Chapter 4
Chapter 4
G etting out of the office was easier said than done. Leo was suspicious Maggie Ridge gave everyone some sort of talk saying, “Reach out to the new people,” because absolutely everyone stopped them on their way toward the door. From what he’d observed, Ridge might be in charge of work at the office but Maggie was in charge of the office’s social life, at least unofficially. They’d only been on the job for a few weeks but already there had been cake, cookies, and muffins on tap.
Babs was the last to say goodbye. With effort, Leo tamped down his disappointment. She was the type of woman who usually fell for guys like him; he had a sense about these things and therefore had high hopes for her. But, alas, she was involved with someone, Maggie’s brother, if the rumors were true. There are other people in the world, he wanted to tell them. Your lives don’t have to be so interconnected with your coworkers. On the other hand, he got it. Theirs was a strange world, often plunging them into tight quarters, dangerous situations, adrenaline highs and lows. Relationships tended to go deeper, resentments to fester longer.
At last they broke free of the office and drove to a nearby park. It was a sunny spring day, unexpectedly warm for so early in the season. Leo had no blanket to spread, because of course he wasn’t the type of man who kept a picnic blanket in his car, but Esther didn’t seem to mind, as he knew she wouldn’t. She took off her shoes, tossed them aside, and spread her toes in the grass.
He assumed she grew up on a farm. She had the type of fresh-faced wholesomeness that could only be earned by fresh air, hard work, and feet and hands in the soil. He hadn’t asked. There was a line of demarcation between them, one he tried hard never to cross. She was the job and only the job. Learning personal facts about her might blur the line he tried hard to maintain.
They ate in comfortable silence, both watching the people around them in different ways. Leo was wary. After so many years in the military and espionage, he never fully trusted public spaces. He tended to mark the exits and assess the threat wherever he went and outside in a park was no exception. The people around them seemed to be like them—office dwellers in search of a reprieve. But he hadn’t stayed alive to the ripe age of thirty two by letting down his guard.
Esther liked to observe people, even if she didn’t engage with them easily. It was as if she had been sent from another planet to examine life on earth and learn the wheres and whys of humanity. He thought she was absorbed in staring at strangers, so it came as something of surprise when she spoke to him.
“Leo, can I ask you a question?”
“Fire away,” he said. Having determined there were no immediate threats in the area, he rolled onto his back and stared up at her, noting the way her fingers twisted idly though the end of her braid. He was momentarily distracted, wondering what it looked like loose, how much longer it would be. It must be immensely thick; the braid alone was almost the width of his hand.
“The first day we arrived, you called Ridge Lieutenant.”
“He was a Lieutenant Commander in the navy, the head of some elite SEAL squad.”
“It’s my understanding all SEAL teams are elite,” she said.
“Don’t try to provoke me on such a sunny day,” he said, closing his eyes against the sun’s glare. She knew he was a marine, knew the two branches were rivals. That much about his past he’d told her.
“You may have noticed there was no question in those statements. My question is this: why did he call you lieutenant in return?”
Leo sighed. He didn’t want to get into it, the whole sordid story. On the other hand, it was better that she hear it from him than someone else. “I was a Second Lieutenant in the corps.”
“Is that how you two knew each other? Do all lieutenants know each other?” she asked.
He laughed and opened his eyes. “No, but the world of military intelligence is fairly small. Ridge and I crossed paths a few times. And there was this woman.”
“Isn’t there always?” she asked.
He laughed again. “In my experience, yes.” He thought of Cassie. She’d been different from the others, good, decent. Leo had sensed the difference and been attracted to it for reasons he couldn’t articulate. He and Ridge had both pursued her. She chose Ridge. That had been aggravating. What was worse was that they broke up a month later, had never even been serious. It was one thing to lose out to a man if it ended up being a lifetime commitment and another entirely to lose out to a halfhearted fling. Leo had liked Cassie, really liked her. They’d been friends. After the breakup with Ridge, she called and texted, but he’d lost his heart for the game, for the chase. In that instance, being second best hurt too much.
“Is that why you don’t like him?” she asked. “Because of the girl?”
“That’s one of the reasons,” he said. He had closed his eyes again. He sensed her watching him and opened them again, staring up at her as she stared down at him in question. “You really want to know why?”
She nodded. “He’s my boss and you’re my handler. Seems like I should understand the animosity between you.”
“I’m not sure I could explain it in a way you’d understand. Was there ever a girl in your school you didn’t get along with?”
“I was homeschooled,” she said.
“Right, right,” he said. He swiped a hand over his face and sat up. “As I said, our paths crossed a few times and he was always golden, you know what I mean? Our superiors practically worshiped him, as did his team. His missions always went according to plan and succeeded. Meanwhile I couldn’t seem to get along with anyone.” He paused. “I was kind of waiting for you to jump in with some disbelief.”
She released a puff of air that might have been a laugh. “I suggest you stop waiting.”
He poked her. “Anyway, he was the golden boy, he got the girl, and then…”
“And then what?” she prodded, her somber tone now matching his.
“There was a mission that didn’t go as planned. Sometimes they don’t. We lost a few men. Some people said it was my fault. I didn’t listen, didn’t follow orders, wanted to do it on my own, make a name, be the hotshot.”
“Is any of that true?” she asked.
“Honestly? I don’t know. I was younger, cockier, more full of myself than I am now.”
“Now is when I’m going to jump in with my disbelief.”
It was so unexpected that he laughed and lay back down again. “The official inquiry said it wasn’t my fault, and I’m still here. I doubt The Colonel would have kept me on the payroll if he thought I was to blame.”
“But you still blame yourself,” she said, more gently than he’d ever heard her.
He paused, his throat and chest tightening painfully. “Yes.” Being a marine was the thing that was supposed to save him. He’d left his painful childhood and thrown himself into the job. When the job went bad, he had nowhere else to go and he began to wonder if it wasn’t the circumstances of his life that made it bad. Maybe it was him; maybe he really was a perpetual screwup.
Her hand reached out and rested on his chest, flattening like a comfortable weight on his sternum. “Liberosis.”
He opened his eyes. “Are you going to make me look that one up?”
“It’s the desire to care less about things, to want to let them go.”
The description perfectly fit the way he felt. He so badly wanted to let go of the old pain, self-doubt, guilt and recrimination. Drowning it in whiskey hadn’t helped; running away from people and the world hadn’t done a thing. What would make the old ache go away? Unconsciously, his hand covered Esther’s, his thumb smoothing over her fingers. Would she one day end up like him? Trying to find her own escape from the pain?
“Esther, you should go back home and leave this world,” he said. “It has to be better there than it is here.”
Her big eyes studied him, weighing her next words. “There are different kinds of pain, Leo.”
What kind of pain had she experienced at home? He wondered but wouldn’t ask. Already they’d veered too far into the personal. She was the job, nothing more. She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun, soaking it in.
“Ataraxia,” she murmured.
“What is that one?” he asked, but she didn’t answer. Later, he pulled out his phone and looked it up. Ataraxia: a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquility.
He wondered, then, if Esther said these words to define her own emotions or his because, at the moment she said it, it was what he felt. And then a new possibility occurred: maybe the words described them both.