Tuesday, my mother takes the day off work. “I thought we could spend some time together,” she told me over pizza last night. I guess Roy has to work, because it’s just going to be the two of us. I get up early and walk to the coffee place around the corner, unwilling to face her without some caffeine and sugar under my belt.
The line is short this morning. I order a latte and a cinnamon roll, then shuffle down the counter to the pickup line.
“Hey, Jude.”
I look up. At the counter, Keith Dunfee, Maggie’s ex, is nursing an iced tea. They lasted all of twenty seconds sophomore year. After Maggie had slept with his big brother, Scott. That was some kind of baggage. Nasty baggage, if the wrong person ever opened it.
I move around the line to join him. “How’s it going, Keith?”
He shakes his head. His skin is gaunt beneath the summer tan, the dusting of freckles prominent. “Kind of rough, actually.” He takes a sip of his iced tea. “Scott’s back.”
Maggie and Keith had been a long time ago by high school standards. He wasn’t her type, just a B student with B-level charm, but he worked part-time at the local animal shelter, which made him more of an A minus in Maggie’s book. Keith had been her attempt at a normal high school boyfriend.
But nothing was ever normal with Maggie Kim.
Scott was more of a stereotypical teenaged dreamboat— a hunky blond football player who worked at the equestrian center. He was also a soldier, and Keith’s idol. Hell, Keith might’ve been glad to get Scott’s hand-me-downs once he found out.
But maybe Scott had felt differently. Maggie was the last girl he slept with before leaving the country. Finding out she had moved on might be one thing, but moving on with his kid brother?
I take the seat next to Keith and face him. “You heard about Maggie?”
“Yeah. I know you guys were close.” He watches his cup make a ring on the counter. “Sorry.”
“Me too.” I rest my elbows on the counter. “When did Scott get back?”
“Not soon enough to say good-bye.” He turns to me. “She ever tell you she slept with him? The week before his deployment.”
I nod slowly, alarm bells ringing in my head. “Who told you?”
“Scotty did. When I first started dating Maggie, my mom sent him pictures from the spring dance, and he thought I should know.”
So much for motive. Scott was up-front and honest. Maybe it came with the uniform, a twelve-step plan for making amends while at war.
Down the counter, the barista calls my name to pick up my order. I ignore her. “How did that go?”
Keith smirks. “How do you think it went? I was pissed she hadn’t told me. I mean, we weren’t together or anything, so what are you going to do? It’s not like she was a virgin. But she could’ve said something.” He clenches and unclenches the hand holding his iced tea.
“So what did you do?” I prompt.
“I confronted her about it and she told me everything.”
I frown. “There was more?”
He cuts me a look.
“It’s Maggie. There was always more.” He relaxes his grip on the cup and exhales. “She was Scott’s pen pal. Wrote a letter to him every week from the day he left, even after we broke up. Real letters, too, not e-mail. Perfume and everything.” Keith smiles. “Scott said it made him feel like a doughboy or one of those guys in World War II.”
I spin in my seat, my mind doing a few revolutions of its own. Maggie had been keeping up with Scott all this time. Or maybe Keith was the hitch in their longer romance? Either way, it wasn’t a stretch to believe he’d think those letters meant something more. If the soldier boy was back, maybe their reunion went wrong. Maybe Corporal Punishment had finally lived up to his nickname. “You think she was carrying a torch for him?”
“No, nothing like that. It was just . . . The military wasn’t Scott’s first choice, and when his assignment came up in Afghanistan, well, nobody really wants to go to a war zone, right? But every few weeks, he’d get this batch of letters smelling like flowers and all the guys would go crazy. It made him feel . . .”
I think of how it would have made me feel. How it did make me feel, every time Maggie turned her attention my way.
“Loved.”
Keith considers it. “Yeah, I guess. Loved.”
I can see the appeal for her, writing love letters to a man in uniform. But why keep it from me?
A sour taste fills my mouth. I swallow and ask the question anyway.
“Did she say anything in her last letter to Scott?”
Keith wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “You mean like, ‘good-bye, cruel world’?” He laughs. “No. She knew Scotty was coming home. It’s got him messed up, making it back in one piece to find out she’s gone. The last thing she said to him was ‘see you in July.’ To be honest, that’s why I don’t think Maggie killed herself.”
I could hug Keith for saying it, for agreeing with what I’ve known all along. “So what do you think really happened?”
He sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “Scotty used to go on patrol every few days with his team and they always made it back somehow. But then, one day, there’s this random helicopter crash and two of his buddies are killed.” Keith takes a sip of his drink and fixes me with a look. “The majority of accidents take place within five miles of home, right? Cosmically, it sucks, but it’s true.”
“Is that how they comfort you in the army these days?” I say. “With statistics?”
Keith slides down off his stool. “Come on, Jude. We’re in high school. We’re like salmon swimming upstream. It’d be a miracle if we all survived.”
I stare at him. “Seriously. You’re comparing us to fish.”
Keith smiles sadly. “Not everyone makes it to twenty-one.” He rubs his eyes. “When’s the funeral? Scott and I’d like to be there.”
“Thursday. I’ll send you the details.”
He comes closer and gives me the hug I’ve been holding back. “See you at the funeral.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
He pushes the door open and a gust of heat rushes in to fill his place.