But it also meant that she followed him directly from a crowded SUV to a crowded hospital waiting room, where again, any private discussion had to be curtailed.
Sorry about that kiss. I went too far, I know, but in all honesty, I don’t understand why you’re willing to defend other people but not yourself…? Peter Asshole calls Thomas Kingboyand boom, you’re ready to throw down. I mean, you were plenty polite—sure—at least at first, which is a fine strategy. I’ve seen you stand up for your brother and Kenneth, too. So maybe I’ve been going about this wrong—trying to push you to get so angry that you lose it—thinking that it’s anger you’ve got a problem with. Maybe it’s not about getting angry. Maybe it’s about buying into the myth that things are never gonna change when it comes to the way people treatyou…So you walk away from a battle you believe you can’t win…
Things Jim didn’t say as he sat in that hospital waiting room.
Kenneth’s surgery went well but it took seemingly forever. When the doc finally came out to announce that the kid was in the recovery room and doing well, Dunk and Thomas started making noise about returning to camp.
“I can drive the SUV back,” Ashley suggested so that Jim could go with them.
“Nah, I’ll stay,” he said.
She didn’t argue.
But then it was Ash, Clark, and Jim in the waiting room—waiting for Kenneth to be moved to a room where they could sit with him until his parents showed up—and Clark was still a mess.
“I should’ve known it wasn’t celiac,” he kept saying.
So Jim drew the kid into a conversation. SEAL 101. “How’s your writing?” he asked.
Clark blinked. “My what?”
“Your writing,” Jim repeated. “You any good at it? And I’m not talking about the sci-fi novel you started back in seventh grade that you keep on some old flashdrive, although that’s cool, too. I’m talking report-writing. Can you do it quickly and easily, or does it make your head explode?”
Clark glanced at Ashley, but she shrugged. She didn’t know where Jim was going, either. “I don’t hate it,” he said, “but I don’t exactly love it.”
“You got any electives left before you graduate?” Jim asked.
It was another question that made Clark exchange a bemused look with his sister. She shrugged again.
“I’m getting a liberal arts degree,” he said, “so…”
“That would be ayes,” Jim said. “Good. Take an old-school journalism course. Intro or basics. Who, what, when, where, how, and sometimes even why. Read some Ernest Hemingway and channel his style. Short sentences, direct and to the point. If you can learn to write a report quickly, you’ll be miles ahead of the game. For example, this evening, both your sister and I are going to have to write up reports about what happened out on the paintball field with Kenneth,andabout what happened in the car while we were driving to the hospital.”
It was clear that Clark still didn’t know what report-writing had to do with him, but he was immediately intrigued. “What happened in the car…?”
“We gave a ride,” Ashley said, “to three campers who were leaving SEAL World.”
“In my version of the report, I’m going to refer to them asthe quitters,” Jim interjected. “It’ll make it a little more brief and to the point.”
“And one of them made a comment about Lieutenant King—”
“A disparaging comment,” Jim added.
“At that point in the conversation, that was open to interpretation,” Ashley said, “so that won’t go into my report. But he definitelythem-ed the lieutenant. It wasn’t quite a fullthose people, but it was close—”
“So Team Leader DeWitt responded to his comment,” Jim continued, “as if he’d meantall menwith his douchebaggythem—not just the ones who aren’t, you know, blindingly white.”
Ashley looked at him. “Will you be usingdouchebaggyin your report, Lieutenant?”
He managed to keep a straight face as he nodded. “That orasshole-ish. I haven’t quite made up my mind about that word choice yet.”
She nodded—she, too, was working hard not to laugh. “The man in question—”
“The douchebaggy quitter.” Jim interrupted her again. “Yeah, that rings right. I’m definitely using that.”
That one broke her. “The douchebaggy quitter,” she repeated as she laughed, “attempted to put me in my place by calling mesweetheart, and then ended up referring to Lieutenant King asthat boy, clarifying his racist meaning of his previously-usedthem, and causing Lieutenant Slade to respond by slamming on the brakes and threatening to leave all three previously mentioned quitters at the side of the road.”
“Oh, my God,” Clark was wide-eyed and grinning. “I wish I’d been there.”
