“Not a good idea right now.”
“Right, I forgot. Mission over men.”
His remark killed conversation for several seconds. He imagined her mind maneuvering in the silence.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said finally in her clipped, hard voice.
Broker found himself sitting up, leaning forward, hovering over the tiny phone. “You need a ride?” But the connection had ended.
Broker heaved up off the bed, stripped off his clothes, peeled the bandage from his hand, walked into the bathroom, and ran the shower to revive himself after the long, hot ride along the border. All the shower did was concentrate the humidity into liquid jets. He stood under the needles of water, eyes shut. Then he held his injured hand up to the shower and let the spray irrigate the ragged flesh.
Jane’s salve worked. The swelling and redness were going down.
He got stuck, went blank, and then realized he was staring at a Barbie Doll, naked flesh-colored plastic, awkward jointed hips and arms, sitting on the soap tray like a crumb left behind by his daughter, part of a trail leading into the forest of his marriage. He picked up the toy and observed that Kit had cut the doll’s red hair short.
So it looked like Nina, or perhaps Jane. He put the doll with his toilet articles so he wouldn’t forget it.
One towel. Two. Trying to get dry. Then, gingerly, he tested the smaller, but still red, fan of infection radiating from the wound. Still tender. He applied the Bag Balm and taped on a clean dressing. As he took two of the Vicodin, it occurred to him that ten years earlier he’d have ignored the wound; it wouldn’t have slowed him down. He felt every one of his forty-eight years as a specific weight dragging on his body.
He shook his head and swore softly as he pulled on a pair of jeans, cross trainers, a T-shirt. The idea of finally sitting down with Nina brought on a snap of resentment-at finding himself caught up in another of her projects.
They had not planned on getting married. But, then, they had not planned on getting pregnant. Maybe she thought, given her chosen line of work, it would be the only shot she’d have at a child. Maybe he thought that having a kid would nudge her out of the Army. No, not maybe.
She thought he wanted her to get pregnant, his assigned role in the male plot to boot her out of the service.
No, Nina, I just think Mama, Papa, and baby belong under one roof.
So, you can come to Europe.
Or, you can come home.
So you can stick me in the kitchen with a kid and an apron.
Broker shook his head. Ten minutes after he’d met her he told her straight out she had a chip on her shoulder. And she fired right back:
That’s no chip. Those are captain’s bars, mister.
The fact was, she was a disaster in the kitchen.
He looked one last time at the Weather Channel, how the green mass of precipitation was finally moving out of the upper Midwest. The local report said scattered showers. He eyed his rain parka and decided to leave it. Then he clicked off the TV and left the room.
He grabbed a Styrofoam cup of motel coffee in the lobby and went outside, lounged against the hood of Milt Dane’s Explorer, and lit a another cigar. He assumed she’d come walking into town from that bar. Or maybe Shuster would give her a lift.
Ace.
Carefully he mulled the all-too-ready image of Nina waking up in bed with…
He dragged on the cigar a little too hard and got some smoke down his throat and coughed.
Shit. So here he was dead in the water, waiting for her to come down the highway. The Missile Park was about a mile west down Highway 5.
Broker remembered back to the beginning. He should have picked up on the clues when he visited her apartment in Ann Arbor-when he met her she was on academic leave from the Army, finishing up her master’s in business administration at the University of Michigan.
Her place looked like somewhere Dracula slept between night shifts. Spare and functional. TV dinners and beefed-up vitamin shakes in the refrigerator.
No houseplants. No cat. No paintings on the wall. The only personal item sat on her desk. A trophy from the national military competition pistol shoot at Camp Perry. Second place in the fifty-yard offhand with a.45.
Make a note. Never marry a woman who can outshoot you with a handgun.
When Nina barged into his life he had been dating a woman named Linda who worked at a nursery north of Stillwater, Minnesota. Linda had long black hair she pinned up with a turquoise clasp and always managed to look like she’d just stepped out of a grove sacred to Demeter. Always had her hands plunged in potting soil and wood chips. Good old Linda. Always listening to Minnesota Public Radio. Ripe as a D. H. Lawrence love scene.
C’mon, Broker, tell the truth. Linda would have bored you stiff after a while.
Never bored with Nina. Never once.
Broker spotted her. A stride of color coming at a brisk step down the gravel shoulder. He got up. Check it out. See. It was impossible to be bored and mad at the same time.
Okay.
The watery light licked her bare arms and legs. She wore this meager sleeveless summery dress that came down to mid-thigh and gave her the look of an R-rated Monet in motion. Red-painted toenails in Chaco sandals. And, naturally, she’d never worn a dress like that for him. Strictly jeans and shorts and working duds. Or a goddamn Army uniform. Seven years of married life and they’d been together less than three.
As he waited and sipped his coffee, his eyes swung up and down the highway, out of habit. He spotted Yeager leaning against the side of the county office building across the street. Ostensibly taking a smoke break. A moment later Yeager was joined by another cop in different uniform, a darker shade of brown on top, gray striped trousers below. The state patrol guy. Cute. Both of them playing cop face, affecting sunglasses on a sunless day so they could watch without showing their eyes. A boy, seven or eight came out of the building and talked to Yeager. They all went inside together.
A few minutes later she walked up and they stared at each other.
Broker drifted his eyes across the street to the county building. “We’re in a goddamn fishbowl here. They’re real suspicious about you over there.”
Nina scrunched her lips. “Yeah, so is the guy I’m with.”
“With,” Broker said.
They locked eyes. Let it sputter between them.
“Yeah,” Nina said. “Gordy bet Ace I’m a cop.”
“Great,” Broker said. He turned and they fell in step, walking east toward the restaurant.
“He’s a strange guy, Ace Shuster,” Nina said. “Not what you’d expect.”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Broker said.
“Bullshit. You’ve thought about it in great detail. Just like I thought about it when you told me about your fling with Jolene Somer.”
Snap and hiss in the close space between them. Like a live high-tension wire that got loose.
“Yeah, what about your Ranger captain in Bosnia-Jeremy,” Broker shot back.
“I necked with Jeremy once. You fucked that tramp Jolene.”
“So this is what? Payback?”
Nina smiled briefly. “Ace hasn’t even tried to touch me.” She paused for effect and bored a look into his eyes. “Yet.”
They went into the restaurant. Nonsmoking booths on the left, counter front, tables and more booths to the right. They sat in an open booth to the right.
A waitress in tight toreador pants and a deeply tanned face brought them water and a coffeepot. Broker ordered a late breakfast: ham, eggs, no toast, no potatoes, oatmeal on the side. Nina ordered an omelette. She raised an eyebrow.
“Oatmeal and eggs? I thought you were strictly oatmeal. That’s all Kit will eat for breakfast since you brainwashed her.”