Chương 6
Daniel became intensely aware that Ethan was wearing jeans with a tear in one knee.
“You can go,” Daniel said.
Ethan looked at him.
“You want me to?”
“No.”
“Then I’m staying.”
Daniel sat beside him.
A receptionist called candidates individually and directed them down a hallway.
Nobody appeared to be competing in any visible way, which somehow made the competition feel worse.
Ethan picked up an outdated magazine.
“Article says millennials are ruining department stores.”
“That should help.”
“I’m researching national policy.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
His name was called twelve minutes later.
He stood too quickly.
Ethan caught his sleeve.
“Hey.”
Daniel looked down.
“You’re smarter than Dad thinks.”
Daniel’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
Ethan released the sleeve.
“Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“That weird face.”
“I don’t have a face.”
“Go.”
Daniel entered the conference room.
Three people sat behind a long table.
A retired Navy captain named Helen Ward occupied the center seat.
To her right was a local attorney who had served in the Marine Corps.
To her left sat a high school principal Daniel recognized from another district.
Captain Ward did not smile much.
She asked why the Naval Academy.
Daniel gave the answer he had practiced.
She interrupted halfway through.
“That sounds written.”
Daniel stopped.
The attorney looked down to hide a smile.
Captain Ward folded her hands.
“Try again.”
Daniel’s prepared sentences disappeared.
He stared at the tabletop for a second.
“My parents don’t want me to go.”
Captain Ward’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
The principal leaned forward.
Daniel swallowed.
“That’s not why I want to go.”
“Then why mention it?” Ward asked.
“Because I think I’ve spent too much time pretending it doesn’t matter.”
The room stayed quiet.
Daniel continued more carefully.
“I like engineering.”
He paused.
“That also sounds written.”
The attorney smiled openly now.
Daniel breathed through his nose.
“I like fixing things, except I’m not actually very good at fixing things yet.”
“What kind of things?” the principal asked.
“Mostly stuff at work.”
“What do you do?”
“Grocery store.”
The attorney glanced at Daniel’s file.
“You work twenty-two hours a week during school?”
“Usually around that.”
“And what do you fix?”
“Nothing important.”
Ward waited.
Daniel realized she was not going to rescue him.
“The cardboard baler jammed twice last month.”
“You repaired a baler?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I called Mr. Alvarez because I enjoy having both hands.”
The attorney laughed.
Even Ward’s mouth moved.
Daniel felt his shoulders loosen.
“I like understanding why systems fail,” he said.
“Machines, schedules, people sometimes.”
“People are not systems,” Ward said.
“No, ma’am.”
“Remember that.”
Daniel nodded.
She asked about service.
This time he did not use the phrase leadership opportunity.
He talked about the destroyer he had toured as a child.
He described the officer who had treated his questions seriously.
He admitted that independence mattered to him financially.
The attorney asked whether a service obligation frightened him.
“Yes.”
The answer came so quickly that the principal looked up.
Daniel felt heat rise in his neck.
He left it there.
“Why?”
“Because five years is a long time when you’re seventeen.”
“And yet you’re applying.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked at Captain Ward.
“Because being afraid of the commitment seems like a bad reason not to examine whether I’m willing to make it.”
Ward tilted her head.
“That is not the same as being willing.”
“No, ma’am.”
“What happens if you discover you hate military life?”
Daniel had rehearsed this question.
He abandoned the answer.
“I deal with the fact that I made a commitment before I knew everything.”
“Comforting.”
“No, ma’am.”
“What if you fail?”
Daniel’s fingers tightened against his knee.
It was the question underneath every question.
He could hear Richard answering it.
You won’t last.
Daniel almost gave them something polished about resilience.
Instead he said, “Then I’d rather fail at something I chose than succeed at the plan somebody else picked because they thought it was safer.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Captain Ward made a note.
The interview ended eleven minutes later.
Daniel walked back into the lobby convinced he had ruined everything.
Ethan stood.
“How bad?”
“I told a retired Navy captain that people are systems.”
Ethan stared at him.
“Excellent.”
“She corrected me.”
“Also excellent.”
“I think the Marine laughed at me.”
“Maybe you’re funny.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.”
They stopped for burgers on the way home.
Daniel paid because Ethan had driven.
Halfway through the meal, his phone vibrated.
Elaine.
He let it ring.
Ethan watched him.
“You should answer.”
“She knows where we are.”
“She probably wants to know how it went.”
Daniel looked at the screen until the call ended.
“You can tell her.”
“I’m not your press secretary.”
Daniel put the phone face down.
Ethan dipped a fry into ketchup.
“She fixed your sleeves.”
“I noticed.”
“She was up until almost midnight.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You weren’t supposed to tell me that.”
“She didn’t say that.”
“She didn’t have to.”
Ethan shrugged.
“Mom says lots of things without saying them.”
Daniel picked up his burger and set it down again.
The phone vibrated with a text.
How did it go?
He typed Fine.
Deleted it.
Typed I think okay.
Deleted that too.
Finally he wrote, I answered everything.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Then disappeared.
No response came.
The silence bothered him all afternoon.
In the weeks after the interview, ordinary life resumed with enough force to make the nomination feel imaginary.
Daniel stocked shelves.
He ran.
He completed medical paperwork.
He studied calculus.
Richard talked around him rather than to him.
Elaine occasionally asked practical questions and then pretended they were unrelated.
“Do you need your insurance card?”
“Why?”
“I’m asking.”
“Yes.”
She left it beside his cereal bowl the next morning.
His medical examination produced a request for additional documentation regarding an old ankle injury from middle school.
May you like
Daniel panicked when he saw the notice.
The injury had been minor, but the records were at a pediatric orthopedic clinic he had not visited in years.
