I’ll Meet You There (3 page)

So what’s it like over there? You get to kill some Iraqis?

Afghanis.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. So … what’s it like, man?

What’s it like? It’s seeing your friend die and then trying to scrub his blood off
your boots except it won’t come out. The water turns pink and your hands are shaking
and you’ve got what’s left of someone you were just standing next to under your fingernails
and you need these boots for inspection so they gotta get clean, they gotta get clean,
and suddenly you’re angry, so fucking angry,
stupid bastard had to die all over me,
and then you’re crying like a fucking baby and the boots are red and there’s nothing
you can do.

But I just say,
Crazy, man. Crazy.
Then I belch and hold up my empty beer bottle and say,
Gotta refuel. I’ll catch you later. Good seeing you, bro.

Fist bump.

Clap on the back.

Exit.

chapter two

I only saw Josh once during that first week after graduation. I was at Ray’s Diner,
picking Dylan up. I’d just gotten off from the motel and was groggy because Amy had
called in sick so I’d been there for eighteen hours and had to deal with one pissed-off
trucker who’d gotten a flat, two hippies who I’d caught smoking weed by the pool,
and a woman from LA who spent most of the morning complaining about her room. The
diner was oppressively hot, and from the fans set up on the counter, I could tell
that the air-conditioning had broken again. The blinds were half closed, and flies
buzzed around the pastry case, which only had two questionable-looking cinnamon rolls
in it. It was just after the lunch rush, so most of the booths were empty. Because
Dylan was the only waitress on, everything was clean and organized—you wouldn’t have
known it by looking at her, but she was an absolute neat freak. As soon as Dylan saw
me, she started taking off her apron and pointed to the back, and I nodded, getting
ready to sit at the counter and wait while she sorted out her receipts and tips.

Then I saw Josh.

He was sitting at one of the cracked vinyl booths by himself, pushing steak and eggs
around on a plate, staring out the grimy window. I remembered he used to come in with
his friends, taking up two or three booths, so loud that you either had to join them
or find another place to eat. Josh was always between two girls—different ones each
time—who he pretty much ignored in order to do the male-bonding thing. The status
of guys in our town rose and fell on those nights, and it all came down to who Josh
laughed with and who he laughed at. He was never cruel, not the kind of bully they
warn you about in school assemblies. He was just the final answer in whether or not
you belonged.

Josh and I had never been what you’d call friends, but I’d worked with him at the
Paradise since I was fourteen, and that counted for something. Besides, while Dylan
was in the back, I couldn’t just pretend I hadn’t seen him. Creek View’s not that
sort of town—it’s what my dad called a “shoot-the-shit” kind of place. I went up to
the booth and leaned against the side opposite him.

“Hey.”

He looked up, blinking, like he’d been somewhere else and had forgotten where
here
was.

“Skylar,” he said, after a moment. “What’s up?” His smile slid all over his face,
like it couldn’t make itself comfortable.

“Not much. How’s it going?” Dumb, dumb,
dumb
question to ask someone who’d just lost his leg.

He took a long sip of his Coke. “I’m hot as hell. You?”

“Same.” I was wearing my usual summer attire of cutoffs, tank, and flip-flops, but
I would have joined a nudist colony just to peel them off.

“You look good,” he said.

His eyes traveled down the length of me—typical Josh Mitchell move—and when I caught
him and raised my eyebrows, his lips twitched and he took a bite of his eggs.

I swear, the Mitchell boys were raised on
Playboy
while the rest of us normal kids were reading Dr. Seuss.

“I look like crap,” I said. “You’ve just spent the past two years with a bunch of
dudes. I bet you’d hit on Marge if you had the chance.”

Marge, our boss at the Paradise, was in her fifties and what you’d call a “large”
woman.

Josh laughed, sort of. “I don’t know about that.”

“Okay, I take that back.” I grimaced a little. “I really don’t want that picture in
my head anymore. Actually, when you think about it—which maybe you shouldn’t—”

“No, I really don’t want to.” He shook his head.

“Okay, but if you
did
want to think about it—like maybe on a particularly lonely night—it’s kind of kinky.
You and Marge would make quite an interesting pair.”

“I’ve been home for, like, two seconds, and you’re already cracking one-legged sex
jokes?”

“It wouldn’t be a joke to Marge.”

“That’s nasty, Sky.”

“Although maybe you should wait to hit on her until you get a tan or something. You’re
looking kinda pasty right now.”

Finally, a real laugh. I felt my body relax: shoulders going down, hands unclenching.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been tensing every muscle in my body until I suddenly wasn’t.

He shook his head again, then looked down at his plate and focused on cutting his
steak. “Trust me, I look amazing compared to a few months ago.”

What could I say to that? What were the lines you weren’t supposed to cross in these
sorts of conversations? It seemed like there needed to be a whole other language for
what had happened to Josh, one that didn’t need words to clog up what you were trying
to say.
I’m sorry. This sucks. Hang in there.
None of it was right. I sat down across from him, folding my legs under me. I couldn’t
stand seeing that booth swallow him up.

“So, what are you up to today?” I asked.

I grabbed the container that held all the sugar packets and organized them so that
all the Sweet’n Lows were together. Then I decided to alternate each packet: sugar,
Sweet’n Low, sugar, Sweet’n Low. I kept my eyes on my hands.

“I was helping out my dad at the shop for a bit.” His father owned the sometimes-open
garage just off the highway, a few miles past the Paradise. “I’ll probably go home
and … do something, I don’t know. Maybe head to the creek when the sun goes down.
What about you?”

“Pretty much the usual,” I said. “Dylan and I are going into Bakersfield to get stuff
at Walmart for her baby. Then we’re meeting up with Chris later.”

Chris’s mom had taken to cooking massive meals full of his favorite foods because,
as she said, “Boston is full of
gringos
with
gringo
food.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Dylan has a kid?” I nodded, and he shook his head. “Damn. I
mean, I’m not surprised, but—”

My hands stopped organizing packets. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Skylar, don’t get all … I’m just saying, you know, Dylan’s always liked to have a
good time.”

If Chris were here, he’d be giving me shit because I could literally feel my nostrils
flare. Sometimes Chris or Dylan would say stuff to piss me off just to see The Flare.

“Is that your way of calling her a slut?”

Josh, I could tell, was seeing The Flare.

“Jesus, Sky.” He threw up his hands. “I’m sorry. You know I’ve always liked Dylan.”

I grunted in response, because Josh “liking” a girl was reason enough for her dad
to buy a shotgun.

The radio was too loud, so the air was filled with never-ending commercials with lines
like “Buy now!” and “Don’t miss it!” The Fresno Tire Center was insisting I go in
there right away to take advantage of their fabulous summer savings. A huge Evangelical
church was announcing its summer Bible studies, and McDonald’s wanted me to try their
new summer shakes. I pushed the sugars against the wall and looked down at the Formica
tabletop, tracing my hand along the lines of fake marble.

Sometimes it was hard to breathe, knowing how small my world could be. Maybe in San
Francisco it wouldn’t feel like the universe was conspiring to keep me in a bubble.
I looked up, caught Josh’s Van Gogh eyes for a second. God, they were intense. Was
it rude to stare when you were staring
back
at someone? As soon as I tried to hold them, his eyes dimmed, like he’d shuttered
them somehow. It was silly feeling disappointed, but I was.

Josh cleared his throat. “Hey. Uh. Sorry about the other night. At my house. I was
pretty wasted.”

“It’s fine. Seriously. Everyone was off their ass that night.”

“Not you,” he said.

I shrugged. “Never me. But I’m, you know, weird like that.”

“I was being a dick to Chris, and … shit, I don’t even remember most of the night.”

He let out a slow breath and rubbed his hand over his shaved head. He looked thinner,
more vulnerable, with just that brown stubble covering his skull. Why do they make
guys shave their heads when they become soldiers? It makes them look like lost kids.

“I didn’t think it was all that memorable. No offense,” I added, because it was sort
of his welcome home bash.

He shrugged. “It’s cool.”

“Besides, it was your brother who was being the dick, not you.”

Josh laughed. “You’re the one who dated him.”

“
Dated
is a very strong word.”

He leaned back in the booth and crossed his arms. “Well, I’ll tell him to stop trying
to get in your pants then.”

“That sounds scary, coming from a Marine and all.”

“Yeah, I’m terrifying, aren’t I?”

He tried to make a joke of it, but he spit the words out, like food gone bad. His
eyes shifted to the window, and he pointed to the faded snowmen painted on it.

“Fuckin’ Ray ever gonna clean off this Christmas shit?”

“I think that’s been there since I was a sophomore.”

He snorted. “This town.”

I grabbed the napkin wound around the silverware in front of me because paper was
my lifeline and I needed to touch it, to know that maybe when I went home later, I
could collage him and then it would all make sense,
he
would make sense. I hoped my fingers would remember the exact quality of the sunlight
on his forehead, the shadows under his eyes.

“Marge said you’re coming back to the Paradise?”

I spread the napkin out and began folding it. It’d be easier if it were made of actual
paper, but I’d done napkin origami before.

He nodded. “Yeah. Guess I’ll be a handyman again until I figure out…” He waved his
hand in the air. “Stuff.”

“Good. I’ll have someone to play checkers with.”

“Oh, I’m a chess man now,” he said. The ghost of a smile played on his face.

I raised my eyebrows. Josh Mitchell—chess? He was the kind of guy who would have called
a “chess man” a fag. “So that’s what’s really going on in the Marines, huh? Bunch
of guys just sitting around playing chess?”

His eyes went dark for a second, and I worried that my teasing had hit a nerve, but
then he sort of laughed.

“Half the time, yeah. Basically, when we weren’t patrolling, we were stuck on base.
And by base I mean this shitty-ass camp we set up in the middle of nowhere. The military
is, like, ninety-six percent boredom, four percent action. All hurry up and wait.
So, it was chess or trying to get online or, you know, jerking off to—” He saw the
look on my face and stopped himself. “Anyway, I can kick your ass on the board, Evans,
so watch out.”

I handed him the napkin I’d folded into a crane. He held it up, looking at the wings,
the beak.

“A bird?”

“Crane. It means peace. It’s better with paper, but this was the best I could do.”

He looked at it for a long moment. “Peace, huh?”

“Josh. Eat that before it tastes worse than it already is,” Dylan said, sidling up
to our table. Her face was still flushed from her shift, and I could tell how exhausted
she was by the fact that she hadn’t even bothered to fix her hair or reapply her makeup.

He pushed the plate away. “I think it’s reached that point already.”

“Well, next time, take my advice.” She turned to me. “I told him the cheeseburger
was the way to go.”

“Should have listened to you,” he said. “I thought the stuff in the corps was bad,
but Ray can’t cook for shit.”

Dylan agreed with him about her boss’s inability to make edible food, then told us
her Worst Customer of the Day story. Josh asked to see a picture of Sean, and he looked
at me like
what?
when I glared at him. A few minutes later, we were waving good-bye, leaving Josh
to stare out the window and crunch on the ice in his glass. As we got in the car and
headed down the highway, I couldn’t concentrate on whatever Dylan was talking about.
I just kept seeing Josh by that dirty window. Looking out, but not seeing anything.
And then I thought of how the first thing he’d said to me was that I looked good.

“—and I was all,
no
, Jesse, you can’t give a baby gum. Right?”

“Huh?” I looked over at Dylan.

“You weren’t listening, were you?” She was practically shouting above the funky sounds
my car was making, and I gripped the steering wheel, praying we wouldn’t break down.

I shook my head. “Sorry. It’s just … Josh. You know?”

“Yeah.” She rolled down the window and spit out her gum. “It’s weird. I mean, Josh
has always been kind of a bastard, but now I feel, like, so bad for him. I mean, he
lost his leg
. Like,
his leg.
Plus, he saw some serious craziness. It might have been all
Saving Private Ryan
over there, you know?” Dylan looked at me. “Maybe he’s different now—like the war
changed him or something.”

I wasn’t naïve. It was obvious Josh could never be the same kid who used to spend
his nights driving around in his souped-up truck, throwing beer bottles at abandoned
buildings on the highway—way too much had happened for that to be enough for him.