“Yes. Your profile was completed before we added the latest biometrics to the psychological part and your DNA sample shows some irregularities that I need to rule out as being caused by contamination during the collection process.”
I sighed. “Very well. How late is the center open?”
“They can wait for you until eight this evening.”
“I can be there by five.” I’d just have to let Carl know I’d have to miss tonight’s practice. I decided it would be best to text him after his class was over, when I’d already be on my way to the center.
“Excellent!” Xero said. “I will inform the Scholarship officer.”
As predicted, Carl was most unhappy.
“You did finally manage to get the speed right and stay in the lane, now you have to master the amount of spin to give the ball and improve your aim so you hit dead center,” he protested.
“I’m off tomorrow. I’ll go practice when the alley opens at twelve,” I promised him.
“Fine. But it’s Taco Tuesday, and now who will I go have tacos with? And isn’t the nearest center in Ogden?”
“It is,” I acknowledged.
“Can’t you just have them send a shuttle to pick you up and bring you back?”
I sighed. “I could, but for such a small errand, I wouldn’t feel right doing so. Xeranos didn’t offer me one either.” I didn’t add that the reason Xeranos probably didn’t was that I hated flying in shuttles. I didn’t mind being aboard one of our larger cruisers, but anything shuttle sized or smaller made me uneasy. I wasn’t a particularly huge fan of the human road vehicles either, but at least those weren’t hurtling through the atmosphere at rates that would disintegrate me if anything went wrong.
“Fine.” I could hear my friend pout.
“How about this,” I suggested, “I will complete my errand and pick up some tacos, take them back to my motel room, and we can Facetime while we eat.”
“Hell yeah! Ohh, I know, we can watch a movie while we eat.”
“What movie?” I asked warily, as Carl’s choices had been questionable in the past.
“The Brady Bunch Movie,” he answered. “You can’t get anymore American pop culture than the Bradys, man.”
“This is not one of your B movies?” I asked, just to make sure. “There are no killer tomatoes and the Bradys are not a murderous walking bunch of grapes or anything like that?”
He laughed heartily at that. “Oh, God, no. Wholesome family entertainment. We’ll watch the movie and then maybe I can get you to binge the series with me. My mom and I used to watch the reruns all the time. It was her favorite TV show ever, and I’m feeling kinda nostalgic. It was her birthday last week, you know.”
I hadn’t, but I did know that she’d died a few months ago, so this was as much about him missing his mother as it was some TV show.
“Then we should also have some cake.”
“Little Debbie Birthday Cake snack cakes,” he said. “You can pick them up at just about any grocery store. Since it was just the two of us, that’s what she always bought to serve on her birthday, along with some frozen mint chocolate chip ice cream cones.”
“So, tacos, the birthday snack cakes, and mint chocolate chip ice cream cones, and the Brady Bunch movie,” I said as I turned my car’s blinker on to take the off ramp.
“Yep!” he replied cheerily. “Call me when you’re settled and ready to start. Later, dude!” He disconnected the call.
4
ALEC
The job fair counselor smiled at me. “Says here you were in the Army,” he said, tapping on the paper I’d handed him.
I grimaced. “Yeah, but only for six weeks. I didn’t even get to finish Basic.” I hated this part. Everyone always glommed onto that part, as if I had actually gone through training and served. I hadn’t. Three weeks before graduation, I woke up with a killer headache. I’d tried to power through it, only for my DI to stop PT to ask me if I was alright as my nose had started bleeding. I tried to tell him I was fine, but then my arm started tingling and one side of my face went cold.
Ischemic attack, the docs said before, also diagnosing me with high blood pressure. I spent a few days in the hospital and then was told thanks but no thanks by Uncle Sam. Undiagnosed pre-existing condition, they said, so not service connected. It felt like a kick in the teeth. I thought everyone’s heart pounded really fast if they got angry or exercised more than they were used to. Turned out, not like that they didn’t.
So, there I was, eighteen and a washout who only checked the box marked yes on forms asking if I’d ever been in the military because I had been, and to deny it would have been a lie. But no way was I going to try to score brownie points for a job or anything with it. Instead, I’d mainly DoorDashed the past five years while hoping for something steadier, though easier for a while with the help of first Rory and then Kelly, until it wasn’t. Anything at all, legal would do as long as not too strenuous physically, but it was tough out there. Even getting on at a fast food place wasn’t easy peasy any more.
