Blow Up
To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame,
to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
21
Rowan dawdled. She lingered in the shower, took her time selecting shorts and a top as if it mattered. She even put in a few minutes with makeup, pleased when the dawdling transformed her into a girl.
Time enough, she decided, and went to hunt for Gull.
When she stepped out of her quarters, Matt stepped out of his.
“Wow.” She gave him and his dark suit and tie a lusty eyebrow wiggle. “And I thought I looked good.”
“You do.”
“What, do you have a hot date? Going to a wedding, a funer—” She broke off, mentally slapped herself. “Oh, God, Matt, I forgot. I wasn’t thinking. You’re going to Dolly’s funeral.”
“I thought I should, since we’re off the fire.”
“You’re not going by yourself? I’d go with you, but I’ve got to be the last person the Brakemans want to see today.”
“It’s okay. I’m just... I feel like I have to, to represent Jim, you know? I don’t want to, but... the baby.” He shoved at his floppy, sun-bleached hair with his fingers. “I almost wish we were still out on the fire, so I couldn’t go.”
“Get somebody to go with you. Janis packed out with us, or Cards would go if he’s up to it. Or—”
“L.B.’s going.” Matt stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again to tap his fingers on his thigh. It reminded her painfully of Jim. “And Marg and Lynn.”
“Okay then.” She walked over, fussed with his tie though it didn’t need it. “You’re doing the right thing by your family by going. If you want to talk later, or just hang out, I’ll be around.”
“Thanks.” He put a hand over hers until she met his eyes. “Thanks, Rowan. I know she caused you a lot of trouble.”
“It doesn’t matter. Matt, it really doesn’t. It’s a hard day for a lot of people. That’s what matters.”
He gave her hand one hard squeeze. “I’d better get going.”
She changed direction when he left, headed to the lounge. Cards sprawled on the sofa watching one of the soaps on TV.
“This girl’s telling this guy she’s knocked up, even though she’s not, because he’s in love with her sister but banged her—the one who’s not knocked up—when she put something in his drink when she went over to his place to tell him the sister was cheating on him, which she wasn’t.”
He slugged down some Gatorade. “Women suck.”
“Hey.”
“Fact is fact,” he said grimly. “So I’m riveted. I could get hooked on this stuff taking my afternoon, medically ordered lie-down. I get to malinger for another day while I get pretty again.”
She sat, studied the bandage over his cheek. “I don’t know. The hole in your face added interest, and it would’ve distracted from the fact your eyes are too close together.”
“I have the eyes of an angel. And a hawk. An angel hawk.”
“Matt’s leaving to go to Dolly’s funeral.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s wearing Yangtree’s tie.”
“We should get a couple more of the guys to go with him. Libby’s still on mop-up, but Janis packed out.”
“Let it be, Ro. You can’t fix every damn thing.”
He hissed through his teeth when she said nothing. “Look, L.B.’s going to stand for the base, and Marg and Lynn, because they worked with her. Matt, well, he’s like kin now with Jim’s baby and all. But L.B. and I talked about it. The way things ended up here with Dolly, it’s probably best to keep it to a minimum. Probably be easier on Dolly’s mom.”
“Probably,” she agreed, but frowned as she studied him. She knew that face, with or without the hole, and those big camel eyes. “What’s up?”
“Nothing except your interrupting my soap opera. Orchid’s going to get hers when Payton finds out she’s been playing him for a sap.”
She knew a brood when she was sitting next to one. “You’re sulking.”
“I’ve got a frigging hole in my face and I’m watching soap operas, then you come along and start carping about dead Dolly and funerals.” He shot her a single hot look. “Go find somebody else to rag on.”
“Fine.”
She shoved up.
“Women suck,” he repeated with a baffled bitterness that had her easing down again. “We’re better off without them.”
She opted not to remind him she happened to be a woman. “Altogether, or one in particular?”
“You know the one I hooked up with last winter.”
Since he’d mentioned her about a hundred times, shown off her picture, Rowan had a pretty good idea. “Vicki, sure.”
“She was coming out in a couple weeks, with the kids. I was getting a few days off to show her around. The kids were all juiced up to see the base.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. She changed her mind, that’s all. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea—I’ve got my life, she’s got hers. She dumped me; that’s it. She won’t even tell me why, exactly, just how she has to think of the kids, how she needs a stable, honest relationship and all that shit.”
He turned, aiming those angry, baffled eyes at Rowan. “I never lied to her, that’s the thing. I told her how it was, and she said she was okay with it. Even that she was proud of what I did. Now she’s done, just like that. Pissed off, too. And... she cried. What the hell did I do?”
“I guess... the theory of being attached to somebody who does what we do is different from the reality. It’s hard.”
“So I’m supposed to give it up? Do something else? Be something else? That’s not right.”
“No, it’s not right.”
“I was going to ask her to marry me when she came out.”
“Hell. I’m sorry.”
“She won’t even talk to me now. I keep leaving messages, and she won’t answer. She won’t let me talk to the kids. I’m crazy about those kids.”
“Write her a letter.”
“Do what?”
“Nobody writes letters anymore. Write her a letter. Tell her how you feel. Lay it all out.”
“Shit, I’m not good at that.”
“And that’ll make it even better. If you’re hung up enough to want to marry her, you can write a damn
