Walking Wounded Page 5

  “You’re that reporter?” she says.

  “Writer.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Not according to your grandfather.”

  Her mouth curves in a wry, unhappy grin and she steps forward to lean her arms on the rail beside him. “How’d you know?”

  “I saw your picture in the library. Though I take it you’ve had a makeover since then.”

  Another smile, still unhappy. “Yeah. For the better.”

  In the photo, she’s the older of the two, in a yellow sweater set, pearls that must be borrowed from her mother, hair pushed back behind a matching headband. But now, beside him, she wears second-skin leather leggings, a clinging black top that shows too much cleavage, denim jacket, Doc Martens. Her makeup is all blacks and deep purples, dramatic, overdone, but flawless all the same. Black nails. Red lips. Hair died blue-black, still damp from the shower, curling against her shoulders.

  “Someone should have told you the nineties ended a while ago,” he quips.

  “They’re back in, haven’t you heard?” Her cat eyes flick to his cigarette. “Got another one of those?”

  “Dunno. There cameras on us?”

  “Ha.” She opens her hand and wiggles her fingers. “No. Come on.”

  “I think I’m here for the wrong story,” he says. “Senator Maddox’s Wild Child: Vice and Regrettable Throwback Fashion on Capitol Hill.”

  She snorts and sticks the cig between her lips like a pro, leans forward to accept the light he’s got cupped in his palm. Inhales, straightens, exhales through her nose. “No wonder no one’s ever heard of you.”

  He wants to be offended, he really does, but she’s young, and wearing too much lipstick, and so he says, “You must have heard of me, to know I was the reporter.”

  “Thought you were a writer instead.”

  “Is everyone in your family a pain in the ass?”

  She grins, a true grin, and sticks out her right hand. “I’m Tara.”

  “Luke.” He takes her hand; her grip is firm.

  “So you’re interviewing my grandpa, huh?” She withdraws and turns to the business of smoking.

  “Kinda. He doesn’t seem to want to say much.”

  “He never does.”

  Luke works on his Marlboro and thinks about what he wants to say. He ought to be careful – senator’s daughter and all that. But he’s too curious, so he says, “You don’t happen to have any scoop on why he hit that protestor, do you?”

  She shakes her head and exhales again. “Gramps has serious anger issues. Always has, long as I can remember.”

  “You ever ask him about them?”

  “No.”

  A squirrel barks in a crabapple tree in the garden, crawls halfway down the trunk, lashing its tail. There’s always nature in the city, small, hearty clingers-on amidst all the concrete and steel. Most days, Luke feels a bit like one of those creatures, forcing his way into a world he doesn’t belong to.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he drawls, “but you’re not exactly dressed like the sort of person who’s up this early.”

  “No, I’m not,” she agrees. “I snuck in a half hour ago. Mom doesn’t know.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Trust me, with Dad and Gramps, and looking good” – she snorts – “she’s got plenty to keep her distracted.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Isn’t there some kinda journalist code? Like a psychiatrist or something?”

  “No.”

  She shrugs. “Whatever. No one would believe you anyway.”

  He bristles. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  Another shrug. “You’re a writer. Writers make stuff up for a living.”

  “Or they highlight the truth in subversive ways.”

  She turns and gives him a mocking look. “That what you’re doing here? Being truthful and subversive?”

  He smiles. He can’t help it; she’s so wildly inappropriate. She reminds him a little of Linda. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Did your editor send you? Or did Hal send you?”

  He stares at her a long moment, trying in vain to read her shielded eyes. “Is that it? You’ve got a thing for Hal?”

  “Do you?” she counters.

  He stubs his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe and then tucks the butt into his pocket. “I asked you first,” he says, heart pounding.

  Tara shrugs. “Nah. That’s my little sister. She wants to have his babies and shit.”

  Luke laughs, but it’s hollow.

  “What?” she says.

  “Nothing. Just noticing the family resemblance.”

  She frowns, starts to say something, but the door behind them opens.

  Sandy pokes her head through. “Hal’s back,” she says. And then: “Oh, T, you’re awake. Breakfast?”

  “Sure, Mom.” Tara flicks the cig down into the roses and sighs again.

  ~*~

  In the kitchen, Matthew Maddox and Hal chug down bottles of lime green Gatorade, glistening with sweat in the lamplight and early morning sunlight. Dawn has come, and it creeps through the windows in sneaky white folds.

  Someone new – the other daughter, it must be – sits at Luke’s abandoned place at the breakfast bar, daintily eating pancakes and staring at Hal. It’s obvious, as is always the case with enraptured teenagers and the objects of their affections.

  If Hal notices, he hides it well. “Hey,” he says to Luke, grinning, and slings a sweaty towel at him from around his shoulders. “Making headway?”

  The towel slaps against his face with a wet sound; it stinks of Hal and fresh sweat, and he frowns more than he ought to. “Ugh.” When Sandy reaches to take it from him, he hands it over. “Not really, no.”

  The girl turns around on the stool, and presents a rounder, softer, cleaner version of her older sister’s face. She smiles and says, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Luke returns, because how can he not?

  “Luke,” Sandy says, “this is our younger daughter, Madison.” In a wry voice, she says, “I see Tara’s already introduced herself.”

  “Only sort of,” Tara says, sliding onto the stool beside her sister and nicking an orange from the bowl on the counter.

  “Tara, eat real food,” Sandy says.

  “I hate real food.”

  “How’s Dad behaving himself,” Matt asks, scrubbing his damp hair with a white towel of his own.

  “Uh…” Luke says, because apparently he’s too much of an idiot to have come up with a plausible lie.

  Matt makes a face. “Yeah, I figured. He takes a while to warm up to people, so don’t be too discouraged. I’m sure he’ll be much more talkative tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow?” Luke says, and feels time unfurl in front of him in endless loops. How long will he be expected to do this?

  “He’s sleepy in the afternoons,” Matt explains.

  Hal moves toward him. “Hey I gotta take a shower, and then I’m heading in to the office with Matt. I can drop you off at home on my way.”

  Luke shakes his head, manages to clear it some. “No, it’s fine. I’d rather walk.”

  Hal frowns, expression concerned. “If you’re sure…”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Well.” He scratches at the back of his neck, pecs and biceps bunching up beneath his damp shirt. “I’ve got a spare key for you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to give it to you,” Hal insists. He offers a smile. “We can have dinner out somewhere, after I’m off duty.”

  “That’ll be great.” Luke gives him a smile he knows to be fake, but Hal doesn’t seem to mind, returning it.

  “Great.”

  Tara chokes on the orange slice in her mouth and her sister thumps her on the back. Luke’s never heard such a fake choking in his life.

  5

  Hal wants to meet at an Italian place on M Street; he texts the address and Luke has just be
en shown to a table and had a wine suggested to him when Hal slides in across from him.

  “Some kinda red,” Hal tells the waiter, and his good-boy smile dampens the effect of waving the man away.

  Luke chuckles. “I always wished I could do that.”

  “You just need to practice.”

  “And not be such a miserable little shit all the time?” Luke guesses. “I can work on the shit part, but there’s nothing I can do about the little.”

  “Ugh,” Hal says. “Stop doing that.”

  “Stop doing what?”

  “Selling yourself short.”

  “No pun intended, huh? Just trying to be a realist.”

  “Well, stop.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t like it,” Hal says, sternly, in a voice that has security agent stamped all over it.

  Luke smiles. “So what’s good to eat here?”

  “Just about everything.” Hal doesn’t look at his menu. Instead says, “So what did you do all day?”

  Earlier, he left the Maddox townhouse in a fuzzy headspace, not sure which member of the household was most dangerous. (He was still leaning toward Tara, because something about the tilt of her smirk made him think there was more to her punk rock defection than simple rebellion.) He found a coffee shop – Georgetown Grind – and found a tiny table wedged in at the window where he could sip his latte and pull out his tablet. He typed a quick email to Linda:

  No real info yet. Maddox is going to be slow to get into any of the juicy details. This could take a while.

  He didn’t said anything about the old photo from the mantle yet, because he wasn’t sure how it figured into any of it – if it even did. He also didn’t share the insults hurled at Matt. Maybe it was stupid, but it felt like a betrayal to put the old man’s vulnerability down into type.

  Linda emailed him back right away:

  Take all the time you need. I want a good story – the best story – and not the fastest.

  When his need for nicotine began to outweigh the craving for caffeine, he trashed the rest of his latte and hit the sidewalk, smoking and walking, unhurried, earning dark looks from posh daytime shoppers who thought smoking was the most disgusting thing a human could do in public.

  He lives in New York. He knows it isn’t the most disgusting thing.

  He walked all day, sightseeing. Peered down into the dark water of the canal and watched his wavering reflection. Window-shopped for clothes he could never afford.

  Now, his feet are sore and throbbing; he has blisters on the backs of his heels. His lungs feel unsteady, like he needs another smoke, though that’s the whole problem, really, isn’t it? He’s physically tired in a way he normally isn’t, sore in a good way, and not in the desk-exhausted, slumping way that he is back home, after a day typing and researching.

  “Just walked around a little,” he says. “Appreciating your city.”

  Hal’s smile turns warm. Or maybe that’s just the dim light. Luke’s imagination. “It’s pretty great, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a major city, but it feels spread out. Lots of room. Like you can breathe.”

  “I haven’t breathed right in years.”

  “Your own fault for smoking.” Fond, but a little worried, too. “You ever thought about moving down here?”

  Unexpected. Luke swallows. “No, why would I?”

  Hal shrugs, glances away. “No reason, I just…I mean, you don’t look – and you don’t sound like…” He trails off.

  Luke’s pulse knocks in his ears. “I don’t sound like what?”

  “Like…”

  The waiter returns with two glasses brimming with red wine, and a basket of breadsticks. “I’ll be right back to get your order.”

  Hal reaches into the basket and pulls out a breadstick. Takes a massive bite.

  “I don’t sound like what?” Luke presses.

  Hal shakes his head. Swallows with difficulty and reaches for his wine.

  “Dude…”

  “You don’t sound happy,” he says on a gasp, as he chokes the wine down. He sets the glass aside and sighs, deeply. Starts plucking the rest of the breadstick into little bits that he piles on the appetizer plate. “You just…the last few times we’ve talked. You sound miserable.”

  Luke opens his mouth and can say nothing.

  Hal lifts his eyes, and the security agent, the predawn jogger, the confident, well-paid man he’s seemed up ‘til now is gone, replaced by the uncertain, too-big-too-fast kid Luke grew up with. “I’m sorry. I’m out of line, yeah. But I’m worried about you. You didn’t sound good. And then you got here, and you–”

  “I look like shit,” he guesses.

  “No! No, that’s not what I meant at all.” And he looks – eyes wide, gaze frantic – like he’s telling the truth. As absurd as that strikes Luke.

  He sighs. “It’s nice of you to worry, but–”

  “I do worry,” Hal interrupts. “I worry a lot, actually. You’re all by yourself up there, and I know how you get.”

  He lifts his brows.

  “You know how you get too. And I’ve been thinking…” His face colors; Luke can see that even in the low light. “There’s plenty of open space down here. The air’s better. A little better, anyway. And there’s plenty to do; there’s still a night life, if…if that’s something you’re into now. I mean, that was never your thing, really, but I know it’s been a while, and things may have…”

  “Hal.”

  “The point is.” His head lifts. “I thought maybe you could try to find a place down here. Writers can work from anywhere, and it might be nice to…”

  “Nice to what?”

  “I dunno. Live in the same neighborhood again. Like the old days.”

  There are no less than a thousand things Luke wants to say in response. He wasn’t the one who moved away; he wasn’t the one who panicked after The Incident, needed “space,” had to clear his head. He wasn’t the one who joined the army and almost got his ass blown up by an IED in the armpit of the world.

  You were the one who put that distance between us, he wants to say. Longs to say. The old bitterness tastes like copper, like blood on the back of his tongue.

  Instead, he says, quietly, “I’m happy in New York. Thanks.”

  Hal runs his hands through his hair, down the back of his neck. An old habit, one since childhood, though now it stretches his shirt across massive shoulders and pectorals, and brings out frown lines between his eyebrows.

  “So I guess we should order, huh?” Luke says.

  “Yeah. We should.”

  ~*~

  Hal says he’s buying, no matter how much Luke protests, so they both order the veal parmesan and a second glass of wine.

  The house red blend has just started to paint a certain glassy sheen across Hal’s eyes when Luke says, “So, seriously, what’s up with Will Maddox?”

  “How far did you get with him today?” Hal asks.

  Luke gives him a look.

  “What, I’m just curious. It took six weeks before he’d say something more than ‘heh’ to me.”

  Luke chuckles. “That’s you, man. Bringing out everybody’s poetic side.”

  “I know.”

  “He must love me, then. He actually talked a little.” Luke replays the strange, not at all productive conversation he had earlier with Will.

  Hal nods. “I was there that day,” he says, and he’s finally providing the story Luke’s wanted from the start. “It was one of those ridiculous charity ball things that start at four in the afternoon and go till two in the morning. I mean, don’t get me wrong – the causes are great – but who knows if the people who need the money actually get it, and I’ve got no idea how a buncha rich Washington fucks getting in tuxes helps any-damn-body–”

  Luke smiles into his wineglass, because Hal has seemed so perfect since he got here, but this is more like the Hal he remembers, impassioned, and inelegant.

  “–but anyway Sandy was sick, so Matt took Will
as his guest. Took hours to get the old man dressed up properly, and he got self-conscious about his cane. He hates that thing, you know.”

  “Seems to like using it on people, though.”

  A smile quirks at one corner of Hal’s mouth. “There was a barricade, and there were cops, and I was there. But this protestor – this little asswipe – gets through somehow, and leans over the barrier, and just starts screaming at Matt. Awful, terrible shit. Says he wishes he would die. And then he starts waving around this spray paint can, but who knows if there was paint in it – or something worse. He pulled a Three Stooges eye-poke on Diego and just guns for Matt.” He shakes his head. “And then, well, I had no idea the old man could move like that. Before I could get to him, Will swung around and bashed the guy right in the nose.”

  He smiles at the memory. “Jeez. Broke it on the first hit. Blood flying everywhere.” He holds his hand over his nose and mimes the spray of blood with his fingers, which makes Luke laugh. “Then the guy starts screaming and howling, and yelling about his first amendment rights. And then – this is the best part – Will tells him, ‘Sure, you got the right to say whatever you want. And I got the right to think you’re an asshole for it.’”

  Luke laughs, and then Hal too, and then they’re both gasping to catch their breath.

  “Okay,” Luke says when he can. “That’s fantastic.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  Half their dinner still sits on their plates untouched, so Luke picks up his fork. He doesn’t remember setting it down.

  ~*~

  “Girlfriend?” Luke asks over cheesecake.

  It’s been a slow dance, getting past the awkwardness of separation, and finding their way back to being best friends. Luke isn’t sure if it’s natural, if they really are still close as brothers, or if it’s just the wine. But in the moment he feels warm, full like he hasn’t been in ages, and comfortable. He doesn’t want a cigarette or to be anywhere else.

  Across the table, Hal rolls his eyes and reaches for his glass again. “No.”

  “Piece on the side?”

  “Come on, man.”

  “I’m just asking. There’s no way you don’t get some female attention.”