Brody Comes Home

Chapter 1Brody Cox sat looking out the bedroom window. The apartment into which he’d moved that weekend was as neatly arranged as a footlocker before an impending IG inspection, everything precisely in its place. The old house had been converted into two apartments. He had the second floor. Old Mrs. Brill, who owned the place, lived downstairs. He could see two big oak trees from his vantage point, trees in which fat red squirrels and little striped chipmunks scampered. The grass under the trees was still lush and green. Later the bluegrass would brown out unless it was irrigated, and Mrs. Brill didn’t seem the type who would water her lawn. Now, however, everything he could see was intensely green and healthy looking. It was good to be back in the US, away from the oven-like deserts of Iraq, though somehow he didn’t yet feel at home, despite being in the town where he had grown up. Too many things had changed. The family business had prospered while he was gone. They’d added a second shop in nearby Colby. Things were going so well that his parents had turned the business over to his older brother Bob, sold the house in which the brothers had grown up, and moved to Santa Fe. Brody had some money coming from the government because of his Marine time. His parents had offered to underwrite the rest of his college expenses if he’d work full time during summers and part time during the school year at the shop. He and Bob had always gotten along well enough, primarily because they were six years apart and didn’t have much to do with each other. But he wondered what it would be like to have his brother for a boss. The people he’d gone to high school with had moved on. There was a big new addition on the hospital. New motels out by the interstate. More fast food chains than before. And empty storefronts downtown. Somehow Brody felt alone, more alone than he’d felt since he was on his way to boot camp. It was hard to imagine being here without his parents, without the family home. He missed his Marine buddies, too, guys he’d have died for. In the Marines your buds become your family. Guys like Smitty and Crede, who were still in Iraq. Hank, who was now in OCS. Imagine Hank an officer! Crazy-assed Joe who’d kept them all laughing, Joe who planned to make a career of the Marines because he just couldn’t think of anything on the outside he liked as well. Maybe that was understandable. At least the Marines looked after their own. He’d known he was giving up that security, he’d talked with older men who’d re-enlisted because they couldn’t face civilian life, willing to put up with the endless bullshit and even the dangers inherent in military life in order not to have to cope with life outside. Beresford, Kovack, and Lt. Wheeler flashed across his mind. There were no tears. He’d never wept for them. He shook his head to clear it from that scene. Being home hadn’t helped with the dreams. Two or three times a week he woke up in a cold sweat after the recurrent dream about seeing a Hummer with his two buddies and the lieutenant, a good officer, exploding about fifty yards away. Body parts flying everywhere, flames leaping into the air. When he took his exit physical, the captain who examined him had asked about dreams. Brody described the one he kept having. The doctor had suggested they’d probably become less frequent and eventually go away. “If you’re still having them in three months’ time, you’d better see a professional counselor.” “Sir?” “Yes, sergeant?” “Does professional counselor mean a shrink?” The captain had chuckled. “Yes, Marine, that’s exactly what it means. Now, get your uniform on and get out of here. You’re in great shape.” But he’d had the dream just the night before, waking him up at four. He’d been unable to get back to sleep. So now here he was, about to have to cope. With college. With a civilian job. With a world almost as homophobic as the one he’d just left. But at least on the outside he might have a chance of finding someone. The shop opened at nine. He was in the parking lot behind the store by 8:50, so he sat in the black four-year-old Grand Cherokee he’d just bought, trying to find something listenable on the radio when Sheila pulled up beside him in an old maroon Dodge Caravan. They got out of their cars and she ran the short distance between them, her arms out. “Oh, my God, Brody! You look fantastic.” She hugged him and stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you.” His smile crinkled the skin around his eyes as he looked down at her. She had put on a little weight. Not too much. She looked more womanly, not the slim girl he’d dated—and bedded—for a while in high school. Her light brown hair was shorter than she used to wear it, but her eyes were as intensely brown as he remembered. “Yeah, good to see you, too, Sheil,” he said, using the name he’d called her back then. “Married life seems to agree with you. How’s Jer and the baby, what’s his name?” Sheila pulled a key ring from the pocket of her khaki slacks and unlocked the back door. She punched in a number on the security pad. “Her name, Brody. I have a little girl. Susie. And they’re both doing fine, thanks.” Sheila was wearing a royal blue short-sleeve polo with the name of the shop, “Petal Pushers,” embroidered over the pocket. “I see you wore khakis. Let me get you a shirt and you can put it on.” After giving him an appraising look, she went into another room. Brody knew exactly where she was going. A closet in that room always held a supply of those tees in all sizes for the staff. His first one had been a medium when he started working there evenings and Saturdays in the ninth grade. She came back with the folded T-shirt and handed it to him. “Extra-large, right?” “Yeah, probably. If you’ll go out front, I’ll change.” She grinned. “Darn! I thought I was going to get to watch.” He grinned back. “Okay then, stay put.” He pulled off the white T-shirt he’d put on that morning and slowly replaced it with the “official” one. He made a point of flexing his muscles as he pulled on the company shirt. It fit tight enough to show off his shoulders, pecs, lats, and abs. “Jesus, jarhead, you looked good in high school, but now you’ve got a hella bod! You’re gonna be fighting ‘em off!.” “Ya like, huh?” “Oh, yeah. Now, let’s get some coffee started. We have a new coffee maker, but it works pretty much like all the others. Think you can remember how to do that?” “Sure, but isn’t that woman’s work?” “Technically I’m your boss. You may be Bobby’s brother, but you’re junior to just about everybody here except maybe Justin, and don’t you forget it!” She poured water into the reservoir. Then she put a filter in the top and began to count out scoops of ground coffee into it. “Who’s Justin?” “He’s the teenager that drives the delivery truck and generally helps out.” “I remember that job. I did it for a couple of years. Then my folks decided to let me work in the shop and taught me how to do arrangements. So Justin’s the low guy on the totem pole around here these days, I suppose?” “Well, except for you, maybe,” she said, and punched him none too gently on the shoulder. After she’d shown him the ropes, including how to use the new and much more complicated computer, they were in the back room. They could get to the counter before a customer did if any came in. She was working on an arrangement, Brody handing her stems as she needed them. When the arrangement was done, they put it in one of the big refrigerators. “Slow this morning.” “Uh huh. Mondays usually are. We were busy the end of last week, though. We had the usual bouquets to fix up for the churches on our list, and there was a wedding at St. Mark’s on Saturday. Missy and I set it up. Bobby and Justin went over that night and got all the stuff out of the church and left the fresh flowers for yesterday morning.” “If Justin’s a typical teen, he probably bitched about having to help on a Saturday evening.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He said he didn’t have anything else to do.” Sheila was bringing Brody up to date on what some of their classmates were doing when the bell tinkled to let them know someone had come into the shop. She looked at him. “You want to get this?” “May as well,” he said, straightening up. “Give a yell if you need help.” “Yeah, like you won’t be standing there listening to see if I do something wrong.” He went out to greet the customer. Woof, he thought as he saw the deeply-tanned man on the other side of the counter. About the same height as Brody, he wore his dark brown hair nearly as short on top as Brody’s, but not quite so high on the sides. He was wearing a hunter green collarless T-shirt which said Cromer Landscaping over the right pec. As he looked up, his greenish eyes bored into Brody’s. It was only then that Brody recognized him. “Cromer!” He didn’t extend his hand. “Cox. I heard you’d left the Marines.” His tone suggested Brody had been guilty of something like desertion. His eyes continued to bore into Brody’s. Brody looked right back at him. It became a contest to see who would break the eye contact. There was a rumble of distant thunder, not surprising for a hot northern Ohio summer day. “News travels fast in this little burg. So,” Brody said, “what can we do for you this morning?” Cromer’s face softened slightly. “I want you to deliver a dozen red roses to my wife. It’s her birthday.” “No prob. Do you want to fill out a card to enclose with them?” “Yeah.” Brody pointed to a rack that had a variety of cards for all occasions. When Cromer had written on the card, he handed it back to Brody. Brody told him the amount of the purchase plus tax and delivery fee, which he paid with a credit card. “When would you like us to deliver them?” “Oh, anytime today. You’ll put some fern and baby’s breath in with them, won’t you? I’d like her to get them before I get home, which may be about 6:30.” “Yeah, the fern and baby’s breath come with. The time shouldn’t be any problem either. Wanna give me the address and phone number?” Cromer gave him the information, saying the phone number was for his cell. “Don’t want you to call the house and spoil the surprise.” “We’ll take care of everything.” The other man nodded and left. Another rumble of thunder, closer this time. Brody noticed that on the card Cromer had written, You know I love you!—Dave. Somehow that struck him as strange, especially the underlining. When he returned to the back room, Sheila said, “Well, that was tense. I could feel the hostility between you two. I hope you aren’t going to be as stiff with all the customers as you were with him. What is it with you two?” “He graduated a couple of years before us. But I knew him because he was on the baseball team. Let’s just say we never liked each other. He was always on my case about something. I could never bat or field well enough to suit him. He thought I could have made better grades. I didn’t even fuckin’ stand up straight enough to suit him. And at the time he was a lot bigger than I was.” “Did he bully you?” “Physically, no. Verbally, all the time. Like I said, he just always hassled me, saying I wasn’t trying hard enough and shit.” Another customer came in, and while Brody was taking care of her, Sheila took a local phone order. Then they got a Teleflora order, and so it went. Sheila insisted that he fill the Teleflora order. She gave him a picture and told him to duplicate it. “Let’s see if you’ve lost your touch.” When he was finished, she giggled. “What?” he asked, bristling. “Did I screw up?”