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Where were all the employers who were supposed to give preferential treatment to veterans? Where were all the townspeople lined up to welcome me home? Once again, life proved to be less ideal than advertised.
I sat down at the counter at the diner and ordered a sandwich. People were staring, but I didn’t care. Nobody was brave enough to come talk to me, and even the waitress was nervous as she slid my meal across the counter. I thanked her with a tight nod, not even sparing a smile. It was just the kind of homecoming I had expected.
By Friday, I was convinced that I wasn’t going to find work anywhere else. It was my dad’s offer or nothing. I showered and shaved since I wasn’t going to ever show up for work ungroomed, no matter how much I detested the position. I put on a pair of worn jeans and a clean T-shirt and ordered myself an Uber.
It took twenty minutes for the ride to get there, since apparently no one inside Singer’s Ridge was working for the app. They drove me in silence to the lumberyard and dropped me off. I left my cane at home. I would probably regret it, but I needed to learn to function without a crutch. I didn’t want to look incapable, even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to haul lumber. I wandered through the customer area, looking for the office.
A guy in a green shirt approached me. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the office,” I said.
“It’s that building back there.” He pointed past rows and rows of stacked boards to a regular-looking house at the far end of the yard.
“Thanks.” I gave him a mock salute. If we were going to be working together, I wanted to make an effort to not be a dick.
It felt like the house was a mile away. I set my jaw and forced myself to continue. I wasn’t going to punk out on my first day before I had even really started. Making it to the house felt like a cause for celebration, but I couldn’t throw a party. The real test hadn’t even begun. When the job actually started, I knew I was in for a long day.
The front door was open, and I stepped inside without knocking. The living room was made up like an office, with a desk and a waiting area. I almost focused on the couch right beside the door, thinking how nice it would be to sit down. Then I saw the woman behind the desk and all other thoughts fled from my mind.
Chestnut hair framed a gorgeous face. Her nose was turned up just enough to make her look like some movie star who hadgotten lost in backwater Tennessee. Dark lashes framed wide eyes as she stared back at me in shock. She was wearing a loose-fitting blouse, pale green to match the company’s colors. It offset her skin in the most delicious way, the shimmering fabric doing little to hide the swell of large breasts.
“Allison Klein?” I remembered her from high school, though she hadn’t been nearly as tempting then.
“It’s Aly,” she answered, distracted.
There was a strange look in her eye, as if she couldn’t decide how to react to me. On one hand, she seemed intrigued. We hadn’t seen each other for nearly a decade, and the last time we had been together in chemistry class, we hadn’t said even two words to one another. That had been my fault. If I had known she would grow up to be such a stunning creature, I would have made the time to talk to her.
The other emotion I saw in Aly’s gaze didn’t sit so well. There was anger, or was it disappointment? What did she have to be angry about? When did I ever step on her toes? I ran through my memories of high school, buried beneath memories of war. I couldn’t come up with a single instant where I’d actually had a conversation with her, much less said anything inappropriate.
“Are you here to speak with Porter?” she asked finally.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I guess.”
Aly pressed a button on her phone and picked up the receiver. “Lincoln Matthews is here.” She looked up at me, returning the phone to its cradle. “He’ll be right down.”
“I’ll have a seat,” I answered, grateful to be off my feet for a moment.
I wanted to think of something to say to her, to keep the conversation going. Who was I kidding? There was no conversation, just a lot of awkward silence accompanied by a business transaction. I wanted to know how she’d been. Did she always work here? Was she happy in Singer’s Ridge? None of those topics seemed to be appropriate though. I was assuming some kind of familiarity that didn’t exist, merely because we had known each other as kids.
Before I could come up with something decent to say, a man descended the staircase. He was fit enough to be one of my brothers in arms, but I knew he wasn’t. He was tall and sure of himself, exuding confidence with his every stride. This was Porter, my almost brother-in-law. Reluctantly, I left the couch, feeling the familiar tug in my injured leg that came from overuse.
“Linc,” Porter said, using my high school nickname.
I nodded. “Porter.”
All three of us, Aly, Porter, and myself, had been in the same class in Singer’s Ridge High. Unfortunately, I didn’t know either of them very well. High school had been one of the worst times in my life, right up there with Afghanistan. Looking over my entire existence, there weren’t many bright spots. Aly might have been one of them if I had given her a chance. I doubted she was still single, though I didn’t see a ring on her finger.
Porter raised his hand hesitantly, then drew it back. He stepped forward as if he were going to give me a hug but thought better of it. “I don’t know whether to hug you or shake your hand,” he admitted. I offered a hand, and he took it with a grin. “Welcome back. Thank you for your service.”
I flinched. I had heard that line from every doctor and nurse at the VA. Every politician on television said the same thing. It was almost meaningless. My service had gotten me a bunch of bad memories and an injured leg that I was probably going to have to baby for the rest of my life. I knew Porter was coming from a good place, so I tried to be appreciative. I hoped for Gina’s sake that he was usually more genuine, but it really didn’t matter. He was going to be my boss, so I put on a quick smile and mumbled, “Thanks.”
“My office is upstairs,” Porter said.
I nodded. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that he had come from upstairs, seeing as how I had just witnessed him coming down. But I held my tongue. All the niceties of society had been burned away by my trial in the desert. I would have to rediscover them if I was going to be successful at work. Then again, all I wanted was enough money to move away, so maybe I didn’t have to play too nice.
I followed Porter upstairs, setting my jaw against the pain in my leg. His office looked like it used to be a bedroom. There was a desk, a few chairs, and some filing cabinets, almost the same layout as the reception area. I settled myself into a seat without being asked, eager to take the weight off. It was obvious from the moment I stepped through the door that Porter was in some kind of recovery program. Posters of mountains and sunshine dotted the walls with their twelve-step lists and “one day at a time” slogans.
“Gina’s eager to see you,” Porter said, cutting through the crap.
