Three Weeks Later
Ashley, her head pressed into a small airplane pillow, was having the most pleasant dream. It seemed that ever since she had met Mindy Sterling, her nightmares involving criminals and dark alley chases had practically ceased.
“Miss. Miss.”
Ashley half opened her eyes, expecting to see Mindy’s lovely face, but instead stared into the fake grin of a stewardess standing behind a food cart. She closed her eyes again, waited a second, and opened them in hopes the stewardess would get the hint.
“Excuse me, miss, would you like dinner? This is our final pass.”
Ashley, still dazed after being awakened from a deep slumber, shook her head no. She wanted her to fuck off so she could go back to that special place, but the minute details of the dream were already dissolving.
She had learned that dismal truth of loneliness at the tender, naive and impressionable age of 11, when her childhood friend had Jill died. After that, she had trouble making and keeping friends. Throughout her life she harbored those little girl thoughts of pain and loss.
Jason was the only one who was capable of forming a long-time commitment with her, and she ended up leaving him stranded at the airport with nothing but a peck on a cheek and a feeble goodbye hug.
Ashley tried to talk him out of accompanying her to the airport because she didn't feel like she deserved his devotion, but he refused to listen. He had the audacity to tell her that what mattered most was that she was his best friend, and the ending couldn't erase years of happiness. He always liked playing the martyr role, she thought guiltily, even though she had made his life a living hell their remaining weeks together.
And then there was Mindy. Her suspect. Her lover. Her downfall.
She had deserted her without even saying goodbye. Ashley had quietly abandoned Mindy's bed in the early morning hours after their first and only night together, quickly gathered up her clothes from the bathroom floor, and left. But before she had walked out of the apartment, she tiptoed into the living room, opened up the glass cabinet and plucked the photo of Mindy holding Dooley out of its frame.
She debated whether to take the one with Mindy and Kim, as possible evidence, but of course she knew that turning her in now would only incriminate herself. She stood in front of the cabinet for a few seconds and wondered how long it would take for Mindy to realize the picture of her holding her cat was missing.
Placing the photo in her purse, she fled the apartment while her one night stand slept peacefully. She hated the thought of never seeing her again, yet she knew that was their dismal fate as she reluctantly closed the door to Mindy's apartment. No note. No nothing. Only the skid marks from the night before that would eventually wear away with time.
She despised leaving Mindy that way, without the slightest hint of who she really was and why she was there. But by walking away she had created her first act of true love, and it hurt like hell.
Tears once again escaped from her eyes as soon as she had gotten into her car.
She finally let herself sob uncontrollably, wiping tears from her eyes as she instinctively headed home, not knowing where else to go. Jason would be waiting for her, of course. She didn't deserve it. How could she, after what she had done. It had only took her a few hours to sever everything they had built together as a couple.
For his sake, she really had tried to give them a last chance. After returning to their apartment that morning, she had guiltily let him kiss her, permitted his hands to paw all over her, allowed him to go inside of her. His touch felt like worms crawling all over her body. She angrily gritted her teeth and tried to take it, but she couldn’t. Something inside of her had snapped. When he tried to hold her, she had angrily pushed him from her, not being able to fake it anymore, and told him it was over.
“Are you kidding? Jesus Christ, Ash, we just made love!” he had yelled, not believing what she implied.
“We talked about this. You promised you would spend time with me. You're like a dead fish when we're together now! What the hell is going on? What happened at that place?”
“I’m sorry, Jason. Yes, things have changed. I've changed,” she said.
Too ashamed to meet his furious glare, she kept her head down. “This is harder than I thought. I can’t explain what I’m going through. I know you don’t understand, and neither do I. But that place has nothing to do with it.” It was a necessary lie. She definitely didn't want his suspicions to lead to the truth.
Ashley could tell he wanted to throw something or punch someone. He paced the living room like a maniac. She just sat on the couch, staying out of his way. Then he grabbed his car keys and slammed the front door behind him.
They pretty much ignored each other after that. Jason slept on the couch their remaining weeks together. It broke her heart to watch this humble man’s life crumble because of her selfish act of stupidity. But as good of an actor as she had become over the years, she couldn’t pretend that Jason was her boyfriend anymore. She wasn’t in love.
Ashley had spent the entire next day thinking hard about what she should do. She had sat in her kitchen with the lights off. She didn’t want to wake Jason on the couch. She knew what she had to do.
That was Sunday. On Monday she spent the day drafting and finalizing her report, and on Tuesday morning she showed up at her office. She looked and felt like shit. Her eyes were blood shot from sleep deprivation and crying. She knew that if anyone could detect something was wrong, Hancock could, so she was relieved he had already finished his morning smoke at his usual spot in front of the building when she reported to work.
She quickly ducked into the bathroom to make herself presentable before facing him. As she peered at her pathetic image in the mirror, she feared what he would see a confused, screwed-up, lovesick CID agent who was throwing her promising career down the toilet.
She stared hard at herself in the mirror as if searching for an answer. If your plan is to work, get your shit together, she prompted herself. She dabbed a cold, wet paper towel over her face and applied her special scar make-up to hide the circles under her eyes.
Ashley then forced herself to smile before poking her head into Hancock’s office.
“Hey, Ash. Good to see you!" he exclaimed. "Why didn’t you call yesterday?”
“Um, it got pretty hectic yesterday, with wrapping things up and all. But here I am. And here’s your baseball glove.” Ashley tossed a paper bag on his desk, glad to be rid of the damn thing.
“And here’s my report. All done. But I’m warning you, you’re not going to like it.”
Hancock raised an eyebrow as he took the report. She stood frozen in place, bracing herself for Hancock’s reaction.
“What? Are you shitting me? All this damn time and you got squat?”
“It’s no joke.”
Hancock hastily scanned over her 14-page report again. “This case was supposed to be a cut and dry case. They have interrogation agents standing by. How can this be?”
“Like I said in the report, Kirk, I found no substantial evidence. It was when I met her boyfriend and saw them together, how they really acted together, that I decided to put an end to this case. She had a boyfriend, Kirk.”
“So she had a boyfriend! Big deal! Did you ever think she could be bisexual? Did you explore that option?”
“Of course I did. I’m not a moron. I was there for a whole damn week. I spent a lot of time with the girl. I went to a party with her, where there were men. I went to a bar with her, where there were men. I’m telling you, the woman’s straight. It’s my professional opinion that Strickland’s accusation was one of revenge. She wanted what she couldn’t have. It’s all there in my report.”
Ashley crossed her arms to keep her hands from visibly shaking. She talked low and deliberate in an attempt to keep her voice from quivering. She feared that if he didn’t believe her now, another agent would be sent in to double check everything she had written in the report. They would certainly do a background check on Chuck, Bryan’s boyfriend, who she claimed was Mindy’s Sterling’s boyfriend in the report. They would definitely haul him in and question him about his relationship with Sgt. Mindy Sterling.
She knew that if went that far she'd be finished, considering Specialist Chuck James wasn't Mindy's boyfriend. They were only good friends. He wouldn't know to collaborate with Ashley’s lie. The agents, in turn, would file their own report, which, of course, would dispute Ashley’s findings, and then a full internal investigation would be launched. Her cover-up would be exposed and she would be charged with a multitude of crimes and sent straight to a military prison.
In the end, the scandal would claim even more Article 125 offenders.
“I guess that’s it then,” he mumbled. “I guess I have no choice but to turn this report in. Shit!”
“I know. I know. I’m disappointed, too,” she said, sounding convincing. “A whole week of my life for nothing.”
“You did your job. What else can you do?" Hancock looked at the report and then back at Ashley. "Though it looks like it's taken it's toll on you. You look beat,” he said with concern.
“I haven't slept much, and I'm dealing with Jason, considering I'm leaving the country soon.”
“So, Ash, what are you going to do for the next few weeks? I’m sure you’ll be bored to death. I can give you one more case to work on,” he said with a straight face.
“No thanks!” she gasped.
“Just kidding,” he laughed. “Hey, thanks for all your hard work, Ashley. Ya can’t win them all, right? Well, kiddo, it's time for me to get back to work. Why don't you get out of here and start your out-processing today. Then you can enjoy your vacation. Got any plans?”
"Not really. I've been too busy to think about it. Wow, I can't believe this is it, that my time here's up. It's been real, Kirk. And thanks for being such a good boss. But hey, nothing good lasts forever, right?"
Ashley, knowing what he expected, walked around the desk and forced herself to give him a hug. When she let go she smiled sadly, then waved as she slowly backed out of his office, reluctantly leaving behind her false report and her Army career.
"Let me know when we can schedule your going away party," he called after her.
She could hardly believe she got away with it.
She hoped his suspicions wouldn't be aroused when he found out she canceled her re-enlistment orders. He knew how much she looked forward to her next assignment.
Ashley didn’t have a choice but to end her own military career. She feared that if she stayed in the army as a CID agent, this case would haunt her like Freddie from Nightmare on Elm Street. She would always be looking over her shoulder, constantly suspicious of every fellow CID agent she would ever meet, and paranoid of other women she was attracted to. She could no longer trust herself with her suspects, either. She had crossed the line and there was no forgetting that. No, it wasn’t possible to keep her job.
Now she was a civilian flying over the Atlantic Ocean, going home to temporarily live with her parents because she had no other option.
This is what she was thinking when the plane's seat belt light flashed on. Ashley braced herself as it violently shook, unsettling everything that wasn’t secure.
She opened the window shade and was shocked to find the plane smack in the middle of a lightening storm. She could not see the plane’s red blinking lights flickering off the wing through the thick, dark clouds. Lightening bolts surrounding the plane made for a frightening but spectacular laser show.
As scared as she should have been, Ashley stared out of the window in absolute awe as she thought how ironic it would be to go down this way. She deliberately kept her eyes wide open so she could witness her own demise. She then willed the plane to descend straight down, to break through the stone-hard ocean surface, to explode at impact into a mixture of flames and disturbed salt water and dead fish. It would be a fitting ending.
The crash of Commercial Flight 321 would certainly make national news. Ashley imagined her photo prominently displayed on the front page of the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Only then would Mindy learn the true identity of the mysterious woman who walked out on her. She would learn that Cynthia was right.
She also worried about her parents. Losing their only child would kill them, but the crash would spare her from having to tell them the real reason she chose to be a civilian again.
Yes, she figured a crash would certainly solve her problems, and spare her from having to learn how to live as a gay woman. At this point, she didn’t really know who Ashley DeMarco was anymore. Was she actually more like her character, Ashley Marks, a closeted lesbian? Was she destined to be a misguided loner with a dark past the rest of her life? She didn’t like the prospects, either way.
Ashley glanced at the woman sitting next to her, who was gripping her pillow as if there was no tomorrow. She frantically looked at Ashley with wild, terrified eyes.
“It’s okay. The odds are in our favor. It's safer in a plane than a car,” Ashley said in a soothing tone. “We’ll be fine. The pilots know what they're doing.”
But the woman refused to loosen her grip on the pillow. “I hate flying. I should have taken Valium.”
Ashley laughed at the woman’s comment. “Me, too.”
Moments later, and to Ashley’s dismay, the plane broke through the blackness and was back to smooth flying. Then the seat belt light went off, making it evident the plane wasn’t going down into the ocean after all.
So airplane life went on as usual as the stewardess continued to roll her food cart down the aisle, and babies cried from discomfort and boredom, and the man seated behind her fell back to sleep and snored up a storm.
Ashley would now have to tell her parents why she was staying at their place for a while. But she was going to tell them what really happened. She also vowed to wait for Mindy to get out of the service, so she could tell her the truth, as well.
“Hey, thanks for calming me down back there. I really appreciate it,” said the woman sitting next to her.
“Don’t mention it. I’ve flown through lots of these storms before. I’m used to it.”
“That's comforting to hear. Are you a student studying in Europe?”
“No, I’m in the Army. I mean I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. I’m on my way back to the States. My military days are over.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that. Why are you getting out?”
Mindy simply sighed and said, “It’s a long story, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
The End
