Marcia Talley - This Enemy Town

“You’ll never guess who I just ran into,” I said, plopping down heavily in the armchair next to his worktable.

“Who?” He put his pen down and turned toward me, giving me his full attention.

“Jennifer Goodall.” I waited for this news to sink in.

Paul didn’t even blink.

“She was down in the dressing room, talking to one of the mids.”

Paul’s features hardened. They could have been chiseled into the face of Mount Rushmore. He dragged his chair over to face mine. “I know,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Rage boiled up inside me. “What? You knew?”

Paul nodded glumly. “I ran into her in the sandwich line at Dahlgren one day.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” I exploded, each word a piece of shrapnel aimed straight at his heart.

“I thought it would upset you.”

“Upset me?” I sputtered, fighting for breath. “ Upset me? Why do you think it would upset me?”

Paul leaned forward and captured both my hands. He stood up, dragging me along with him, enclosing me in his arms, crushing me to his chest. “And I see I was right.”

I wormed a hand between us and pushed him away so I could look into his face. “Of course I’m upset, you idiot! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! And if you’re keeping that little secret from me, I can only wonder what else you may have to hide!”

“Don’t start that again, Hannah. I thought we laid that to rest a long, long time ago.”

“I thought we had, too,” I said quietly, remembering the cruise we took to the Virgin Islands that had gone a long way toward mending our damaged relationship. I fell back into my chair, then leaned all the way forward and rested my forehead on my knees. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Paul wisely kept his distance while I struggled to calm the lurching going on in my stomach.

“But what is she doing here?” I sputtered, looking up at him through wet lashes. “Tell me she’s just visiting.”

Paul shook his head. “I wish. But no, she’s stationed here. She’s Twenty-ninth Company officer.”

“How lucky for them.” I sat in my chair and pouted, barely aware of the Mozart symphony drifting from his radio, the volume set to low. “Why did the Navy send her back? I simply can’t believe it, not after all the trouble she caused, not just for you…” I ticked them off on my fingers. “… but the legal officer, not to mention the supe and the ’dant and the Secretary of the whole damn Navy!”

As if Paul needed reminding. It had been a nightmare. The press had jumped all over it, of course: NAVAL ACADEMY MID ACCUSES PROFESSOR OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT. The Sun and the Post had had a field day, using the news as an excuse to dredge up every scandal that had taken place at the Naval Academy for the past twenty years, from car theft rings to athletes cheating on exams to a female midshipman being handcuffed to a urinal, with sidebars about similar troubles at the Air Force Academy and West Point thrown in for good measure.

Paul managed a slight smile. “I don’t know, Hannah. Goodall’s detailer certainly didn’t consult me .” He pulled up his office chair, the rollers squeaking. “The military staff changes every two or three years. You know that, so maybe they didn’t know her history.”

Paul, a tenured professor, jokingly refers to the Academy’s military staff as “the temporary help,” but I didn’t buy it. “That incident had to be included in her jacket, in her fitness report?”

Paul swiveled his chair so he could look me in the eyes. “After Goodall dropped the charges against me, the Naval Academy graduated her and sent her off to the fleet. End of story.”

“You mean she went sailing off with a clean slate?”

Paul nodded. “Conduct issues that are resolved before graduation don’t become part of an officer’s official record.”

I thought about Jennifer Goodall’s blue eyes, pouty pink lips, and great big breasts blocking my passage in that narrow hallway. “What a good idea that is.” I crossed my arms across my own, comparatively inadequate chest and scowled at my husband. “Frankly, I was hoping she’d gone to sea and taken a long walk off a short, slippery deck.”

“‘Hard-hearted Hannah-’” Paul started the song, but I cut him off with a glare, thoroughly unamused.

“But surely somebody at the Academy remembers,” I insisted. “Or,” I said as a new thought occurred to me, “maybe she’s sleeping with her detailer.”

“Unlikely. But perhaps she knows where certain bodies are buried. That makes it easier when you need to call in some favors.”

We sat in awkward silence while I tried to make sense of the Navy’s stupid-ass decision.

Paul tried again. “I deal with the students, Hannah, not the company officers. Unless one of Goodall’s mids gets into academic trouble, I’m not likely to cross paths with the wretched woman.”

“With women like Jennifer Goodall,” I fumed, “even three-hundred-some acres is too small. I don’t want you within a hundred mile radius of that-that-” I cast about for the perfect word. “-that bitch ,” I finished triumphantly.

“Don’t worry, love. I have no interest in her whatsoever.” Paul waved a hand toward his papers. “Look, I’m almost done. Let me take you out for a drink?”

I sat in my chair, arms still folded, mouth still pouting.

Paul laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped.

“You look like a malevolent Buddha.”

“I feel like a malevolent Buddha,” I grouched. “I’m thinking up Buddhist curses.”

“Buddhists don’t curse,” Paul corrected me. “They’re all about peace and harmony.”

“You’re right,” I conceded. “But I’m still thinking up curses. And it’ll take more than a drink to get you off the hook. If you think I’m going to cook for you tonight, you are out of your freaking mind. Buy me dinner.”

Paul attempted to kiss the tip of my nose, but I turned my head and he connected with my earlobe instead. “Hannah!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll get over it. Just give me time to stew.”

I waited for Paul to put on his coat, and as we walked in silence out Gate 3 and down Maryland Avenue toward the State House, he reached for and captured my hand. He squeezed it-one, two, three-our private code for “I love you”-and I felt my load lighten, my doubts begin to evaporate. By the time we reached Galway Bay, I was pretty sure about Paul. But Jennifer Goodall? Who knew what that scheming bitch might do?

I’d forgotten until we got there that Tuesday isPub Quiz Night at Galway Bay, the Irish pub and restaurant on Maryland Avenue that was our regular hangout. After hugs all around, Peggy, the hostess, showed us to a table for two near the front, and we’d just gotten settled with the menus when my sister Ruth breezed in, out of breath and unwinding a long bright purple scarf from around her neck. She’d knitted it herself, I knew, row after row, longer and longer, until the yarn she bought on sale had run out.

Paul and I picked up our coats and cheerfully moved to a nearby table for four. “I thought I’d find you here,” Ruth said, breathing hard. “Hutch will be along shortly.”

Hutch was short for Maurice Gaylord Hutchinson, attorney at law and my sister’s live-in boyfriend. The previous fall they’d bought a house together on Southgate, a gracious Victorian with a lawn that sloped gently down to the quiet waters of Spa Creek. Must be nice.

“You’re just in time, too,” Paul announced with a narrow-eyed look at me. “Hannah and I were running out of things to say to one another.”