Girl in the Arena - Lise Haines [73]
—They’re like the worst of the government now, the worst of the military, I say.
—What I was trying to say the other day, about taking off, I think you could say I have renewed conviction.
Uber fills our cups with tea and pushes a fortune cookie my way that I decide to take home for Thad because he loves the way they snap open. We talk for a while about growing up Glad, the strange mix of admiration other kids sometimes expressed and the feeling of never fitting in—the constant need to defend what our parents did—the times we wanted to be like everyone else, the times we didn’t, the fights people picked with us just to see if we’d do something crazy and pull out a sword on the playground. And when we didn’t produce those weapons we were liars, we weren’t real Glads.
He tells me about his first memory of seeing a fight in the arena and I tell him that most of that was erased from my brain except for the blue benches and my mother’s slow undoing. We had both known mean teachers at our schools who treated us differently than the other kids. We had both tried to date non-Glads but never found it worked very well.
I think he’s holding up better than I would with all that bandaging. But we finally start to wind down and he says, —I’d really like to see you again, and he reaches out and takes my hand. And for some dumb reason, I don’t pull away.
—Even if Tommy’s death wasn’t between us . . . Allison married seven men and each one of them told her they were eager for the time they could stop fighting and lead a normal life. I think . . . I won’t go there.
—If I could get out of my contract early, say, if I were done, you might consider seeing me?
—I have to take care of my family and get my head on straight and that’s all I can think about. God, it sounds like I’m holding a press conference. But I do have to take care of us. My mother’s always been a little wobbly. She’s really a mess now.
—I’ll work on my end. Maybe we can check back in a while, see how it’s going?
I don’t say no, and then we both agree that we’re going to have to put Caesar’s off for a while, so they think we’re considering a Glad marriage.
When we leave the restaurant, it’s really pretty late and we decide to drive over and take a walk by the Charles. It’s a relief to feel the cool evening air.
Eventually we get back to the van and circle round to the cabstand so I can avoid showing up at the house again with Uber. He puts the transmission in idle and I thank him for dinner. And then I just kiss him full on the mouth, the taste of gauze and aftershave and spicy dumplings and strong tea around the edges. And if we were in a crowd of reporters they’d ask if he tastes like my father’s blood and then I’d probably just go home and maybe I’d cry a little but probably I’d look for Thad and see what he needed, because it’s a whole lot easier to think about his needs than anything else.
But we didn’t have any witnesses and I said good night and flagged down a taxi.
CHAPTER
26
On the ride home I’m thinking about Uber and how it was too easy to talk with him and how much I don’t want to be grilled by Allison tonight. I have the driver pull up to the back gates with his headlights off and I start to think I should carry a baseball bat. I hope the paparazzi aren’t waking Allison as they swarm and shout at me, and tonight I have absolutely nothing to say.
One of the guards escorts me and sees that I get in through the kitchen and I go upstairs and tiptoe past her room, the lights blazing under her bathroom door, the TV on full blast in her bedroom. She’s been waiting up the way she always does when I go on a date. I have to break her of that habit.
I decide to check on Thad first.
He has plenty of stuffed animals tucked under his covers, some dropped to the floor. I can tell he’s had his hair washed by the smell of his shampoo and the slight dampness