Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

– Nina walked an afternoon patrol with Tolbert and Odin the Elkhound under a silky gray sky. They patrolled the lake perimeter road stopping to search vacant cottages, dilapidated bars, and crumbling ice cream stands.

Tolbert heard movement from "Joe's Pizza Parlor" and the two patrollers peered in a rear window. They saw Trevor-half his body blanketed in white powder-working around a giant mixer surrounded by bags of flour and something labeled ‘Qualbake’.

Tolbert asked, "What is he doing?"

"I think he’s trying to make dough for a pizza," Nina answered.

"Man, he must really like pizza."

She thought of the 'surprise' Trevor promised for their second date.

"No, but I do."

– Nina presented Trevor with a list of requirements for their second date. First, she did not want to shoot anything. Second, she did not want a crowd participating and, finally, she wanted to find out something about his life before ‘all this’.

Such conditions left only one option: he came to her apartment above the A-Frame’s garage with a pizza box from Joe’s, a bottle of red wine, and a CD. She met him at the door in a green turtle neck and jeans.

As for the pizza, the cheese posed the greatest challenge. Reluctantly, he used Parmesan because he could not find any edible caches of cheddar or mozzarella. But the dough-after sifting out infestations of bugs from the old flour-and the canned sauce turned out good. For a post-Armageddon pizza, it did not taste half-bad despite the odd cheese.

After dinner, they left the eat-in kitchen and migrated with wineglasses in hand to the living room. Trevor slipped a CD into the stereo and hit the "play" button before sitting on the couch next to Nina at a respectful distance.

After a moment, a woman crooned a gentle ballad

I go out walking, after midnight, out in the moonlight, just like we used to do…

She gazed at him in a manner that asked a question without saying a word.

"Patsy Cline," he answered.

"Patsy Cline? Well, that's a surprise."

Trevor explained the connection with his eyes pointing toward her but seeing something far away, long ago. He returned to his old world and she traveled with him.

"You haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen my dad and mom listening to Patsy. Patsy or Elvis. That is, cool 50’s Elvis not fat Elvis. I mean, we used to drive to my grandma’s out by Pittsburgh, back when I was a kid. It was like a five-hour drive. Super boring. So we’d listen to what my dad called ‘the classics.’ He’d put in a Patsy cassette and my parents would start mouthing the words to each other as they drove along. Then they’d turn and sing to me, then each other again. All the way out to Pittsburgh.

"My dad-seeing his lips moving and hearing Patsy Cline-I mean, you could only watch that for so long before you cracked up. Poor mom would laugh right at him. Both of us would, and he’d just keep on lip syncing."

His vision returned to Nina. She smiled; just a little.

"You really miss your parents, don’t you?"

His happiness faltered. She hurried, "What do you remember most about them?"

He sipped his wine and considered.

"You know, I think it’s how much they liked each other. I don’t mean just loved. Of course they loved each other; they married and had a wonderful kid, right?"

"Right."

He narrowed his eyes for emphasis. "But they really liked each other. They liked talking to each other and going places. I always felt I was a part of that, too."

"That’s nice."

The second track of the CD replaced the first.

Sweet dreams of you…every night I go through…

Trevor asked, "What about you? What do you miss about before?"

Nina set her glass on the coffee table and stared at her folded hands silently.

"What? What is it?"

She exhaled louder than she should have.

He said, "Go on, tell me. I can handle it."

"When you sent me out…" she stopped and rephrased. "When you had me go out and wipe out the Red Hands…well, one night the guys were sitting around the campfire talking about everything they missed. Sharing stories; stuff like that."

"Yes?"

"They were swapping stories and I…" she stumbled." I was cleaning my rifle. Breaking it down and cleaning it."

She pulled her eyes away from her hands and threw them to him, but Trevor could not see her point; he only saw her discomfort.

"I was cleaning my rifle for the fourth time that night. It didn’t need to be cleaned."

He shrugged his shoulders because he still did not understand.

"So I’m listening and I tried to think of what I missed from before all this."

"What was it you missed?"

Nina did not answer with words. Her eyes drooped and her hands fidgeted.

Trevor answered for her: "Nothing. There was nothing you missed."

She nodded slowly. It seemed to him that Nina expected to be judged.

"Nina, you can’t blame yourself for that."

"Before all this happened I was always different. I felt out of place. I heard the people I worked with or the other kids I went to school with talk about their problems and whatever was their big deal of the week and all that. To me it always seemed stupid. Ridiculous. Like wondering what tune the band was going to play while the Titanic is sinking."

"But now?"

"Now it’s different. Now I know why I am what I am."

" Who you are. You’re not a what, Nina."

She went on, "The truth is that I’m more comfortable-more at home-in this world than the old one. The truth is that there is a part of me that likes all this. A part of me that would miss it if things went back to normal tomorrow."

Not sadness now. Something else. He guessed, "Guilt? You feel guilty, don’t you?"

She bowed her head. "I feel guilty about a lot of things, but not this."

It astonished him to realize, "You’re ashamed. No, no. That’s not right."

"Everyone around me misses something or is fighting to put things back to the way they were. Me? It feels like this is what I was born for."

He said, "That just means you’ve had a purpose all your life, something that most people never know. I can tell you there are a lot of things at work here in ’all this’. For some reason, you’ve been given direction. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing in you. There’s a lot more. I know that."

Did he get through? He could not be sure. One thing he had learned about Nina Forest: getting through to her meant a lot of work. Whatever lay hidden inside that woman had long ago been surrounded by minefields and barbed wire and walls. It would not be enough to break in; she would have to try to work her way out from behind the defenses.

A familiar string of cords drifted from the speakers. Trevor broke the silence not with words, but by standing in front of her as she sat on the sofa and he held an open hand to her.

"May I have this dance, miss?"

Crazy…I’m crazy for feeling so lonely…

Her eyes widened like a deer in a headlight.

"I don’t dance. Or…I don’t dance very good."

"It’s okay," he said. "I don’t dance very good either." She searched for another excuse. "I don’t want to embarrass myself." He looked left, looked right, then returned his eyes to her.

"There’s no one watching."

What she said next nearly made him melt on the spot. He actually felt his legs weaken. "You’re watching."

He studied her. He knew her strength. Despite all that strength and courage there she sat, vulnerable. Afraid not of some monster conjured by that insane new world but by something so basic and human.

He whispered, "I promise not to stare."

She hesitated. Her eyes blinked bashfully.

Trevor asked her to, "Take a chance."

Her hand rose slowly, tentatively, until finding his grasp. Trevor guided her to the middle of the small living room where he gently grasped her right hand with his left and politely slipped his other arm around her waist. She searched for an awkward second before placing her free hand on his shoulder.