You Give Me Fever
by VATERGrrl
There was a sense of expectation in the air. Well, that, I thought, leaning back in my chair, and mustiness. No one had bothered to clean my office for weeks, maybe not even a semester.
Oh, wait, I was the only person responsible for my office...
Before I could think too much more about that, someone barged into my little hole in the wall, her stance wide and her fists pressed to her waist in a "mess with me and I'll take your eyeballs out with a spoon" gesture.
"You are not covering that trial."
"Excuse me?" For a second, I thought I must be dreaming, but the woman staring me down was no illusion.
"You. Are. Not. Covering. That. Trial." Her full, dark red lips moved in exaggerated ovals as if she assumed I was deaf.
"Train go, sorry," I signed. You missed the boat, sweetheart.
"What did you just say to me?" She planted both hands, fingers splayed, on my desk, and I was glad my chair was on casters. Rolling back, out of her immediate line of potential devour, I looked over her, trying to make my perusal as subtly as possible, but I have to admit, I liked the heck out of what I saw.
The woman looming over me like Snoopy wore her black, curly hair cropped close to her head, accentuating her large, brown eyes, slightly splayed nostrils, and lush, red lips. Even in the dim light, I could tell her skin would be smooth and warm to touch, and her complexion was accented by her flame orange suit, the skirt just a little too short to spell "corporate ladder" in capital letters, and a bright white and orange triangle poking out of the breast pocket.
"I said, it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"
"Heather Williams." She didn't extend her hand for me to shake, simply kept looming over me. I figured that if I stood up, I'd be just a few inches taller than her, though if she took off her high heels, I might have a chance to place my chin on the top of her head, protecting her. Not that she needed any protecting, of course, and something in her expression made me think I'd get a knee to the groin if I tried.
"Tom Wyman. I'm the features editor here at the Courant."
"That's what they told me in the main office." It was her turn to appraise me, and I figured she wouldn't be impressed with what she saw: long brown hair that hadn't seen scissors in a year, two days' growth of beard, a turquoise flannel shirt that I'd rescued from destruction, and a pair of jeans with frayed hems. It was my carefully cultivated, "I don't care about fashion, I'm an artiste" look, and I was comfortable in it. After all, why bother with keeping up with fashion trends and taking the time to shave when a great story might be just around the corner?
"You expect to cover the trial in that?"
Now we were getting somewhere. She'd inadvertently acquiesced to the notion that I would be covering the trial, and now I could press my advantage, if carefully.
"I was thinking of showing up at the courthouse naked, actually. The steno pad should be enough to cover my naughty bits."
I saw her gaze flick briefly toward the area between my crossed legs. "Oh, a three by five note card would be enough, I'm sure."
This woman had ovaries of steel, I had to admit that, though never aloud to her. She'd just smile, maybe even purr, and I'd be the one with a collar around my neck, willingly tethered to her leash.
"Ah, Heather, you flatter me. I thought you'd say 'Post-it note.'"
I must have pushed the banter too far, because rather than purring, she growled, walking closer to my chair so that she could stab me repeatedly in the chest with a long, well-manicured red fingernail. "You are the most insulting, self-absorbed, disgusting excuse for carbon-based life I have ever had the displeasure of meeting." Every insult was matched with a poke, the jab on "displeasure" the hardest yet as she backed me into a corner of my office.
"Hold up a second, now." I had tried charm, and failed miserably, so now it was time for the only thing left to me: journalistic instinct. The level of rage Heather was expressing made me think the trial meant something special to her. "How do you even know there's going to be a trial, let alone that I'm covering it for the paper?"
The woman who had been drilling a hole into my sternum just a moment before was now backing away, her arms crossed over her chest.
Oh, Jesus, no. "You're not . . ."
"No." She shook her head hard, long earrings colliding with her neck. "I'm not the one who was raped."
"Good." Although I'd only known her for a few minutes, and most of them disagreeable, the thought that anyone might have harmed her made me sick.
"Somehow, though, I wish I had been. My friend . . ." She closed her mouth abruptly, embarrassed that she might have revealed too much.
"Your friend was raped?"
A nod of her head was all I got, her arms squeezing her torso in a self-protective gesture.
"Aw, shit. I'm sorry." I wished then that I'd had the foresight to keep a box of tissues on my desk, or a packet in a drawer, as I watched Heather's bottom lip get sucked between her teeth and her brown eyes go moist. My best friend Cory would have gallantly offered her a handkerchief, but I didn't make a habit of carrying one, not having any allergies to pester me into the practice.
"Don't be sorry. Just don't cover the trial." Heather reached up to brush tears from her eyes with her fingertips, a hurried flick that indicated both embarrassment and annoyance.
"I can't not cover the trial." Much as I wanted to spare her and her friend grief, this was the story that could make my reputation as a reporter, the series that could, potentially, earn me an internship and an eventual job at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Times, maybe even something bigger.
"Listen, if it'll help, I can find you some examples of stories I've covered before." I indicated a stack of clippings and folded papers on a bookshelf to my right. The Courant was just switching over to an all-digital format, so we still had most of our morgue, our archive of past papers, in newsprint.
"Like what? How to make an end table out of empty pizza boxes? A review of 'The Cloakmakers Union Reunion Tour'? Thirteen ways of looking at a raindrop?" She sneered. "I haven't seen much in the way of hard news in the Features section in ages."
Now it was my turn to be self-protective. "Look, I only took over the post a quarter ago. Before then, I was writing as much hard news as I could cover while still keeping up with my other classes." I pulled a stack of newsprint off the shelf and waved it in her direction, stirring up a cloud of dust around me like Charles Schultz' Pigpen, a character I'd long admired and emulated.
"Uh-huh." She took the papers reluctantly, blowing over them to dislodge any remaining dust that might land on her hands or, god forbid, her good suit.
As I watched her reading, one of her hips propped against the edge of my desk in a manner that was subtly and unconsciously enticing, I felt a twinge of discomfort in my sinuses. Certain Heather wasn't watching, I scrubbed at my nose with the back of my hand, relieved when the itch backed off.
"So?" I asked, only to be given a dismissive wave.
"I'm not done reading. Be quiet." She lifted one article and slid it to the back of the pile, intent, apparently, on speed-reading my entire oeuvre.
While she was engrossed in the yellowing articles, however, the itch I thought I'd quelled returned in force, bringing buddies along with it. Soon, it was as if an entire platoon of tickles was mapping out a landing zone, and my breath hitched in anticipation of a firefight.
"Heh - heh."
"What?" Heather mistook the sound of my breath hitching for her own name, and she looked up just in time to see my eyes water and my jaw slacken briefly. The itching inside my nose was escalating to an almost hypnotic experience, as if I had no power, no desire, even, to stem the tide.
"You'd behh - best stad back." I sniffed sharply, trying to buy myself enough time to bring both hands up to my face. "I'b goig to -"
That was all the warning I could choke out before exploding with a "Har-AHHHCHUUUH!"
"Bless you."
"Hah-shhh! Shhh!" The two subsequent sneezes were, thankfully, a bit quieter than the first, but the trio still left me exhausted. I didn't sneeze often, but it seemed my body liked to make up for lost time when I finally did.
"Bless you." Heather pulled a brightly patterned hanky from the breast pocket of her suit and offered it to me.
"Don't need it." I sniffled and was about to wipe my nose on my sleeve when Heather groaned.
"You are such a stubborn . . . " She cast about for an appropriate insult, then found one. "Man."
I would have laughed, but a fourth sneeze was fast approaching, and in desperation, I accepted Heather's itty bitty hanky, figuring it was better to sneeze into that than my bare hands. "Huh-chhh!"
"Bless you."
"Thank you." When next I looked at Heather, she was smiling, all of the rage and tension I'd seen in her earlier transformed into bemusement. It made her seem softer, maybe even gentler, though I knew enough to not let those thoughts show on my own face. Had I suggested it, she probably would have taken out my eyes with a spoon.
"You're a good - writer." There was just enough of a pause in her words to make me think she'd been about to say something else, but I dismissed it. Just a figment of my dust-addled brain.
"Well, thank you. So, does this mean you're going to let me cover that trial, then?" I swiped cautiously under my nose, then placed the damp hanky on my desk, not sure whether I should offer to wash it or just let Heather take it back.
"I didn't say that." Heather reached over and picked up the square by one of its corners and dropped it into the cavernous maw of her briefcase, snapping the case shut with a decisive click.
"But you did admit I can write in general."
"Well, yes." For the first time since she'd stepped into my office, Heather Williams seemed almost indecisive. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come, and a moment later, she was back to her commanding self.
"But I didn't say that I'd approve of your covering the trial."
Oh, damn. Here we were, running around in the same circle we'd started in ten minutes ago.
"It's not really up for your approval or disapproval. But," I hedged, wanting to avoid another argument. "If you can give me any help with it, let me know a little of the back story, even tell me what, in particular, you think shouldn't go in my coverage, I can take that under advisement." If Heather knew anything about journalism, she'd understand that I was offering her a great deal of power. Normally, sources could only trust my ethics and hope for the best. But at the same time, getting inside information from the victim's friend could only help my own cause, in the long run.
Heather's cushioned bottom lip went between her teeth again, but this time, it was in contemplation, not grief. She appeared to be running through a mental list of pros and cons, and I saw her eyes dart back and forth as if she was reading it on a screen.
"If you want, we can talk this over at a café somewhere. Caffeine always makes me think better."
"Mmm-hmm." She was skeptical, I could tell, and I couldn't say I blamed her. We were, after all, talking about my covering a rape trial, and how did she know I wasn't some deranged lunatic masquerading as a journalist?
"I can arrange for a chaperone, if you'd like. My friend Cory can meet us at the Penguin's Den," I offered, referring to a popular on-campus coffee shop.
"Cory?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. Cory Marshall."
Heather's face blanched, and she sat down hard on the corner of my desk. I hopped out of my chair to offer it to her, but she didn't appear to notice.
"You okay?"
"Oh, uhm, yes. Yes, of course." She shook her head again, another sharp flick that sent her earrings swinging. When one hit her neck with a clank, she raised a hand to still it. "That would be - just fine."
There was an obvious subtext at work, a conflict of interest of some sort, but I didn't want to upset her further by prodding. If Cory had had a torrid affair with Heather before he'd met the current love of his life, Lynn Carlson, he hadn't told me. But then again, I didn't necessarily tell him about all of my dates, either. They'd mostly been pleasant, but forgettable, and I was looking at getting out of my college years as a bachelor with a bachelor's degree.
"Okay, then, let me make one quick call, and we're out of here."
I was able to get Cory on his cell and arrange with him to meet us at the Penguin, though I didn't give him many details beyond "article," "woman" and "chaperone."
"I don't blame her," he said just before he signed off. "See you in ten."
"Okay, we'll have our escort." I placed the heavy receiver back into the cradle of the old, government-surplus phone, watching as it rattled a bit before finding its resting place. "If you could just toss me my coat?"
Heather, standing closer to the hook than me, took down my woolen pea coat and threw it at me, and the weight of it sent my chair back a foot.
"Erm, 'toss' is just an expression."
"I know." Heather smiled sweetly, the sort of expression a mongoose might see a cobra give just before it struck. Damn, but the woman was a challenge.
And you like it, the little devil on my shoulder whispered as I pulled on my jacket and slung my book bag over my left shoulder so the strap hung diagonally down to my right hip.
Raven be blessed, I thought, following at Heather's determined high heels. The Haida trickster figure was known for fucking with people, teaching them lessons they didn't want to learn but needed to know, and I knew I'd just been caught.
The journalism department at Eliot Bay University was housed in one of four grand, Neogothic buildings around a central courtyard everyone referred to as "Red Square". In better weather, students lounged near the central fountain, which got a yearly prank dose of Mr. Bubble just in time for commencement, or occupied the stiff iron benches at the perimeter of the quad. Today, however, with gray clouds scudding slowly overhead, the courtyard was all but empty, and the fountain's splash and trickle was more noticeable as Heather and I walked past. Small puddles had accumulated around the base of the fountain, and as Heather walked through them, I noticed droplets of water flying up to hit the space just above the heels of her shoes, making dark splotches on her nylons and emphasizing the shapeliness of her long calves and trim ankles. Not that I was noticing, of course.
"So, what're you majoring in?" It was the standard collegiate pick-up line, but I thought I'd try it.
"Pre-law." Heather's right arm swung with the momentum of her briefcase, and her left arm was curled protectively around her chest, her thin orange blazer her only protection against the stiff breeze coming up into the quad from Lake Washington, which stretched around the base of the hill that supported EBU.
"Corporate? Family law? Environmental?"
"Family law." Her heels clicked on the wet brick underfoot, and she paused to transfer her briefcase from her right hand to her left.
"I can carry that for you, if you'd like."
"No, thanks." She gave a dismissive wave of her hand, and trudged on.
"You know, Heather, for a lawyer-to-be, you're very brief."
She laughed at my unintentional pun, the sound low and rich. "Good one."
"Why, thank you." Finally, it felt as if some of the ice between us was breaking up, shifting to reveal green grass, maybe even flowers.
But flowers needed cultivating, needed rain, and I didn't see any chance that my upcoming reportage would do much more than parch the earth that separated us. Overhead, however, the gray mist I'd noticed when we'd first left Harrington Hall had condensed into real rain, and a rumble of thunder announced the first few drops, which quickly transformed into a Midwest-style downpour.
"Ack!" Heather positioned her briefcase on top of her head to act as a makeshift umbrella, but it did her little good, water sluicing off the sides to puddle on her shoulders. I shrugged out of my coat, letting my book bag fall to the ground with a splash as I did so.
"Here, take it. I doubt you can really sprint in those shoes."
"But you - " Heather seemed torn between accepting and declining my offer, and her hesitation was just getting both of us drenched.
"Will feel like the world's biggest ass if you don't take my coat." I insisted, draping the heavy wool around her shoulders. "I'll be fine."
The sight of Heather enclosed in my jacket, her fingertips just peeking out from beyond the cuffs, warmed me in an odd way that I didn't want to think about. Fat drops were pelting me in the head and shoulders, but the winds from the bay didn't seem as cold as they should have, and as I placed the strap of my bag back across my shoulders, it lost whatever weight I'd perceived earlier.
"So, why family law? Do you want to be a judge?"
"No." Heather picked up her pace a bit, perhaps in deference to the fact that water was now running through my eyebrows and off the tip of my nose. "I just want to see bastards like Scott get justice for what they do to innocents like . . . "
"Like?" I prodded, pleased to see the student union building just a few hundred yards away.
"Like my friend." She seemed determined to continue the charade that her friend could remain nameless, completely unknown. It was not, of course, the Courant's policy to name victims of abuse, but I would have to find out the name of, even see face to face, the woman who had filed charges of rape against Scott Vester, Eliot Bay's starting halfback.
"Sounds like an admirable goal." The lights from the Union building shone bright in the pelting rain, and it was with relief that I got to the heavy doors first, opening them with a grunt of effort. Heather smiled shyly at me and slipped past into the warmth of the foyer, standing on the terrazzo seal that showed our school mascot, the "fighting penguin," in a little knitted cap and matching scarf, both in red and white stripes. He didn't look terribly menacing, but the mascot at the basketball games I'd attended for the paper in my cub year was a bit more vengeance-minded, and had once been arrested for attacking the opposing team's mascot, a logger who'd been taunting Percy Penguin with a small hatchet.
"Now, about that coffee you owe me." We walked quickly to the basement of the union, into a small circular room which had been decorated to resemble an igloo. It would have been gloomy and dark, the perfect writer's retreat, had it not been done up in vivid shades of ice blue and white, the tables in thick slabs of Plexiglas meant to resemble sheets of ice, the edges left rough, and squarish booths like ice cubes. The coffee bar itself had a jagged line to it, with the exposed edge sandblasted smooth and matte. It was the sort of cool, reserved landscape you'd expect to see in a Bergman film, but camped up just a little bit.
"Tell me they don't serve just iced lattes and mocha slushes here." Heather shivered, even though she was still wearing my coat.
"No, the theme doesn't go that far." We scooted forward in line, and as we got to the barista, I spotted Cory occupying a table way in the back of the igloo. "Order me a double grande latte?"
"You've got it." She seemed content to stand in line, which gave me the welcome opportunity to dash over to my friend and bring him up to speed on the remarkable woman I'd met and the conversation we'd had.
"Let me get this straight, then." Cory's eyes narrowed after I'd recounted the story to him. "Some woman you've never seen before barges into your office, demands that you not write a story, and the three of us are supposed to meet for coffee?"
"That's about it." I shrugged, the motion reminding me that my damp shirt still clung to my skin. I pulled the fabric away, but it settled back, cool and a bit stiff against my shoulders.
"Huh." Cory swirled his spoon around in his mug of coffee, and I tried my best to not stare at it too enviously. But after my thorough drenching, the curls of steam that rose from the dark surface looked like the script of heaven, promising the salvation of warmth and caffeine. "And, does this fire breathing goddess happen to have a name?"
"Heather Williams."
Cory's spoon clanked against the side of his mug, and he let it go to press the palm of his hand on the Plexiglas table before him. His fingers splayed out, tenting and then relaxing, over and over.
"Jesus, what is with the two of you? When I mentioned your name to her, she nearly swallowed her teeth."
Before Cory could respond, Heather came back to our table, setting down a steaming, foamy-headed latte before me. "One grandé latte, no extras." She put her own cup of tea on the table opposite me, slipping out of my jacket before she sat down.
"Cory, Heather. Heather, Cory." I felt a bit like David Letterman at the Oscars, and my introduction went over almost as well. They addressed each other with curt nods, then stared into their respective drinks.
"Brrr." I shivered, trying to make light of the subzero atmosphere between the two new combatants. Neither smiled, so I took a new tack: brutal honesty.
"Look, guys, it's clear the two of you hate each other. But what I don't get is, why?"
Cory took a long drink of coffee before he spoke. "It's not hate, Tom. It's just - concern, I guess."
"We both love the same person, and we don't want her to get hurt." Heather added.
A vaporous thought materialized, then vanished. "You're in a love triangle?"
The looks of hurt in blue and dark brown eyes was enough to make me wish I'd never said anything. For some reason, the idea that I'd injured Heather was even more damning to me than whatever pain I'd caused Cory. Fortunately, Cor had known me long enough to be able to forgive my stupidity, and he did now, giving me the last piece of the puzzle.
"Tom, do you recall last month, when I said I was interested in someone, but she was skittish?"
The vapor cleared, leaving me with an image I didn't want to bear in my mind, and I tried to rid myself of it with a stream of invective. "That shit-faced son of a pig fucking..."
"Yes, him." It was Heather who stopped my tirade, though she appeared to be ready to pick up where I'd left off, cursing Scott all the way back to his first ancestors and back up to his future progeny. "Now do you understand why you can't cover the trial?"
I slumped back against the wall of the booth and shivered. The story of the year, the thing that might well guarantee me a career in journalism, shone like a fragile, brittle ornament before my eyes. And would it fall from the tree and shatter without sound, as in William Gibson's movie of The Miracle Worker? Or could I convince the two wounded people before me that I could play the medic, make everything better for everyone by following the trial the way I knew it could and should be covered, with delicacy and care?
"Let me think about this a second." I kept my eyes closed and my head tipped up toward the ceiling, knowing that if I looked at either Cory or Heather, I would sacrifice myself in order to spare them pain. But, how on earth could I phrase my desire to cover the trial in a way that wouldn't seem self-serving and careerist?
No easy answer appeared, and the only thing that occurred as I tried to weigh various arguments was a light tickle in my nose, as if the dust I'd inhaled and presumably sneezed out earlier was making a comeback.
"Cor?" I dropped my head back down and opened my eyes just a fraction, feeling them water with the struggle to hold back the itchiness. "Can you hand me a napkin, please?" I knew from unpleasant experience that when my eyes began to tear up, I was up against a nasty, brutish barrage of sneezing, with minimal time to prepare.
"Sure." He handed me a stack of industrial beige napkins, and I overlapped two of them to create as much surface as possible.
"Hehhh—" This time, Heather didn't misinterpret my intake of breath for her name, merely watched as I pivoted leftward to the edge of the bench, bracing my elbows against my thighs.
"Huhh-HAAAASHHHOOO!" As infrequently as I sneezed, I'd never mastered the art of doing it quietly, and Cory had once kidded that he wouldn't want to be with me in the library or at church when I had a cold.
"Bless you." Heather sounded a bit startled, but Cory took my outburst in stride.
"Ah, you might want to save it, Heather. We may be here a while."
"Huhhh-ISHHH! ISSSHHH! HUH-SHFFF!" I sniffled and looked over at Cory, who was grinning.
"You thiih - thig this is fuddy?" I grabbed another napkin from the stack and blew my nose as hard as I could, hoping that might forestall more sneezes.
"Yup." But when he noticed me grimacing in anticipation of another sneeze (or three), he seemed to take pity on me and pulled a handkerchief from an inside pocket of his jacket, sliding it over toward me. "Here, spare us."
The cloth did do a good job of muffling my sneezes, to the point that people were no longer staring or, less politely, telling me to "go outside to do that."
"Huuuuh-uchhh!" My last sneeze dispersed into a rush of air, leaving me winded and not a little embarrassed.
"Now?" Heather asked, and Cory nodded gravely.
"Bless you." The warmth Heather injected into her blessing made my chagrin worth every minute, and I would have quite willingly inhaled a shaker full of pepper to earn another.
"Thag you." I scuffed one layer of handkerchief under my nose and sniffled. "And now that we've had the entertainment, can we get back to the problem?"
"Sure. You can't cover the trial, and that's that."
"No, that's not that." Perhaps the sneezing fit had temporarily sapped my energy and, along with it, my good humor, but I could feel my indignation rising. For a potential lawyer, Heather was a woman of damned few words. "Someone is going to cover the trial, whether it's me or one of my staff. It's simply too big to ignore."
I knew what I had to say next would have Heather, and perhaps even Cory, going for the eye-gouging spoons, so I bought a reprieve by sipping at my latte, cooled just enough to be drinkable. When I followed that with a nose-clearing blow and a fastidious refolding of Cor's handkerchief, however, Heather cleared her throat impatiently.
"Okay, okay, the 'what you don't want to hear' part." I slapped the cloth down on the table next to my drink and forced myself to look directly at Heather as I spoke. "You must know, as a pre-law, that the press is going to be all over this story. They'll have reporters from KING, KIRO, KOMO, even KUOW and KPLU swarming that courtroom, inside and out. They'll be hounding L - the victim, for any and every sound bite they can get. The accused is all but certain to go into the NFL draft - he's the team's golden hand, right?"
Heather nodded her agreement. "Yes, and he'll have Seattle's best defense team, no doubt. Howie Wolfowitz, grandstander, and his retinue of researchers."
"Then what we need to do, to the extent to which it's possible, is to report from the victim's side, without losing too much objectivity. And, yes," I added, turning my gaze to Cory for a moment. "I know my objectivity is already compromised, but I can't help that now. All I can do is to give this story everything I have, if the two of you trust me enough to let me try."
"I do." Cory's confidence was immediate and unwavering, but I couldn't blame Heather for having doubts.
"I'm not sure about this. No offense, Wyman, but why are you so sure you have what it takes?"
I blew out a frustrated breath, then dug in my book bag for what I thought might be my ace in the hole. I'd been working, ever since my Freshman comp class, on an oral history project convened by two professors, one a Vietnam veteran, the other an anti-war protestor. They'd proposed a book of histories by Vietnam vets and Soviet vets of their war in Afghanistan to highlight what they felt were the similarities between the two experiences. I'd collected five histories in the past three years, attended all of the "Vets Nights" forums, and copyedited the draft manuscript to preserve the integrity of each veteran's voice and make sure the names of historical sites were spelled correctly.
"This." I dropped the completed book, all 200+ pages of it, in front of Heather's now-empty mug. She flipped through the pages hesitantly, pausing at the start of each chapter to study the artwork. We'd commissioned a vet artist to sketch pictures suitable for each unit, from "Backgrounds" to "Aftermath," and one final picture at the end to commemorate one vet who hadn't lived to see the end of what we collectively referred to as "our book." It was that sketch, in particular, that always got me, and as Heather paused to stare at it, I had to look away, making a close inspection of a few specks on the Plexiglas under my cup and saucer.
"You helped write this?" Heather mercifully flipped back to an earlier chapter in the book, and when I looked over at her, I noticed she was regarding me with a new level of interest and, dared I to dream it, respect.
"I just took some of the histories."
"Fssshhh!" Cory made a derisive noise by blowing air through his teeth. "Some of the histories? You were there for almost all of it, and even more so after Professor H. died."
Professor Hattwell, or Pete as we had all referred to him, had been suffering the effects of Agent Orange-related cancer from the moment I'd first noticed him at a vet's night devoted to helicopter pilots. Pete had been hard to miss, with his loud, grating voice tumbling out of a gaunt, frail body. He'd peppered the panelists with technical questions about their rigs, and it was only later that I found out that the annoying little guy I'd assumed was an interloper was the Peter Hattwell, a near-legend in the Communications Department for his intro to public speaking courses - "public shrieking," he'd always derisively referred to the grunt course - and a true legend among the vets we interviewed based on his experiences as a Cobra pilot during 'Nam. Every time we went out to the vet center, they embraced him as one of their own, and he glowed in their care, even as we all saw him becoming weaker and more fragile from the effects of chemo and cancer. Burly Navy Seals and Marine snipers would gently steer him to the softest chair available, as if they were guiding a beloved elderly grandmother, and allow him to hold court in his rasping, machine-gun style.
Pete had also started off the oral history project at EBU, with help from a fellow professor, an older guy who'd been a protestor during the war. Michael Levin, a lumbering guy who was shaped a bit like a potato, approached everything expansively and slowly, in no hurry to get to the point, and he provided the perfect counterpoint, the stamina, as it were, to Pete's more jittery, afterburners-on-full style. Together, they'd come up with the idea of solidifying the oral histories into a book that would show the connections between various wars and conflicts in American history.
The book had solidified a few months after I'd first met Pete, but by then, he'd grown too weak and frail to concentrate much on it, his cancer returning with its own afterburners on after a relatively carefree summer. His facial hair, once approaching Groucho Marx proportions, along with all of the hair on his head, fell out, leaving his prominent facial features in stark relief. He made fewer and fewer visits to campus, but did manage one last trip out to the vet center, and that time, I recall that one of the counselors out there, a short, red-haired former Navy medic, had tears in his eyes all the time he was talking with Pete.
Of course, Pete had told him to knock that off. "No melancholy bullshit!" he'd barked, and we all obeyed his command as best we could. Even when I'd gone out to visit to interview him for the Courant late in the fall, in anticipation of the book's publication, he'd gruffly brushed aside questions about his health, although it was evident from the yellowish cast of his skin that his liver was failing, and he'd broken an arm a week earlier merely from rolling over on it while sleeping. The chemo and cancer had leached most of the strength from his bones, and from the rest of his body, but his personality wouldn't give up so easily.
"So, kid, you're going to be a journalist? Keep 'em honest?" He'd cornered me with the question during the interview, and although I'd taken on the assignment mostly to celebrate the work we'd done on the book, I nodded to assuage Pete. Journalism hadn't been squarely in my sights at the time, even though I was mildly interested.
"Yeah, Pete, I'm going into journalism. And this'll make the paper, you can be sure of it."
"Then include a good picture, something where I have hair." His blue eyes were recessed but bright from beneath the brim of his favorite baseball cap.
"Okay, LT, you've got it." Pete had made Lieutenant in the Army, and he smiled when I called him by the acronym. We'd wrapped up the interview a few minutes later with vague pleasantries, seeing that he was beginning to tire, but when I reached over to take his hand and shake it, he told me in a fierce whisper, "Never give up. And never forget."
I hadn't been able to choke out any response, just nodded tightly, and I hope he didn't think any less of me for the tears that had been standing in my eyes. That had been the last time I'd seen him. Two weeks later, on a sunny winter afternoon, Peter Hattwell died at the age of forty-one, and his name was never recorded on Maya Lin's long black wall, even though the war had surely killed him.
"Tom?" I felt someone placing my coat back over my shoulders, and when I looked up, Heather Williams was looming over me again, but this time her eyes were dark and soft with concern, not hard and sharp with rage. "You looked - cold. You were shivering."
I turned up the collar of the pea coat and burrowed into it, gulping down the rest of my latte in hopes that it would chase away the sluice of ice water that seemed to be splashing through my chest.
"Thanks." My voice was unexpectedly thick to my ears, and I coughed into a fist before trying to say anything else. "I must have gotten wetter than I'd thought, out in the storm."
"Mmm-hmm." Heather wasn't buying my excuse, but she also didn't try to push me. Cory, who had been there the evening Professor Levin had called to break the news and organize an impromptu memorial service, knew exactly what was going on, where I'd disappeared to for a few minutes, and didn't say anything at all.
"Anyway, I showed you that book because, well, that's really the only argument I can make as to why I should be allowed to cover the trial. That's my big experience with trauma, and I think I can do a fair job of reporting your friend's history, or at least what transpires in the courtroom."
Heather returned to her side of the booth, opening the book up again to what I had to presume was the last sketch, a nineteen-year-old Peter Hattwell in his Army uniform, lieutenant's bars pinned to each epaulet. His expression was so eager, so open, it made me sick to think of what that kid's future had become, how his drive for adventure had been transformed into a cynical attack on governmental policies that used the sacrifices of his friends to promote other wars.
"Do you think Lynn will go for it?" I was surprised to hear Heather ask the question, as if she was finally contemplating the possibility of my interviewing her friend.
"Hard to say." Cory fielded the query, and I realized I'd been relegated back to a bit player in the drama. "Tom had a good point inasmuch as every other media outlet will be on the story no matter what we do. We don't even rank, according to them. Hell, we don't even exist."
"But Lynn is the victim here," Heather whispered, even though no one else in the coffee house was paying attention to us.
"If I may be cynical for a moment here," I interjected, pushing away my cup and saucer to give myself room to gesture. "The big three media are going to be most interested in the defendant, and they'll do everything they can to portray Lynn as some harlot standing between golden boy and his pro football dreams."
"But that's -" Heather sputtered for a moment. "That's a disgusting lie! I got there just after Scott left, and Lynn sure as hell wasn't looking like the cat who'd swallowed the canary. More like the dying mouse who'd been abandoned by the cat after it failed to struggle anymore and make a game of it."
"Then that's what we need to show, to the extent we can. One of the guys I interviewed said that the journey of the hero involves the task of testimony, reporting what they saw and experienced on their journey, and then it's the obligation of the society to listen to the testimony. It was a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist."
"I just don't want to see Evie victimized any more than she's already been." Cory's arms were crossed tightly across his chest, his expression wary.
"Then let's change our terms, starting now. Lynn's the survivor, not the victim. I assume, Heather, that's what they teach you in your pre-law courses?"
"Absolutely. Language influences our perceptions - it actually shapes how we think, not just what we think." Heather adjusted the front of her blazer, the sleeves of the jacket pulling up in the process and exposing the delicate gold watch on her left wrist. "Oh, damn."
"Wha- what?" I asked stupidly, anticipating the answer.
"I have to go. I promised my study group I'd meet with them at four thirty, and it's already twenty after." I greedily lapped up the tone of regret in her voice, as if she might actually have wanted to stay a little longer. For such a heated first meeting, it seemed as if Heather and I had come to something of a meeting of the minds, albeit a fragile and untested one.
Cory prodded me to get out of the booth, then scooted over the bench to join me at the side of the table. Heather had already gathered her briefcase, and looked at both of us expectantly.
"Well, Cory, it was nice to have a chance to see you again. I guess we'll be spending a lot more time together at the trial?"
A small, stupid and immature voice in my head called out, "Me, too! I'll be there, too!" but I didn't vocalize it as I watched Cory nod, then gently embrace the slender black woman.
"Tom." She extended her hand formally, stiffly, the slightest bit more accommodating than our first few minutes of meeting, when she'd refused to shake my hand at all.
"Enchanted, Miss Williams," I said, meaning it. Strong women were my weakness, and Heather was particularly captivating, the contrast between her firm, businesslike handshake and gruff demeanor and the attention to small, feminine details like her manicure and her dark red lipstick alluring. "Perhaps we'll be spending a lot more time together?"
"Perhaps." As she held my hand a moment longer than necessary, I felt my nose begin to tickle once again, and I resisted the urge to rub at it.
"Okay, then, I'm off." When Heather let go of my hand, I felt unmoored and adrift, which seemed absurd given the brief time I'd known her, and most of that we'd spent bickering.
As she walked purposefully toward the entrance, the little tickle I'd felt flared again, and I had just enough time to grip the edge of our table before letting loose a loud, "HAH-ISHHH!" Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw Heather stumble briefly at hearing my sneeze, then recover her accustomed poise. She turned, touched the breast pocket of her jacket, then smiled.
"Bless you," she mouthed, disappearing from sight. Once she left, it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, and the icy décor of the café seemed colder than it had ever
had. Oh, hell, I thought, hunkering back down in the booth, on what had been "her" side. That was bloody ridiculous. Stupid. No woman embodied the sun, and there was no way that I represented some distant planet, orbiting around her and hoping to win her favor while avoiding being utterly consumed in her flaming gravitational
field. On the other hand, what a lovely way to burn...
The book referred to in this story is inspired by Parallels: The Soldier's Knowledge and the Oral History of Contemporary Warfare, by J. T. Hansen, A. Susan Owen and Michael Patrick Madden (Aldine DeGruyter, 1991). The character of Pete Hattwell is based on a real person, and I have included some dialogue which I recall from my talks with him, but beyond that, everything in the story is pure fiction. I dedicate this story to Mikey, Gene, and Steve, three good men. I miss you guys.
Written for tg's bday challenge