“He’s eighteen, so he has the right to decide for himself, but obviously we’d rather you were on board with his decision. We want you to understand why we’re interested in him.”
“David said you were interested in smart, athletic kids with Pilots.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “men.” David still couldn’t do a load of laundry without dying all his underwear pink. No way was he an adult.
“That’s what we want, but not why. Do you know what a difference it would make to have young people like him in control rooms? People with stamina and brains who can pay attention to multiple stimuli, who can think on their feet?”
She took another sip of coffee. “You say ‘control rooms,’ but you mean battlefields. You mean storming through deserts and towns and compounds. You mean people who can aim a gun while figuring out if three guns are aiming at them.”
“Yes, that, too.” He dropped the smile entirely, at last. “That’s true, in the long run, but these are still the first people with Pilots to enter the service, and we still need to figure out how best to use them. This is a special program.
“My assignment is to look for smart, athletic young people with Pilots, to be trained for Pilot-specific maneuvers. I can’t say where he will or won’t be sent, but I can promise this program’s intent isn’t to train these soldiers and then lose them. There’s going to be a lot of money invested in them. We want them to stick around.”
The practicality of the money argument calmed her more than anything else had. She thanked Fuentes for meeting with her and left the café. She still couldn’t believe David had signed up—he had lied when he said the decision could wait until the acceptance letters came in—but at least Fuentes’s last lines had seemed honest enough.
“There’s going to be a lot of money invested in them,” he’d said. That was numbers, and numbers were her thing. David was an asset to the Army, not a pawn. She’d have to hang her hat on hope.
CHAPTER TWELVE
VAL
After David’s announcement, the world took on a different color. Army drab, maybe. Val drove him to school, as she did every day, letting him off outside the gate so he wouldn’t be seen with his mother. She tried not to take it personally.
Her day’s first class, her homeroom, was the eleventh-grade girls. Since the weather outside was still too foul to consider an outside activity, she readied the gym for volleyball, tensing the net and rolling out the ball cart.
“Have any of you gotten a visit from a military recruiter?” she asked the first few girls to straggle in. Joshlyn, one of her varsity runners, bobbed her head.
“Yeah, Ms. B. A few weeks ago? In civics?” She had an amazing capacity to turn statements into questions. Of course. In civics. Civic duty. Civic pride.
“What did they tell you?”
“She said it was a good opportunity? That we were exactly what the services were looking for, and they’d pay for college after if we wanted, right? And that she knew we were still weighing our options since we’re only juniors, but they’d be happy to cover senior year tuition for anyone whose parents agreed to sign a commitment for them ’til they’re eighteen. Ms. B? Are you okay? I didn’t say yes, Ms. B, just maybe. I don’t need their scholarship since I have a track scholarship already? Ms. B?”
Val realized she was staring at Joshlyn. The others had gathered on the bleachers. Morning announcements started, and the girls heaved themselves to their feet for the national anthem. Val put her hand over her heart, but didn’t mouth the words as she usually did. Commitments from parents to sell their kids into the service? Her mind was officially boggled. The morning announcements talked about a charity bake sale and a new bank of parking spots converted to charge electric cars. Nothing about recruiters.
After announcements, she had Tamara Habana lead some quick dance-style warm-ups, and then sent them off to make ten circuits of the gym. Blue lights bobbed, ponytails swished; everything was different, nothing was different.
Her second period was a spare. She picked a fight with poor Mr. Alvarez in the break room, accusing him of having used her mug, then accidentally used aspartame in her coffee instead of stevia. When an assistant principal walked into the lounge, she redirected her rage at him.
“Nick, what the hell are you thinking? Recruiters? Incentivizing?” She realized she sounded like Joshlyn, all question marks, and tried to locate her inner calm. She found it in her gut, punching her organs from the inside out, and tried to push away the hated temper that hulked inside her.
“We can talk about this. I’m sorry you’re upset.” He looked genuinely surprised at her reaction. He sat on the couch and motioned her to join him.
She perched on the arm. “Of course I’m upset. There are soldiers in my school, trying to convince my kids to fight their war when half these girls can’t even drive yet.”
“It’s part of the program, Val. I thought you knew, since David has one and all. The money for those new scholarships had to come from someplace. Anyway, they’re hardly recruiting. They’re laying out options.”
“Bull. Joshlyn Trent says they’re offering to pay for senior year for girls whose parents sign a commitment form.”
“It’s nonbinding.” He opened his palms. “They can change their minds, as long as . . .”
“. . . As long as what? As long as they pay out the loan? Do you know how bad that sounds?”
He let his hands fall to his lap. “I think it sounds pretty good to the girls whose parents are already going into debt to keep them in this school, and the ones who don’t know how they’re going to pay college
