As You Are Read online

  “That’s a shame,” Rae said.

  “It was disappointing. But happily, my interest shifted toward the military when Alex moved to Nashville and told me about Luke and his soldiers. I learned about how officers got their degrees before joining the Army, or at West Point, or in conjunction with an ROTC program, but that many enlisted soldiers join with little or no college. They then face the monumental task of taking classes in conjunction with their more-than-full-time jobs or waiting until they get out.”

  “It’s a unique issue,” Rae said.

  “It is. Having even part of a degree completed, as long as it transfers to the ultimate school of choice, allows a soldier to get to work at a better-paying job upon leaving the Army much faster. It allows them to pursue their next phase without a four-year lag time. That’s a scenario I’d like to see happen more often.” I clasped my hands in front of me, never sure of what to do with them when I wasn’t holding a book.

  “It is problematic. I can say from my time as a company commander that I’m amazed at how soldiers manage their jobs, families, and still pursue their education. I tried to give as many as I could the time and leeway to get into classes at the Ed Center. My soldiers ended up with pretty good track records, although while we were deployed that’s a very different situation. I’ll definitely reach out to them and mention your study to the ones who haven’t moved away.” Rae smiled at me, and for a moment, I was entranced. Her face was free of makeup, clean and fresh, and her smile was practically paralyzing in its beauty.

  “Thank you. That’d be a huge help.” I’d liked her the minute I shook her firm, dry hand—well, long before that.

  “So you’re saying that everyone should get a college degree?” A gruff voice chopped at the air around me, and I turned to see a man I’d seen at the barbeque.

  “Command Sergeant Major, good to see you,” Rae said and nodded to the grizzled man with the slash in his cheek.

  “Captain Jackson, good to see you, ma’am.” He nodded back, and she excused herself with a light touch to my shoulder and another smile at me as she stepped away.

  “Hello, Command Sergeant Major Trask.” I extended my hand, and he shook it in his rough one with one sharp shake before I continued. “I certainly do not believe that everyone should or can get a college degree—they aren’t right for everyone. But for men and women who’ve given up time, energy, and sometimes physical and mental health, if they want to pursue a degree, I want to figure out a way to make it more doable.”

  He looked at me a moment, squinting back at me through lash-less eyelids. The guy was intense. If the Grim Reaper was made flesh, he’d look suspiciously like Command Sergeant Major Trask.

  “Well that’s an excellent answer, ma’am. I’ll make sure we get the soldiers to your meetings. It’s a worthwhile endeavor, don’t you think, Harrison?” Trask shifted his attention over my shoulder.

  I turned around and saw a chest with a nametape identifying the soldier as “Harrison” about a foot away from me. I scanned up a sturdy chest and strong, corded neck to an angular jaw and finally up over other pleasing features to meet his eyes.

  My mind stuttered.

  It stopped.

  All computation halted.

  It was him.

  Of course, it was him. There I was feeling pretty confident and proud of myself for not only a damn good presentation but also managing the painful task of small talk and meeting new people who were at times using a language I barely spoke, and there he was.

  But the problem was, it wasn’t just the him who I’d disagreed with at the barbeque.

  It was him, him.

  It was chocolate eyes from the airplane of death.

  It was sexy red-and-brown bearded, eyebrows-of-perfection seatmate.

  It was the guy who held my hand and calmed me down while I crawled out of my skin during the flight.

  It was the guy who’d just buried his father.

  It was the guy from the plane, beardless and whaddayaknow, a soldier.

  He didn’t say a word. My mouth hung open a bit, ready to say sorry, but he turned, and off he went. It was like he was fleeing the scene of a crime. He obviously knew who I was if he was standing in the room for my presentation. Now, or more likely when I saw the guy again, I’d have to apologize for two things, and the thought made my skin crawl. And then I felt a strange burn of shame streak through me, like I’d done something wrong by knowing him out of the context of his uniform.

  I shook my head a bit as he disappeared down a hall, and Trask pulled my attention back to him.

  “Do you know Harrison? He’ll be an excellent candidate for your study,” the rocky voice stated.

  “Good. I’ll… look forward to that,” I said, still not quite able to breathe normally.

  Chapter Two

  I tapped away at my computer, quickly entering my notes in the spreadsheet I was using to track some of the results of the study. It was eleven in the morning, and I’d met with fifteen soldiers so far. Today’s meetings were about explaining the study, getting a consent form signed, and explaining the next steps if they did want to sign the consent form and participate. So far twelve of the fifteen had agreed, and three were thinking about it. This was my last meeting until after lunch, and I was eager to wrap it up—I was hungry and getting twitchy because of it.

  I heard a knock on the door and a throat clear as I saved the spreadsheet and said, “Come in,” before standing up and reaching to extend my hand over my small desk to the soldier coming in the door. I pushed my glasses back on the bridge of my nose since they’d crept forward while I worked. I looked up and met the soldier’s eyes just as our hands clasped to shake and immediately recognized the face. It was the grouch from the battalion barbeque, but sans sunglasses, and in uniform. Worse, it was my flight-from-hell buddy, whom I recognized but wasn’t sure if he recognized me. He might not have seen my face—most of the time I had my back pressed against my seatback and my eyes closed.

  His presence in my office was significant. It felt weighty, and my mouth filled with cotton at the thought of stumbling my way through an apology with this not-actually-a-stranger. I’d held his hand and then basically called him a barbarian weeks after his father died!

  I tried not to let my embarrassment reach my cheeks before I said, “I owe you an apology, Sergeant Harrison.”

  We were still clasping hands, maybe because I was squeezing his in an effort to convey my contrition, and then he gently pulled his hand away and said, “No need,” in his gravelly, low voice. When I heard it, now that I knew, it matched the voice that had talked me down from my midflight panic attack. I hadn’t made the connection when we’d talked at the barbeque because I couldn’t see him, and it wasn’t a context where I expected to see him. He’d had a beard and been friendly on the plane. In that chilly backyard, he’d been clean-shaven, edgy, and kind of rude.

  But I had been, too.

  “Actually, there is. I called you a barbarian, and I didn’t mean that. I was judging something I know very little about. I’m against violence—“

  “You’ve chosen an interesting place to conduct your study if you’re against violence, considering the Army’s business is war,” he interrupted me. I was making a heartfelt apology, and this tight-lipped camo-man was interrupting me to criticize my study—one he was evidently coming to participate in.

  “Well that’s precisely why I’m here. I want to make sure soldiers get an education while they’re serving so when they get out, they have options that have nothing to do with their ability to shoot a rifle or perform in combat.” I set my jaw and looked at him, resisting the strong urge to cross my arms and jut out my hip to accentuate my annoyance.

  He stood there, arms by his side. He was unaffected by my rant, except one little muscle, there just under his ear, which I could see flexing as he gritted his teeth. That’s right fella, I know exactly what I’m doing here.

  He still didn’t speak, so I did. “Do you want to pro
ceed?” I tried not to sound as irritable as I felt. I’d met this guy exactly twice, bumped into him once, and here I was all riled up again after being in the same room for under a minute. Maybe it was my now-audibly rumbling stomach’s fault. I should have had a snack midmorning.

  “Yes, ma’am.” And he sat down in the chair opposite me, across the desk. Ok Sergeant Chatty, don’t get too excited. I sat down at my computer and grabbed the packet of information.

  “This is the explanation of the study. The second page is the consent form. I suggest you review this as it explains what information we’re collecting, what information we’re sharing and with whom, and from there, what might happen with the results if everything goes well. The next page you see is a list of things I need from you before our next meeting, which will ideally take place in two weeks’ time if you choose to participate.” I stopped there to let him absorb the information. His eyes flitted over the pages and he looked back up at me. Ok. Apparently, that was my signal to continue.

  “Once you decide whether or not to sign the consent form, you’ll return that if you decide to participate, and then we’ll schedule the next meeting. That’s where I do most of the interview, which, along with your transcripts, is the bulk of the study. I’ll ask that you stay available for questions and a final interview in a few months once I’ve got the data organized. Do you have any questions?”

  He didn’t move his head from where it was slightly bent to look at the pages but looked up and said, “You’ve requested all transcripts. Do you want high school transcripts as well?”

  “Yes. High school, and any college you have, obviously,” I said.

  “What about graduate work?” He was looking back down at the page, so he missed the flair of my eyes when I heard him. It wasn’t that I’d never heard of an NCO—a non-commissioned officer—having a graduate degree. Typically, it was officers who went that route. NCOs rarely had time to complete college, let alone a graduate degree, while they were on active duty. A rush of excitement hit at the thought of the information this guy could provide in terms of how he fit in the studying and course work, and how he funded it. This would be a fascinating addition to the data.

  “Not typically an issue, but absolutely. Yes, please.” I clapped my hands together and watched him, but he was still looking down, and my smile faded a touch as I realized this guy wasn’t going to be a forthcoming well of information based on the last few minutes. It felt a little like I was speaking to a giant ice cube.

  My inability to handle someone misunderstanding my banter and debating for rudeness kicked back in. “Listen, just to clarify, I do not think you’re a barbarian, nor do I believe any soldier is simply because he or she is a well-trained soldier. I said the wrong thing, which is not at all unheard of, and I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you or your professional… expertise, or interests, or training. Whatever you call it. I’m sorry.” I let out a breath and watched as he raised his head.

  He looked at me, his eyes narrowing for a moment, and then he looked down and signed the consent form with a flick of his wrist. He handed the packet to me wordlessly, and I took it.

  I felt a tingle of something unnamed, a kind of awareness shimmering at the edge of my mind. Of course, my mind wasn’t flat, or round, but an amorphous thing, but that was the best way I could describe it. I pulled out the staple from the pages, took the signed form, and then re-stapled the packet and handed it back to him as I stood.

  “Thank you. How about let’s keep the same appointment time and meet two weeks from now. Will that work?”

  He was studying me, though his eyes didn’t leave mine. Does he recognize me as the woman from the plane? Should I say something?

  He nodded yes. I swallowed, finding myself shrinking under the intensity of his silent review.

  “Ok, well then, see you in two weeks,” I said and watched as he nodded, turned, and left my office.

  I dropped back into my chair, leaned back, and stared at my computer screen where the lines of the spreadsheet blurred. I didn’t mention the flight, didn’t check to see if he remembered me. What if he didn’t? I couldn’t tell whether that would be better, or worse.

  My parents and I had a standing call every Sunday night. That was when I called them and gave my latest news, which had always been pretty minimal since I carefully meted out what information I chose to share with the Drs. Kent. Their critical eye, even imagined over the phone, could wither me. Being an only child meant I was very close to my parents as I grew up, and that also meant they were determined to be fully engaged in my adult life.

  The problem with this, if it was a problem, was that my values had diverged from theirs at an early age. I’d maintained all the things I thought they wanted me to while growing up, but I felt a shift in our interactions when I’d left the university a month ago (fairly suddenly, to be fair).

  They were both doctors, my mother a brain surgeon and my father a family practice doctor. They weren’t unfeeling, but they were ultimately pragmatic. They valued things that were concrete and that had direct application to “real life,” as they were fond of calling it.

  In high school, I felt a strong calling to the arts. I wanted to write and sing and even try out some drama, but they felt that debate, math olympiad, and model U.N. were more important because they would aid me in the future. They enrolled me in a science and math specialty charter school, and it certainly did put the heavy focus on math and science. I had no time to explore my other interests, though blessedly the school did have advanced English and writing courses, and I took them all.

  When I went to college, I decided to break with their expectations but still found myself enrolled as a pre-med student my first semester. I inched away from that by my senior year and managed to major in biology and minor in psychology and writing because I knew I had no interest in becoming a medical doctor, and I convinced them that writing well would aid my ability to apply for grants and other things in my professional life.

  They were approving of my Master’s in Behavioral Psychology only because they believed it would help me parlay my education into something more, a PhD. I think they finally accepted I didn’t want a medical degree, though I knew they always believed I’d go for a PhD in psych. But I didn’t. Because all along, I was reading, and writing, and wishing I was in an MFA program for creative writing. I was accepted to a literature PhD program and the guilt I felt upon accepting my spot in the program was insane. I felt like I’d betrayed my parents, and it was ridiculous. I knew it wasn’t a normal way to feel—I was an independent person who made her own choices, right?

  My parents were proud of me, I knew they were, and they were even happy for me. But instead of pursing a PhD in creative writing and abandoning all sense of the left brain (as though they were entirely separate), I did choose composition and rhetoric. As I’d told Rae, my dissertation focused on acquisition of writing skills for non-traditional students, my TES project, and this was only because my program made a kind of allowance for me to incorporate in-person research from my courses and internships. It was a meet-in-the-middle option for my PhD, and it was fascinating, even if it wasn’t my heart’s true passion.

  I think they accepted all of this because I told them I was going to teach, and teaching, to them, was an acceptable vocation on the scale from slovenly writer to life-saving doctor. When I told them I was leaving my teaching job, which I had not loved and they knew it, I knew they were worried. I knew they doubted my ability to make money and to sustain what I was doing.

  That doubt wasn’t altogether misplaced—I had doubt too. But what they didn’t realize was that it was all a tool to get me to writing professionally, full time. And not just writing, but, gasp… writing fiction. I had to suppress a small whoosh of shame when I admitted this, even to myself, since years of carefully cultivated valuation of the sciences had generated in me a fear of admitting stories were of utmost value to me.

  “Hi Mom,” I said into the phone, steeling m
yself for the reprimands that were inevitably to come since I hadn’t called them the week before. I’d finished settling into the apartment and was so tired I’d forgotten it was Sunday.

  “It’s good to hear your voice Elizabeth. We missed hearing from you last week,” she said in her soft, calm voice.

  “I know, I’m sorry. Everything is fine, but it has been busy.”

  “Of course,” came my dad’s voice, likely pressed up against my mom as she held her phone out on speaker. Even though they were endlessly pragmatic, they’d always been nauseating in their love for one another. There was never much space between them when they were in the same room. They used to say it was because of the years when they were both in school and then in their residencies—they’d been apart too much, so when they were together, they were glued at the hip.

  “Well, I’m just letting you know everything is going well. I’ve got a good pool of participants for my project and met most of the soldiers this week. The leadership here seems supportive, so that will help the process. And the apartment is huge and almost feels like home already. I’ve even found a little time to write on the weekends so far…” I said before I realized it and trailed off.

  “Oh. Well… good,” my mom said.

  I could hear the tightness in her voice. It was not that they were opposed to my writing, but I knew that when I left my job, they were worried it was so I could write. It simply wasn’t practical—I knew that was what they thought without them verbalizing it. I reassured them the project was the reason and my focus, and it was, but that was probably because I wasn’t ready to admit to anyone, even myself, that I was moving toward a big change. What I wanted was, in fact, to write full time, and this TESS project was my excuse to do something different so I had time to write and didn’t have the competitive stressors of a tenure track to manage.

  “How are you two doing?” I asked, ready to move on from the ever-tense subject of me doing something unfathomably creative and insubstantial like writing fiction.