Chapter 14

Second place is the first loser. Last place is the biggest loser.

At night, I'm so shaken up by the finality of our breakup that I skip my normal facial

cleansing routine and just climb into bed. Avi and I have broken up before, but this time its for real. I try sleeping, but with the squeaky springs above me (Vic's indentation getting more and more pronounced), along with the fact that I can't get the awful conversation Avi and I had at the obstacle course out of my mind, sleeping is impossible. Listen, deep down I know I should have come clean to Avi about my non-relationship with Nathan. But I couldn't.

Avi uses a rifle, Krav Maga, and non-communication for self-defense. I use games, attitude, and manipulation.

No matter what I've thought in the past, we might just be too different.

In the morning, our team gets assigned kitchen duty, (thanks to Tori and her tirade yesterday on the obstacle course). It's not bathroom-cleaning duty, so I'm okay with it. Again, they wake us up at the crack of dawn. Actually, it's before the crack of dawn, because it's still pitch black outside. My team is held back while everyone else does an activity. Ronit leads us to the kitchen, and even though I don't want to see Avi, I can't help scanning the base looking for him. He's nowhere in sight.

Noah, the American IDF soldier from Colorado, is in the kitchen waiting for us.

"Hey, Noah," I groan, my eyes still at half-mast.

"Hey. I'm going to give you assignments." He points to a humongous pot half the size of me. "Two of you need to set baskets of bread on the tables. Two of you need to put water in that pot. When it boils, put three hundred eggs inside and let them sit in the boiling water for fifteen minutes. Two of you need to put jam in the bowls. And two of you need to make coffee."

We divvy up the jobs.

As soon as Miranda and I start pulling jars of jam from the huge refrigerator, bees swarm around us.

"Noah, the bees are bothering us," I tell him.

Noah waves some of the bees away. "Yeah, that's kind of a hazard of working here. Living with bees becomes part of your daily life."

"I hate bees," Miranda tells him.

"You also hate me," I blurt out.

"I can't believe you just said that."

"Why not? It's true."

Miranda huffs and walks over to talk about me or complain about me to Jessica. I just want Miranda to tell me what I did to piss her off so much. If I don't know what it is, I can't fix it any more than I can fix what went wrong with Avi.

Noah helps me pull more jars of jam out of the fridge. "What's her problem?"

"I wish I knew."

Noah shakes his head. "I keep my expectations low, so nobody disappoints me."

"Yeah, well, I have high expectations." I look toward Miranda. "I guess my friends do, too."

"Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier." Noah waves his hand around, gesturing to the entire kitchen. "You think I wanted to be assigned kitchen duties? Nope. But to be honest, at least it's quiet and the biggest pests I have to deal with here are the bees.

Besides, I'm only here for three months and then I'm getting transferred to another base to get trained as an instructor. It's all good."

"You're a better person than me."

Listen, I know who I am and what my strengths are. And my strengths do not include having little or no expectations. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, then, when people let me down.

After Noah leaves me alone for a minute with instructions about how to ladle spoonfuls of jam into the plastic bowls, I'm having trouble fending off the four bees hovering around me. You'd think dropping globs of the jam would be easy, but it's not. It's sticky and messy and two of the bees just got stuck in the jam.

"Umm... Noah... I think there's a problem."

Noah is at my side. Miranda is right behind him, so I guess he was able to coax her back over here. "What's the jam?" he asks, then laughs. "Get it. What's them? You're scooping the jam"."

You gotta love it when someone laughs at their own jokes.

"Yeah, I don't know how to break the news to you, but a few bees are stuck in the jam," I tell him.

"Just pick 'em out before you set the bowls on the tables," he says, as if it happens every day. He doesn't even peer in the bowls to see the annoying stinging creatures struggling for their lives. That's what they get for hovering around the jam, I guess.

Noah leaves Miranda and me to fish out the bees while he helps Eli and David with the eggs.

I look down into the first bowl of jam. I can do this. I'm trying to think about the consequences of an IDF soldier, jam on his bread, biting into a little bee corpse as a bonus treat. At least they're not those fuzzy bees, because having a mouthful of that fuzz would definitely not go over well.

I spot a bee in the next bowl. With shaky hands, I slowly fish it out with a spoon and flick it into the garbage can. "This is so gross," I say to nobody in particular, since my partner Miranda is pretty much ignoring me and everyone else is doing other tasks.

Within five minutes I've inspected and de-bee'd eleven bowls. I look into the twelfth bowl and find the next bee. Seriously, don't bees have eyes and see their cousins and brothers drowning in the sticky stuff? You'd think they'd be smart enough to stay away, but no. Their little bee brains aren't equipped with street smarts.

I slowly fish out another bee and head for the garbage can. The bee is still alive--I can see it walking in the jam on my spoon.

Eww. I suppress a gag. If it crawls anywhere near my hand, I'm dropping the spoon and running out of here.

I'm almost to the garbage can when I feel a sharp pain on my butt. "Ahhhh!" I scream, whipping myself around to see what or who was the cause. But instead of it being an insect like I suspected, it's Nathan. "With his thumb and pointer finger in a pinching position. My fake boyfriend just pinched my ass.

"How's my sweetie?" he asks, raising and lowering his eyebrows at me. Tori is beside him, giving me the evil eye.

Speaking of sweet mixed with evil, I examine the jam/ bee on the spoon in my hand.

Oh. No.

The jam isn't there. Neither is the bee. I quickly scan the floor, but it's not there. I frantically scan my shirt. Sure enough, there's a big glob of jam on my sleeve. The bee is stuck in it, creepily walking in the jam. "Get it off! Get it off! Eww!"

Nathan takes my elbow, looks up at me and says in a sexy voice,

"Let me get that for you." He checks to make sure Tori is watching him be my hero. I expect him to flick it off me, but instead his tongue snakes out as he leans close to the jam... and the bee.

I quickly realize he thinks he's only licking jam off my sleeve.

"Nathan, don't..."

"I'm here for you, babycakes." Before I can pull away, he licks off the jam and struggling bee with the tip of his tongue.

My hand flies over my mouth. "Oh, my God. Nathan-- you just ate a bee!"

Nathan's face contorts in shock, and I realize I didn't have to tell him he ate a bee. He figured it out all by himself. "Ow! What the fu--"

He runs to the garbage can faster than I've ever seen him move and spits jam and the bee out of his mouth.

"Nathan, are you allergic to bees?" Miranda cries out over the commotion.

"No."

There's a sigh of relief that Nathan isn't going to die. I've never heard so many swear words come out of his mouth at one time since I've known him.

I rub his back as he rinses his tongue in the big metal kitchen sink. "I'm so sorry. I tried to warn you--"

"It sthung my tung. Thit," he swears. He sticks his tongue out and points. "Take de sthinger outh."

"Okay." I examine his tongue. "What should I be looking for?"

"The sthinger!"

Is it white? Red? Black? I've never taken out a stinger before. I'm frantic with worry.

"His tongue is swollen," Miranda says. "I think he needs to go to the infirmary."

"Miranda's right," I cry out. "Nathan, I'm so sorry."

"You're thorry? Amy, thath's the lasth thime I'm pinthing your assth."

"Stop talking, Nathan. Your throat might swell up so bad it'll stop the oxygen."

Nathan opens his mouth wide and breathes in and out, proving his throat is letting enough air through.

"Close your mouth, Nathan," Tori says. "You look like a damn fish gasping for air, you dork."

"Uthually I'm thexy," Nathan tells her, then nudges me to intervene.

"The sexiest," I agree, but I don't think Tori is buying it.

Noah leads Nathan, who's now screaming unintelligible obscenities, all the way to the infirmary. Great. Now I've ruined my fake boyfriend's reputation, too.

Tori finishes the task of piling plastic coffee mugs on a tray.

"Hey, Tori. I thought you said these were worker bees that don't sting," I say to her.

"I didn't say they won't sting if you eat them," she responds, then walks back out into the dining area with the tray of coffee mugs.

I follow her with a tray of jam-filled bowls. "It's too bad my boyfriend won't be able to kiss me because of his bee sting."

"Your problem, not mine," she says, attitude dripping from each word.

I set two bowls on each table, wondering how I'm going to make her go out with Nathan after we "break up" and I'm supposedly devastated. "Who do you like?"

"As if I'm gonna tell you."

Seriously, this girl is so one-dimensional you'd think when she turns sideways she'd be as flat as a piece of paper. She belongs on another planet. "You know, it wouldn't hurt if you acted a little nicer."

"Why should I? Acting nice didn't get me anywhere. It sure didn't keep my parents together, that's for sure."

"Are they divorced?"

"That's none of your business. Just leave me alone."

I'm shocked. Tori actually opened up to me. The good part is that I now know what her deal is. She's not mad at me, per se. Okay, so I'm sure I annoy her 10 percent of the time. But the real issue behind her pissy face and bitchy attitude is a daughter who wants her parents to get together and doesn't see it happening any time soon.

"Not that you care, but I know how you feel," I tell her.

"I doubt it. Are your parents divorced?"

"No, worse. My parents were never married. How would you like growing up knowing you were the result of a one-night stand?

That's my reality. And no matter how much attitude I have, that will never change."

"But you have friends. I have nobody."

"If you'd act a little nicer maybe we could be friends. If you stop calling me a spaz every two minutes, that might be a start."

""What makes you think even if I wanted a friend, I'd pick you?

Besides, you are a spaz." Tori tosses her hair with a flick of her wrist, showing me a flash of dark hair underneath her blond locks, and stomps back to the kitchen.

She ignores me the rest of the time as she busies herself with one task or another. I guess now is not the time to become buddy-buddy with her, especially when she's in charge of the hot coffee. It's not a level playing field.

Avi walks in the door and I almost drop a bowl of jam. I wish I could forget the long talks we'd have on the phone when he was on military leave. Or that his hands are strong enough to dig ditches in record time and gentle enough to caress my skin and make me beg for more.

"Where's Noah?" he asks in a businesslike tone, as if I'm someone he just met.

"He took Nathan to the infirmary," I answer back, just as businesslike.

"Why?"

"Nathan kind of ate a live bee."

"Kind of? How does someone kind of cat a bee?"

"It's a long story," I say, not wanting to get into it. Tori appears by Avi s side. "He licked it off her. You know, with his tongue." As if Avi cant get the visual, Tori sticks her tongue out and wiggles it up and down.

So much for the conversation staying businesslike. I have a vindictive urge to pull her tongue until it comes out of her mouth.

Avi looks as if he's about to be ill. "I get the picture. No need to demonstrate."

Avi and I meet up again at the tray full of bread baskets. I figure I need to explain, so I tap him on the arm. "When his dark gaze meets mine, I step back. I can't think straight when I'm looking directly into his eyes.

"Um, yeah. The way Tori told you what happened isn't really how it went down."

"I don't need details."

"But I want to explain." I pretend to be busy picking up baskets of bread to set on the tables as I talk, sparing myself from looking directly at him. "So, um, there were bees stuck in the jam. And when Nathan pinched my butt by accident, I twirled around and jam landed on my sleeve. He licked it off, not knowing there was a bee stuck in it."

"He didn't do anything by accident, Amy. Tell Nathan to keep his hands off your tachat. And while he's at it, tell him to keep his tongue away from you, too."

"You jealous?"

"Why should I be? I have Liron, right?"

"Right. And I have Nathan, right?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, you tell me. You've obviously had his tongue down your throat multiple times."

Oh, that was low. How dare he turn this around and make me the bad person, when he's probably been playing "battling tongues"

with Liron! "Yeah, well, he might be tongue-challenged at the moment, but normally he's the best." I emphasize the last two words for effect. If Avis tight, white knuckles are any indication, I think I've accomplished my goal.

"Amy?" He says, his voice laced with frustration.

I cross my arms on my chest (actually under my chest, because my boobs are so big). "What?" I know we're about to have it out, right here in the middle of the IDF cafeteria.

The door between the kitchen and dining area opens. It's Jess and Ethan, bringing out the baskets of bread. Both stop in their tracks, obviously sensing the massive amount of tension in the room.

"Everything okay in here?" Jess asks.

I narrow my eyes at Avi. "It's all peachy. Avi and I were just discussing the art of a good kiss."

"While that might be fascinating at another time, we have baskets of bread we need to put out. Help us," Jess says.

I see something, out of the corner of my eye, on one of the pieces of bread in the basket Jess is holding. "There are a couple of ants crawling on the bread."

Jess shrugs. "Noah said to consider them spices."

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 646