I realized I was staring at her.

“Nothing.”

Frankie stood. “Cass!” He stood to kiss both her cheeks. He looked at me, jerking his head.

I stood, too, towering over her a bit. I bent to kiss her cheek. Frankie snapped a photo.

We sat. Frankie and I on one side, Cassie on the other.

“Just coffee. Black,” Cassie said to the waitress. She turned to me. “You get that?”

I opened my Moleskine, finding a blank spot to scribble it down. Then it seemed ridiculous. “You really think we need that tiny of a detail?”

“Maybe not, but you’ll need this one,” she said, leaning forward. “I have diabetes. Type two. Hence the medical bills.”

I remembered that. “And what exactly does that mean?” I started. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well, basically my pancreas doesn’t know how to break down sugar in my blood. So I have to watch what I eat so I don’t get hypoglycemic. Or, I guess, pass out from low blood sugar. Like after I eat a meal that has a lot of simple sugars.” She pointed to a piece of pie in one of the display cases. “Or if I don’t eat snacks regularly, or don’t eat a full meal, or if I eat later than usual.” She was putting out her fingers. “Or if I drink alcohol without eating any food, et cetera.”

“Wow.”

“It’s a lot,” she said. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Do you have that written down?” I asked, holding up my notebook. “For our biographies?”

We paused when the waitress returned.

Cassie gave me an apologetic smile as she took the steaming cup. She waited until the woman left to start speaking again. “I’ll be honest.” She looked back and forth between Frankie and me. “I’m kind of ill prepared.”

“What do you mean, ill prepared?” I rested my hand on my notebook, where I’d spent an hour trying to make my handwriting neat enough to read, combing through all my memories and mistakes, trying to decide what was relevant and what was not. We’d decided e-mail was not a good idea, because it left a record.

Cassie looked chagrined. “I, just, didn’t write it all down. I’m sorry.”

My chest clenched. “Come on. We’re doing this today. What else took priority?”

“I’m sorry!” she said louder. “Until, like, an hour ago I wasn’t sure I could go through with this.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, feeling my heart bang. I tried to breathe. I was getting angry, but that wouldn’t help the situation.

Frankie put a bite of eggs Benedict in his mouth. “Y’all could just talk,” he said with his mouth full. “Like normal humans.”

Cassie and I looked at each other. She appeared to hold the same sentiment that I did: No, thank you.

“How about you just read what you have, and I’ll respond? Here,” she said, gesturing for the pen and notebook. I tore out a page for her. “Go ahead with your first one.”

The heat was starting to subside. I cleared my throat, and read. “My name is Luke Joseph Morrow.”

Cassie started writing her answer as she said it. “Cassandra Lee Salazar.”

“Lee, huh?” Frankie said. “I didn’t know that.”

“It was my dad’s mother’s maiden name, I think.” She looked at me, her brown eyes stone. “Oh, um. I don’t have a dad.”

“Are you going to keep your last name, or—?”

She knit her eyebrows together, looking back up to me. “Of course I’m going to keep my last name.”

I held up my hands. “Just asking.”

She smiled at me across the table, closed red lips, sarcastic. “I will pretend to be married to you but I’m not going to sit at home knitting a blanket until you come back.”