Free In Medias Res by Yolanda Wallace Page B

forgotten? What else was I supposed to know?
    “You more than anyone knows how much Jennifer loves the athletic type,” Jack said. “Your new friend definitely fits the bill. Not that I was looking.”
    “No, heaven forbid,” I said, pretending to be jealous. I was so accomplished at doing what was expected of me that I wondered how good I was at doing what came naturally.
    “Have you talked to her?”
    “Who?” I didn’t know if he meant my old friend or my new one.
    “Jen.”
    I borrowed one of Marcus’s lines in order to save my ass. “She’s off saving the world again. I couldn’t get through to her.”
    “I can’t believe she agreed to another stint so soon after the last one. I thought she would have taken some time to get all that madness out of her head before she subjected herself to another round of it. She was home only a week, if that long. Where is she this time? She’s not back in the Sudan, is she?”
    “I’m not sure,” I said. Was I supposed to know?
    Jack nodded sympathetically. “I have a couple of contacts with Doctors Without Borders. I could give one of them a call and find out. Not that it would make much difference—one war is as deadly as another once the bullets start flying—but I’m sure it would ease your mind to know exactly where she is. I remember how upset you were when she volunteered to go to Liberia after the violence there began to spin out of control. You barely slept for almost a week. Is that why you’re here now, so you can walk the floor at night without keeping me awake?”
    It sounded like a reasonable explanation as any. “You found me out.”
    “She’ll be fine,” he said. “She always is. Remember her motto? ‘I might not know much, but one thing I know how to do is stay alive.’”
    Jennifer was as lost to me as Jack was, but I somehow felt her absence more. Probably because I had seen how happy and how close we used to be. Dancing goofily in our prom dresses. Ganging up on my brother. We didn’t just look like sisters. We had acted like them as well.
    “What am I supposed to do if she forgets how to stay alive?” I asked.
    “She won’t.” Jack held my face in his hands and peered into my eyes. “Why don’t you ever worry about me like that?”
    “Have you ever given me reason to?”
    I doubted it. He seemed too staid to do anything that would cause me to lose sleep over him. He would be home when he said he would. He would call if he had to work late. He wouldn’t forget birthdays or anniversaries. He was a romance novelist’s dream. So why didn’t he feel like mine?
    “I am the antithesis of all those bad boys you dated in high school and college,” he said. “I try to be as dull and boring as possible. It’s why you married me, isn’t it? That and the fact that I’m hung like a horse.”
    “If you say so.”
    Why had I married him? Had it been love at first sight or had friendship blossomed into more? Had he swept me off my feet or had I needed convincing? Had he chased me or had I gone after him?
    “Tell me our story.”
    “Don’t you remember it?” He asked the question so seriously that I thought he might finally be on to me.
    “I want to make sure that you do.”
    “If you’re putting me on the spot after less than two years, I can’t imagine what you’re going to do after fifty.”
    “More of the same, only worse.”
    Despite his mild protest, he granted my request. We made ourselves comfortable on the couch and he told me how we came to be.
    “I suppose you could say Jennifer is the reason we’re together. She and I fought tooth-and-nail all through med school to see who could get the best grades and the best girls. If she and I weren’t so competitive, I never would have met you,” he said, still nursing his beer. Out of sorts, I was already on my second. “My shift was over. I should have been on my way home. With nothing better to do, I decided to challenge Jennifer to a little one-on-one.”
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