Disclaimer:
Not mine. Not mine. Not mine. David Bellisario's (Repeat twice more because it takes to long to type.Author's Notes:
If the title doesn't give it away, this is part two in the Lost Love Rediscovered series. Emalynn Michaels is mine. Thank you. Read on.Lost Love Rediscovered-Part Two
By Gayle F. Cox-Moffet
"That's it?" Victor dropped his sandwich back onto his plate and just stared at Emalynn for a moment. "It sounds so simple."
"It is. I can either be happy that I'm alive, or mope because I'm dying. I prefer to be happy."
Victor felt his head nod. He understood. All his memories of Emalynn from high school centered around her smiling or laughing. She had never been moody, not that he remembered at least. "I understand-kind of."
"That's all I ask." Emalynn jumped in her seat. "Pager. It's on vibrate." She missed the amused smile on Victor's face as she checked the number on the display. "It's Keith. Be right back." She was out of her seat before Victor could respond.
He sat back in the booth and pulled lettuce from his sandwich as he wondered who Keith was and how he had Emalynn's pager number. She had told him she had barely settled in, so why did some man-Keith-already have her pager number?
Get a grip, Victor. You're obsessing. The part of his mind that was reeling in unappropriated jealously wasn't listening to logic from the other half.
Emalynn walked back over and tossed a couple of bills on the table. "I have to get to work. There are layout issues, and Keith wants me to cut some of my article to fit."
"Who's Keith?" Victor cursed himself silently at the quick edge in his voice.
"My editor." Emalynn reached for Victor's arm and wrote something in black ink before clipping her pen to her jeans pocket. "There's my pager number. It'll probably be the easiest way to get ahold of me."
He stood up, dropping his own bills on the table and followed her outside. "Will you have time for dinner tonight? I'd like to finish catching up."
Emalynn hailed a cab and looked over the open door at Victor. "God willing, layout shouldn't take to long. I could definitely have dinner. Where?"
"I thought I might cook at my place." Victor was suddenly aware of how his invitation might be taken and was grateful he didn't blush easily.
"Can you cook? I've heard horror stories about Marines and they're lack of culinary skills." She beamed.
"Yes, I can cook. I promise." He gave her his address and ignored her last comment of macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs not counting as a meal as the taxi pulled away.
*
At his apartment that afternoon Victor shucked his uniform for a pair of dark blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a gray ribbed sweater. He pulled the sleeves up to his elbows as he rummaged in the spice cabinet for basil.
He found the basil and chuckled quietly to himself as he pictured the mock-fright on Emalynn's face when he had suggested cooking dinner. Victor did know how to cook, and if the few dinner guests he had had were any indication, he was pretty good. Two decades in the Marines had taught him-if nothing else-that cooking skills were a necessity if he wanted to eat decent food on his off-hours. Some Marine stories were tall tales. The stories of the pungent, disgusting chow weren't.
Victor tasted the spaghetti sauce, added more brown sugar, and left it simmering as he tossed a package of noodles into boiling water. The phone rang as he added extra parmesan to the garlic bread.
"Hello?"
"Victor? It's Emalynn. I just finished."
'You're on your way?"
"About to be."
"Great. How'd you find my number?"
There was a short paused as Emalynn held a quick conversation off the phone. "Jason gave it to me. I should be there in about twenty minutes. Bye."
"Ja-Tiner." Victor realized he was talking to a dead line and hung up, returning his attention to the food on the stove.
He finished the sauce, slid the garlic bread into the oven, and made quick work of a tossed salad.
The oven dinged as a knock sounded on the door. Victor twisted the oven knob off and hurried over to open the door. Emalynn smiled up at him.
"Hi. Hope I'm not late."
Victor returned the smile and took her coat. "Perfect timing, actually. I just turned off the garlic bread. Hope you like spaghetti."
"Spaghetti is great." Emalynn looked over the apartment. She noticed a small bookshelf by the couch and crouched down to look. There were a few manuals on Marine training, but the rest were titles from biographies to fiction to adventure stories. "Your reading style is certainly eclectic."
Victor shrugged. "Most of them I picked up on a whim and enjoyed."
"I remember you did that in school, too. I can't remember you without a book of some kind. You were so quiet. It was-" Emalynn cut off and blushed slightly.
'It was what?"
"Nothing."
Victor raised his eyebrows and smiled. "You were going to say something."
"No, I wasn't." Emalynn broke eye contact and went to browse the CDs. Mozart. Jazz. The Beatles. The Supremes. Trisha Yearwood. Barenaked Ladies. "You listen to Barenaked Ladies?" She raised her voice so Victor could hear her in the kitchen.
"My music taste is like my taste in books."
"Completely eclectic." Emalynn pulled a random CD from the rack and found the 'on' button for the CD player. She slipped the disk in and started it playing.
Victor walked out of the kitchen holding the sauce pan in oven mitts and smiled. "Nice selection."
"You don't strike me as the Goo Goo Dolls type. Do you want me to get the spaghetti?"
"If you don't mind. Over mitts are on the rack above the stove. "I didn't realize you had me in a music type."
Emalynn hefted the noodles off the stove and took careful steps to the dining area. "As far as you know, I don't." She slid the pot onto its hotpad. "I didn't realize how hungry I was until I got here. Some twit at the paper wanted me to stay late and help with final layout."
"Is that who you were talking to when you called?" Victor watched her think a minute. Her eyes rolled up and her eyebrows rose as she bit slightly on her bottom lip.
"You mean the three seconds on the phone where you heard muffled cursing? Yes, that was the twit."
They sat down and kept talking as they pulled spaghetti from the pot and ladled sauce.
Emalynn loved the sauce. It was somewhat sweet, but she couldn't get Victor to tell her the recipe. "What's in it? This is fantastic."
"Galindez, Victor. Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps. Serial number-" He smiled when Emalynn tossed her napkin at him. "Sorry, it's a secret."
"Oh, come on, who would I tell?"
" I don't know, but you're a reporter, you could be wired." He delivered the line deadpan and closed his eyes as Emalynn splattered him with sauce all the way down his face. "Now I'm really not going to tell you."
*
Victor whistled through his morning routine the next day. Emalynn had stayed until midnight, telling stories of being on scene for a story and how much she was enjoying DC and getting out of New Mexico.
Victor had told her how he had come to work for JAG, and did an impersonation of Lieutenant Roberts after his jaw had been broken. He had her laughing at the descriptions of his running around looking for Limp Bizkit tickets just days after he had joined the staff.
Neither of them had mentioned her illness, or what it could do to her. Victor had hugged her goodnight at the door and watched her walk down the all. He had had to hold back the urge to kiss her goodnight and realized it hadn't been too difficult. He was good at keeping his emotions in check.
"Gunny, you seem to be in a good mood." The Admiral's voice sounded pleased as they rode the elevator.
"Yes, Sir."
"I'm assuming it has something to do with the woman from yesterday."
"Yes, Sir."
The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. "Good luck, Gunny."
"Thank you, Sir." Victor sat at his desk and started on his paperwork, attempting to keep his wrist concealed. He couldn't quite get Emalynn's pager number off his arm in the shower that morning.
"Gunny, what's on your arm?"
Victor snapped to attention when he heard Colonel Mackenzie's voice. "It's a pager number, Ma'am."
"Show me your arm, Gunny."
He held it out and kept his eyes straight forward as he felt the Colonel move his arm form side to side.
"Could you not get this off?"
"No, Ma'am."
The Colonel held back a smile and dropped his arm. "As you were, Gunny."
"Yes, Ma'am." Victor sat back down and picked up his pen. He heard her walk off and hid his look of embarrassment. He'd have to get back at Emalynn for writing on him.
His phone rang. "Judge Advocate General, Gunnery Sergeant Galindez speaking."
"Hey, Victor." Emalynn's voice sounded tired.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. I felt sick this morning, so I went to the doctor. He's worried that the cancer is worse than they first thought. I'm about to go into my first chemo treatment this afternoon."
Victor felt his throat constrict. "Do you want me there?"
"No, they'll keep me overnight and work the chemo for a week. I'll be at George Washington Memorial."
"I'll bring you some spaghetti tonight."
"That's sweet, Victor. I hate hospital food, but I'll be so nauseous I'll probably get sick form the smell. Just promise to visit me."
"I will."
"Okay. Bye Victor." Emalynn hung up.
He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. She wasn't supposed to be in chemo yet. She had a week. Victor had a week. He was supposed too, at least.
Damnit. She wasn't supposed to be sick in the first place. If I hadn't been such a coward in high school, we might have had the last twenty years together.
*
"Victor, wait up!"
The tall, gangly boy in an ill-fitting sweatshirt shifted his pile of notebooks, textbooks, and paperback novels to his other arm so he removed the pen from his mouth. "Hi, Emalynn."
Her hair was blunt cut at her shoulders with a thick layer of bangs across her forehead. She had a large, dark green tote bag over one shoulder, and wore a black turtleneck with a pair of well-worn bell-bottom jeans and black boots.
She's gorgeous.
"Do you have a date for prom, Victor?"
Breathe. Just breathe. "No, I don't. I'm probably going to stay home."
Emalynn fell into step beside him as they walked down the hall. "You're staying home on junior prom night? You can't do that, Victor. It's prom!"
"I have no one to go with. I don't dance. It seems like a waste of time." He shrugged and winced when Emalynn punched his arm.
"Don't be so nonchalant, Victor. Prom is a big thing. Isn't there someone you want to ask to prom?"
You. You. You. "No one who'd say yes."
"I'd say yes."
No, you wouldn't. You're just being nice. "I'm just going to stay home."
Emalynn shrugged. "Okay, but call me if you change your mind."
"Yeah, whatever."
*
Victor lay his pen back down and shook his head as he rubbed his eyes. I'm an idiot. I could have had her for the last twenty years. She said as much at the reunion and yesterday. I'm an idiot.
*
He stood along the wall closest to the auditorium door. He was having flashbacks of every high school function he'd ever attended. Twenty years later, and I still won't dance.
Victor smiled to himself and decided to mingle before he was cornered by yet another woman who had a thing for Marine greens. He shook hands with a few people he actually remembered and brushed off a fight against a half-drunk man who swore he could 'kick the ass of any stringbean Marine', before going over to the punchbowl and pouring himself a glass.
"Victor, is that you?"
He turned to his left and almost lost his grip on his cup when he saw her. Her hair was longer, she didn't have bangs, and she wore a long, paisley skirt instead of bell-bottoms, but he still knew her. "Emalynn…H-hi." How is it I'm stuttering? I never stuttered before.
"You look fantastic." She smiled. "It looks like you've grown out of your awkward stage."
"The Marines usually work that out of a person in boot camp." Victor smiled at her softly and wondered how she couldn't have aged in twenty years. "I heard someone on the floor say you got married after we graduated."
Emalynn gestured out to the floor. "Yes, he's a dentist. His name is Daniel. You never called me."
Victor raised his eyebrows at the sudden change of topic. "Called you?"
"Junior year, for prom. You never called. I went with Daniel."
"And now you're happily married."
Emalynn turned away. "I would have said yes. You should have called."
Victor felt his fingers lose their grip on the cup and was to stunned too notice the punch splatter across his shoes. I should have called.
*
"Gunny, my office!" Admiral Chegwidden's voice boomed through the office.
Victor groaned under his breath and stood up. "Yes, Sir!" He kept measured steps to the office and knocked, entering at the gruff 'Yes?'. "You wanted to see me, Sir?"
"Have a seat, Gunny. You seem distracted today." The Admiral looked up and removed his glasses. "Does this have anything to do with lovely Ms. Michaels from yesterday?"
"No, Sir."
"Gunny, I've been a lawyer for years. I know things. You're lying."
"Permission to speak freely, Sir?"
"Go ahead."
"She has breast cancer. She's served her husband divorce papers. She's come across the county to find a friend. For some reason, she's come looking for me. She told me her chemo wasn't supposed to start until next week. They're starting it in a few hours."
"How long are they holding her in the hospital?"
"All week. I'm not sure how chemotherapy works, but I know she'll be tired and sick."
"I'm going to grant you compassionate leave for the week. If you need more, find me."
"Admiral, Sir, with all due respect-"
Chegwidden waved him off. "No arguments, Gunny. Get to the hospital. Call in with a number in case we need you. You're dismissed.
Victor snapped to attention. "Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." He turned on his heel and exited the office.