Dino O'Leary

When I was last stationed in DC, I lived in the Georgetown area. Yeah. Not exactly Foggy Bottom at the time, I give you that, but Gen believed in stealth living. Our rented condo fit in perfectly boringly with the neighborhood. Our neighbors would have been surprised by how little we fit in with the typical residents of Georgetown during those days.

We were government people and there were lots of them there. But our lives were far from ordinary. Our sense of adventure, our need for pushing the envelope sparkled around us like pixie dust. We didn't expect that the longer we lived there, we'd blend in far better with our surroundings than we'd realized. One day, we were just aware that we'd become so insular, even content.

Blind to everything but our sense that we were entitled to a future together.

"Can I help you or do you have some allegiance to my steps?" a male voice interrupts my examination of the large black ant moving covertly in and out of a large crack in the sidewalk.

I look up. It takes my breath away. "Mick?"

He cocks his head. I remember that annoying, superior way he had of doing that. His nose was always too perfect. He's older now but he's still way too cute and polished. "Do I know you?" he asks.

"Obviously not." I rise, extend my hand. He looks at it. "You still the landlord here?"

"No units are available. None expected to be available." He puts a foot on the first step. "May I ask how you feel you know me well enough to call me such a nickname?"

"A friend used to rent here. Described you so well, I just knew you when I saw you." He nods even as he gives me one of those long looks you give someone who's given you the creeps and you don't know why. I am just about to back away when it rushes over me - the way he treated me when I came back to find Gen gone. That he was the one who told me she died. That he was kind to me in such a decent way I've never stopped being grateful for. "My friend said I'd be lucky to get a place with you. Said you were a real good guy."

"Yes? Has your friend a name?" Mick pauses on the next step up, balancing a grocery bag on his hip.

I'll probably never know why I give the answer I give. Maybe it's just karma. Maybe it's the road burn inside my brain. "My friend? Gen. Genoma Sullivan, I mean."

His face relaxes; he gives me a wide smile he must have learned growing up on that farm in Iowa. "Genny? Gosh, it's been ages. How's she doing?"

"Doing good. Still in the Air Force."

"Where's she stationed?"

"Back here in DC."

"Wow. Great. Please tell her I send my best regards." He looks down the street and then back at me. There's a flush on his cheeks. "Always had a crush on her, if I may say so."

"Me, too."

It should alarm me that my old landlord exists here. That he's still the landlord of that old building. But before I can begin examining this incongruity, my cell rings. Gwendolyn the physical therapist is calling to find out why I've missed my appointment today.

"Business called," I tell her, closing my eyes and mouthing a particularly foul curse word for not having thought to cancel with her. "I'm on the East Coast. Urgent business. Forgot to call to let you know. I'm sorry."

She blows out a long breath. "I was worried. I called your house. You've never missed an appointment."

I go three days a week, like permanent black holes on my calendar. I've even begun wondering if I'll remember how to start Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays if I'm not rolling out to Gwendolyn's PT clinic in Carmel.

"Gwen, I hate that you worried about me."

"Wendy."

"Huh?"

"My name... I mean, my name is Gwendolyn in professional uses but if someone's going to shorten it, it's only fair to mention my family and friends call me Wendy. Not Gwen, in other words."

"Oh." It makes me smile to hear the softness in her voice, like she's just relieved to not have anything to worry about where I'm concerned. "I have a bad habit of shortening names. I'll be more careful with you. Gwendolyn."

"Mr. O'Leary, just call when you get back to town and we'll reschedule your days." She clears her throat and I hear her shuffling paper. "Promise me you'll keep up with your exercises while you're gone? Is there a place where you can use weights and the bands?"

"My hotel has a full gym. I'll keep 'em up."

"Okay then. That's good. I don't want to see you regress after all your hard work."

"Point taken."

Her call is an anchor. It's hard to believe I'd feel that way but I do. It's as if someone normal and grounded in the reality of my real life called to orient me to what's corporeal at the one moment I might have lost myself inside the metaphysical absurdity of talking to my old landlord's double.

There's bound to be people like that in both places. After all, other than our colleagues, friends or family, there're lots of crossovers between the two realities. Same politicians, same celebrities, same newscasters on the whole - like the public people remain the same from our place that was portrayed in our film. It seems to be the private people, the personal connections, that haven't been replicated here. Granted, whole companies we knew are no longer here but they're only the ones we did business with, as if they were invented for our film. Film? No, for our old world. No way was it a film. I think of it as an alternative universe.

And yet, here we go with the anomalies I am already finding just since Gen appeared to bring me back from the brink of death in this reality: she exists here, our landlord exists here, our old condo building exists here. What else is the same that'll bring back the old me, the old her, the old us? This is as near to life I've felt in a long time. I don't want explanations; I just want to know, really know, answers to questions I should've asked a long time ago.

I look up the street at the small café that was here when I lived in this neighborhood with Gen. It too exists in both places. Places, though, they surprise me less than people - like Mick and Gen.

Inside the café, I take a table near the window and sip coffee. As many times as I've come to DC on business since we've been here, I've never once felt like exploring my old haunts in this city. But coming back to look for Gen, it's all that was in my mind even knowing she doesn't live in this neighborhood. She did once, though. It's why I started here - because it's the one thing that overlaps rather neatly between my two realities.

She got promoted in the Air Force about six months after the date my Gen died. A woman with her skills and intelligence? Of course she'd made Lt. Colonel long before others of her age and time in service. Now she's a full bird. It's odd thinking of her with the silver eagle on her uniform - makes her seem so old to me. Col. Sullivan. I can't wait to see her in the flesh. I'm drowning from the inside out. I have so many things I want to witness about this Gen - to imagine Gen still alive, still vibrant, still alone. And, yes, I do imagine her alone. Her dossier, the one Terry compiled for me, shows she's never married and she's not dating any guy right now. It's as if she's been waiting all this time for me to come introduce myself to her.

Crap. I'm so far in over my head. Please, Dino, don't be such a prick, okay?

My finger drags through the small drop of coffee that fell from the spoon I've placed on the table. In my vision, my finger morphs into Gen's. She's the reason I do this. I never did it before. But it's one of her mannerisms I've adopted as my own since she left me. Back when we were discovering lust could be the first indication of a love so deep it never leaves you, I'd sit watching her forever as she sipped coffee, read a newspaper at the table across from me and dragged dots of moisture around the tabletop with her finger. She'd look up, watch me watching her finger, and tell me I must be nothing so much as a mass of indecent cravings to focus on something like that. And find it sensual.

And I'm still doing it myself when I miss her so much my mind begins to wonder if she now exists in a bubble of air surrounding me.

She ate Granny Smith apples as if they were the nectar of the gods. I'd watch the way her eyes would flutter when she first sunk into one. That smile that made her look like she must have when she was about five or six. I loved watching the blush she got when she'd wipe the juice from her chin. And loved then listening to stories of Halloween, harvest and hay rides of her youth. I can't look at Granny Smiths in the grocery now without thinking of her growing up in the Midwest, waiting on me to meet her.

In this very café, I introduced her to almond biscotti. She didn't get the attraction. But at least once a week when we were both home, she stopped here to buy me an almond biscotti. I never knew when I'd find one waiting on a plate next to the coffee pot when I'd stumble into the kitchen in the morning. Every single time I think of that, it makes me happy. Someone wanted something as simple as making me smile.

She was the only woman I ever wanted to have children with. She was the only woman who made me long to be a father. I would have been a good dad. I know I would have. She did, too.

It occurs to me suddenly how awful it would have been, now that I think on it, if we had had children. They'd be orphans. They'd be like Ben Wade - losing one parent to a violent death and then the other just disappears on them after promising to return. Talk about a rude life for those innocents, eh?

Innocence is highly overrated, though.

At least there were no children. No innocents to hurt.

How close have our paths crossed in the last few years? As it turns out, it's as many times as I have been to the Pentagon for meetings or briefings the last three years. This other Gen's been living in Arlington during those years. Before that, she was stationed in Crete for a few years after rotating out of DC just after she got promoted to LC.

I look down from my hotel room in the direction of the building she's living in now. I just can't help the way it feels to know how close she was to me every time I landed at the airport these last few years. Was she walking one corridor over from me whenever I was inside at a meeting at the Pentagon? Was she ever eating lunch at a deli next to a nearby building where Terry and I have both met with a client?

This is my first time staying at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City. Terry suggested it. Trust him to have looked into what place was closest to her building.

She lives in an upscale polished 16-story high rise apartment building. Depending on the side she lives, she has a view of the Pentagon or she's looking off in the direction of a neighborhood park.

Tonight, I'll relax after I hit the fitness center for Gwendolyn's prescribed exercises. Dinner in a nearby small restaurant I've been to with clients several times. Maybe a drink at the hotel bar. Then bed. Alone. Tomorrow, I'll take as it comes.

If our intelligence was better, I'd know her office number in the Pentagon. I'd just walk by it tomorrow if I knew it. I'd maybe flirt with her secretary, if she has one. I'd be hanging around out there, looking as smart as I can, until she walked out of her office.

Would I say something as stupid as I did when I first met my Gen?

I'm about to find out. Yeah, right. You know I have a plan now. I'm me, remember?

Carl and I meet over breakfast. My treat, of course. He gazes around the Ritz dining area, discreet waiters watching him for an indication he needs servicing. "Roger swears by the Eggs Benedict," he tells me when he sees me waiting on him to choose.

"Roger always had good taste." His boss, Roger, is the sort of contracting guru of whom the Beltway makes into a god in times of war. Since Afghanistan, he's been one of the Pentagon's hidden jewels, a man who can shake the rafters when he thinks grunts on the ground are being denied the tools of war by recalcitrant Congressional staffers with the notion the operations in Iraq or Afghanistan are going to be over soon. In other words, Roger can make weapons contracts happen. They need him. He needs them; what good's it do a weapons manufacturer to not make hay with the military?

I motion for one of the wait staff. "He's having the Eggs Benedict. I'll have the French Toast."

After the waiter leaves, Carl chuckles. "Remember the days when you'd have had to order it as Freedom Toast?"

If I wasn't tense, I'd laugh. The most I can do right now is smile and nod. "Shall we order a mimosa while we wait for our meals?"

"Better not. I got that meeting," Carl says, sitting up a bit taller, feeling quite proud for turning down temptation in the form of alcohol at 7 a.m.

"Yeah. That's what I want to talk to you about."

"Damn, Dino. You're not even supposed to know about it. How'd you get wind of it, anyway?"

I gaze at him, hoping I'm imitating Terry's sour lemon look well. If I do, he won't have a clue I'm lying. "You know we're good. Of course we knew."

"We weren't trying to shut you out."

"It just wasn't time to bring us in, eh?"

He looks down, adjusts his napkin. His foot taps the floor. "This is big, Dino. Too big for you."

Too big for us? Now I really wonder what's up. The whispers haven't done this justice; then again, who whispers about anything that's not capable of being important? I wait until he looks up. I'm about to leap into the unknown war, armed only with my instincts and needs. "What you really need to be proposing is a group like ours you can trust to oversee this part of it."

He glances out the window. I know I have him. There's an agenda behind this. "You're incorporated in a foreign country, Dino. Read the writing on the wall."

My voice is heated. "Grand Cayman's for tax purposes. And it's bullshit to use that as an excuse."

"Your partner is a foreigner."

"For fuck's sake. He's Australian. Last I checked, they were allies."

Our eyes meet. He hesitates. "It's not us. You know that."

"Someone in the Pentagon?"

"Someone in uniform, yes."

I bite my lip and consider. "Okay. One of the brass has been wined and dined by one of our competitors. Let me think. It's incorporated in this country, headquartered on the East Coast and has more manpower than we do. But... and we both know there's a 'but' where you're concerned... but they don't have the kind of credentials we have. That's either an advantage or something they're working against to shut us out."

"Dino, sometimes you have to be happy with the crumbs when you're a small guy."

"Roger's nervous about this, isn't he? I presume they can't hold to the measurables he wants to put into the contract so they're trying to out-muscle him by using their military bigwig to force a sole source contract." Carl coughs into his fist. "You know what he needs at this meeting?"

"He needs me to pacify you so you don't go raising stink and..."

"No. What he needs is me in his corner. Me whispering in his ear the questions he needs to ask to shoot this down - or force them to accept the measurables so this doesn't bite him in the ass at contract renewal time."

"Dino, for the love of God. I only took this breakfast with you so..."

"This is your golden day, Carl. You're about to make your boss very happy with you. Look, here's what we'll do. You get me credentialed into the meeting. I'll sit in the back and pass you the questions you hand to Roger. At the end of this, all you'll owe me is the RFP for the contract and a fair shot at managing the executive security."

"Why do you always do this to me?"

"You see? That's why you really took this breakfast with me - because you knew I'd ride in to your rescue if you just played hard to get." I smile at him as the waiter refills our coffees.

He sighs. He pulls out his Blackberry and sends off an email. "So, I take it you're free for a 10 a.m. meeting today?"

"Just get me in there. I'll do the rest."

It's as if a fist slams into me. There's a long moment when I can't speak. When the effort to smile is too extreme. When water gathers in my eyes. When everything goes black around me. When thinking is painful. When absence absorbs the air I would breathe just to be years in my past.

"And you are?" She says this without looking at me. Her eyes are on the file being handed to her by her assistant, who watches me watch her.

My hair tingles. I may retch from grief I've left unshed until this moment.

"Dino O'Leary, ma'am." Her assistant says this as she drops her eyes away from the silent spectacle I've become. "He's a defense contractor. TOL Asset Security Consultants."

"As in...?"

"K and R." I manage to get that much out.

She gazes up at me. Those razor sharp eyes. Those damned soft lips won't form a smile, not even to be politically polite. Her words, when they come, seem as heavy as my heart. "Have we met, Mr. O'Leary?"

"A long time ago. I doubt you'd remember." It's just above a whisper. I force myself to smile as I press my business card into her hand.

She studies it for a moment before looking up at me; a crisp decision has been made. "Sorry. I don't. Remember, that is. Could you jog my memory?"

"Japan. Misawa. Back in the day. You were a Major."

"And you were?"

"Also a Major. Marine."

"Ah. I see." She rests a hip against her assistant's desk, who stares between us, fascinated to all appearances. "Jarhead, eh? You'd think I'd remember that. I only worked with a handful in Japan."

"You weren't very impressed with me when we met." I do my best to hold her eyes in mine and to say this with ego-fueled self-deprecation.

Now she puckers her lips, considering the fact I shared this. I notice wrinkles that never were on her face last time I saw her. "Yeah. Well. Back in the day, I was a bit rough on our sister services. I hope this isn't some payback call?"

"No. Not at all. I was just walking past, saw the nameplate on the office and..."

"And?"

I clear my throat. Face her up, take a demi-step into her space, knowing her tastes in men require her own exquisite if indefinable exact mix of self-awareness and cockiness. "And thought maybe you'd like to have dinner. You'd be surprised what a jarhead can grow up to be."

She gives a very grudging almost-smirk. You can't call it a smile. The little puff of air she gives doesn't approach a laugh or chuckle. But I grin anyway. The assistant takes a breath. "Certainly a novel approach, Mr. O'Leary. But let me save you the trouble, eh? I don't have any pull on contracts for your services. We're strictly forbidden, in fact, to have contact with contractors."

"This is purely social, I guarantee." I put my hand out to take hers. Her hand is warm, familiar. "If I dare to speak of anything work related, you have my permission to take me down for the kill. I know you still have those skills, Colonel."

Just then, Carl finds me. I'd shaken him off earlier, just long enough to wind my way down this corridor. He'd stopped to chat with the General's aide; I'd waited "patiently" outside the office for him to finish. I already had the route to Gen's office mapped in my brain. I'd just been looking for the opportunity to slip away to find her ever since the General's secretary, who I'd finally remembered has a crush the length of the Nile on Tio, gave me Col. Sullivan's office number.

"Dino. Jesus, dude. You said you'd wait on me," Carl says, breathless with the anxiety of someone who'd pay for my transgressions if anyone found out I'd violated Pentagon security protocol. "You seem to forget you're..."

"I wondered where you went, Carl. I got lost." I stare at him, impassive, hoping he'll see the steel in my eyes - and that he won't blow this for me. "As luck would have it, I ran into a former colleague from my military days."

I make introductions. Carl sputters. I know he wants to say there's no way I'd get lost; he knows me far too well to be taken in by this. Somehow, though, he must catch on. Maybe it's watching me struggle for breath and patter when I'm talking around Gen.

He berates me with half a heart. I turn to follow him, dutiful and chastised. Before I leave her sight, though, I give Gen a warning look. She lowers her chin. I walk back into her office, get close enough to keep it soft. "Let's meet at 7:30. La Côte D'Or sound good?"

I don't miss her eyes even though she tries so hard not to react. Suspicion blooms but so does interest. "I'm afraid I..."

"I'll meet you in the bar area."

I'm out of her office before she can turn this down. Carl's impressed by how well I'm moving. This one remark, brief and tepid, is his way of letting me know he knows about the hostage negotiation mission and my injuries. Of course he had done a quick update on me after our meeting this morning. He never really wants surprises. Maybe he even thought he'd figure out who my contact was inside CorpRisk, our competitor. Sad to say, there is no contact there who'd ever tell me about this under-the-table deal they were running. It was all just being in the right place and the right time then letting my ability to guess correctly work for me. CorpRisk must be shitting in their pants about now. And, thus, the Stuff of Legend grows - yet another instance of TOL putting it to the bad guys.

Carl and I make it to the security grid where I'll leave my visitor's badge as I exit this building in which I've just left my heart. Or maybe I've found it. Who knows.

"She ain't showing tonight, buddy." Carl signs the register next to my name. "You see her face? She wasn't buying whatever it was you were selling."

I smile at him when he grins at me. "Oh, she'll be there. She won't like it, but she'll be there."

Now he laughs as the Marine waves us through the check point. "It's always fun watching the O'Leary magic. When will women ever learn?"

"There's a secret to it." I feel the first ray of sun as I exit. "And that is this: it's always real. Always. Women can tell. Plus, they like a man who knows what to do with his hands."

He stops and looks back toward the building. It's a place that can get into your blood so easy. You begin to think it really is the center of the world if you work there too long. "I owe you one, Dino. Not that you haven't bought me a shitload more work to straighten this out, but I do owe you one."

"Roger was pleased, then?"

"Roger thinks I suddenly walk on water."

"Our little secret, Carl."

"Nah." He shakes his head, throws his shoulders back, sticks out his hand to me. "I'll tell him who fed me that data once we're out of military earshot. I just didn't want to do it in there. You never know who's listening."

"You're a mensch."

Carl rolls his eyes. "Gentiles should never try to say anything in Hebrew. It always sounds like oatmeal."

"When do you think the new RFP will come out?"

"TOL's on the classified list. You'll get your notice like everyone else."

I grasp his hand firmly. "Let the best man win." 

My father would tell me that nice guys don't finish last; they never even get in the right race. Gen would remind me that I'm nice within reason but that when the race becomes personal, I am a fleet, vicious ghost.

Of course, that was back before I chanced a look around on this journey of life or whatever it is I've been on. Still, I prefer stealth mode. It suits me. I tell Thornie he's the samurai, I'm the ninja. I see it all; I just don't always react and I'm never deterred.

She calls the restaurant and asks for me at exactly 7:30. I knew she'd do something; I just thought she'd do it in person.

"Mr. O'Leary, I think you know why I won't be there tonight," she says, her voice crisp and cold.

A flash of my Gen's first smile crosses my memory. I earned that smile only after I rose to the challenge of her. It took me many encounters before she felt safe enough with me to feel like smiling. This Gen has got to be wondering why she's risen even part way to the bait I dangled. "I think we both know, Genoma. You've grown soft from years of men easily dealt with. You don't know if you've got it in you to deal with your fears of a man who's more than your equal."

For a moment, she says nothing. Then she says, "I don't make a habit of going out on dinner dates with men who wander into my office and think they can just pick me up."

Something in what she's just said is a lie. I don't know what part is a lie. "Well, then, you've certainly missed out on a lot of fun in life."

"Look, let's just stop the dance. I know who you are. I know why you sought me out. Whatever you think I am, I'm not. Okay?"

What? She's not lying now but I don't know what her truth is; it rattles me. It takes me a moment to respond. Does she really know me? Is she my Gen resettled in this time? Is this what she's telling me but is afraid to say it out loud in case I am not who she thinks I am? It can't be. But now I have to be even more careful. I can't misinterpret her words and scare her off. "I know just what you are. Remember I said we'd met before? It should tell you something that you've stuck in my mind all this time."

"This is ridiculous."

"I'm only waiting another half hour for you, Genoma. Get your tail in gear."

After I hang up on her, I let my fingers caress the receiver, as if they can figure out the meaning of her words. She knows who I am? And why I looked her up? What could this mean?

All my records in this world are fake. They're good fakes, but they're fake. Terry and I both salted our fake credentials in this world in all the right places - laying a path for any security check. We based them on our real resumes, of course, with exceptions for anything we thought may raise flags.

But as far as this world is concerned, they're fake. In this world, no Dino O'Leary ever entered the Marines. So if that's true, then how could this Gen know me? She's not the kind of woman to let me seed her memory. If I said I met her in Japan, she wouldn't remember me - because it's not true here in this world. Some people would think their memories were cloudy and they'd believe they'd really met me back then. Not Gen. Not any version of her.

She makes it to the restaurant 20 minutes after she called. It's not far from where she lives. I knew she'd know it. For my Gen, this was a special place. We found this place one warm fall evening after spending a rare day wandering around art galleries in this area just far enough away from our neighborhood in DC that it was an effort to get here.

It became our comfort place. And I seduced her into her first agreement to be my wife right here in this very room.

This Gen enters with a brisk walk and a stare that's meant to nail me to the floor for my impertinence. 

"Would you care to have our aperitifs here at the bar or shall we carry them to our table?" I ask her before she can speak to me.

"Neither. I'm here for only one reason. To tell you to back the hell off, Marine."

Her fury is palpable; but there's something else underneath. I should know what that is, I should be able to taste her every emotion - but I'm lost. I'm running as fast as I can and she's already out of sight. "Once a Marine always a..."

"Can the bullshit, Marine. If you think I'm falling for this, you're insane and an idiot. Something tells me, you're neither."

I rise to face her. Something I'm not expecting is happening here. I hold both hands up; the universal sign of surrender. "Look, Gen..."

"Genoma. Or Col. Sullivan. Not a damned person in the world calls me Gen. See? Another mistake. How about that?"

"Genoma, I don't know what's going on." I gaze into her eyes and watch her examine them for deceit. "Maybe I've stepped into something I wasn't expecting."

She hesitates. Then sighs. Her eyes drop from mine. She mutters, "Dammit."

"C'mon. Obviously there's been a misunderstanding here. Let's go be civilized while we work this out." I motion the maitre d' for our table.

"If I find out you're lying..." She whispers this to me as I put my hand in the small of her back to guide her to follow him.

Touching her there, feeling the sway of her as she walks, it feels as if I've lived a thousand years. It's like looking back from a far distance at the joy you once thought you'd always have words to describe only to find yourself thrust into the immediacy of it again. It's a rush of time and space and emotions. It's an awareness of every cell in my body. I know now there's nothing I could say to make myself walk away from her. I'll never have that ability.

I will make her love me. I will make her crave me. I will make her marry me. I will make babies with her. I will make all this happen so fast this time. I will not waste one second of our life. This is my second chance at the one love meant to be ours. We will grow old together. And someday, I'll tell her the truth but not until I've wrung everything out of life there's to be wrung.

As I hold her seat for her, I suddenly hear my next phone conversation with Thorne. I hear myself telling him I've found her. I hear the hope in my voice, the giddy sound of life with untamed borders. I look down at the top of Gen's head and notice the soft fall of her hair around her shoulders. I remember burying my face inside her hair, against her neck, whispering into her throat, licking her ear, opening my mouth as wide as it would go to suck in her taut skin at the base of her neck.

I've found her.

She's right here.

This is a nightmare.

A freakish nightmare.

She always has been a woman who looks directly into your eyes when you're in conversation with her. The only time I ever remember her looking away from me in a time like this was when she was embarrassed to express the depth of her hatred for her father and shame of her mother.

I remember telling her, time and again, that all that really mattered was who she'd become - not who she'd been born and raised. Who was I to understand her childhood when I'd been raised in a noisy and normally dysfunctional family of Irish Italians?

Ironic to think of how smart I used to be about life. Too bad I couldn't have foretold that one day I'd feel more in touch who I'd been than who I am.

Gen gazes at me, not willing to let me look away from the edgy resentment in her eyes.

I put down the menu. "Why don't you let me order for you, Genoma? I'd love more than anything to surprise you."

"Look, Marine..."

"Genoma, my name is Dean. And I know we always say, 'once a Marine, always a Marine,' but at some point, you Air Force pukes gotta condescend to recognizing that when we're no longer active duty, it's just polite to call us by our name - not 'Marine.' Whattaya say?"

"Your card and your friend both call you Dino, Mr. O'Leary. Not Dean."

"I only let special people call me Dean."

"I'm only letting you get away with that because you had the balls to call me an Air Force puke."

Now my grin is genuine. She, however, does not smile. I thought it would be that easy? Still, there's less tension in her shoulders. Her forefinger moves in little circles through the condensation glittering on her water glass.

The waiter glides to our table. Without looking at the menu, I order for us both. She glances down at the menu as I do, reading along, hopefully getting hungry. When he leaves, she sips from the glass of wine she ordered. She looks off, around the room, studying the layout, the people, the exits. I know that look - she used to hide it better; she's out of practice.

"You are so beautiful," I say, very softly but seriously. It's not a come on, it's just what comes out before I take the road that trudges mercilessly away from the sordidness of what I now know I was up to tonight.

In this one moment, I see before me where this will go if I don't take the other road, the one I don't want to be on with every fiber of my being. The way I'd rather go, the fantasy I've been building, it won't be pretty and I will never have what I really want. I'll only have an imitation. My insides ice up.

Her eyes dart to mine; surprise, open and heartfelt, glistens back at me. I have missed this women in a totality even I haven't appreciated. "I'm not forgetting anything I know about you."

Her eyes drop now. I should be wary. I'm not.

"Listen to me just long enough for me to explain. I swear, Genoma..."

"Dean, I gave you more credit. You should have given me some credit." Her voice is lethal; her eyes now look steadily into mine.

The waiter appears with our soups. Gen lifts her spoon with those fingers I remember licking, and begins eating.

I can't taste the soup. I feel it on my tongue but cannot taste it. I offer Gen the bread basket. As she makes her selection, she says, "You were never in Misawa when I was there. We've never met. I checked the records. If you're going to explain anything, start with why you lied to me."

She's watching me, of course. The power of her words convince me that while my need was pure, it was a wound that won't ever heal that's brought me here.  She's watching hard enough to see the wound weep.

"Well, that's awkward," I say, giving a little chuckle, trying instantly to find cover for us both. "I was so hoping you'd go easy on my fragile ego."

Her lips part. I would swear I know what she'll say is going to cut me to the quick. She pauses, shakes her head. Her eyes search me for something she can't find anymore. Then, "Isn't this ridiculous, Dean? That they'd waste our time like this over something inane? I don't know about you, but I'm embarrassed they'd do this."

Our entrées arrive just then. She sits back in her chair, hands resting over the linen napkin in her lap, as the waiter serves. When the requisite pepper is ground over the chicken and the wine is refreshed, he glides away from us. She begins eating. I sit, fork in one hand, wondering if my life can get weirder.

"The first time I came here, it was just to get out of the rain," she says softly, still looking at her plate. "I never thought I'd like French food. But this place always seemed so comfortable - and it was so off the track of most military that it felt like I shut my job out when I walked in here."

"I found it by chance, too." I'm shaken from my reverie. I force myself to begin eating.

"Is that the truth, Dean? Or something you think I'll want to hear?"

I glance up into her face. Her eyes are glistening with tears I know she won't shed. "There is an explanation for what I told you, Gen..."

"Genoma."

"Yes. Right." I lean over the table; she seems to welcome the move. "We haven't met before. I lied. But I know your record, your files so well, it's like I was there with you ... I have been to Misawa. Twice. So I know it well. And I know what you pulled off."

"Of course you've read my file. I imagine you've got it virtually memorized, Dean." Her tongue is so sharp, I'm surprised my ears aren't slashed to bits.

"Okay, let's cut the..."

"Yes, let's." Her mouth opens. She tries to say something. Her eyes look like so shiny. Her shoulders droop. When it finally comes, her voice is a shallow whisper. "This will cost me everything, won't it?"

If I hadn't been so blind to everything but what I needed, I would have let my radar work its normal magic. I would have assumed nothing. I would have watched, studied, absorbed. I would have known this woman before me is in trouble and needs protection.

I may not know what's going on, but I know her well enough to know it's something too heavy for her to be bearing alone. For the first time since I have come face to face with her, I am overwhelmed with the desire to help her. To come to her rescue. To be the same man who once sheltered her as she gathered strength to face trauma she could show to no one in her professional life.

And I am swimming inside a familiar wave when it comes to Gen. I would do anything for her. I would save her a million times to make up for the one time I wasn't there when she most needed me. These are the dreams I have in the furthest reaches of my soul.

This Gen takes a stuttered breath. I know what it cost her to show weakness to a stranger, someone she fears.

I motion for the waiter to bring me the check. He flutters around, sure we're displeased with something. I give no quarter; just the check, I tell him, smiling lightly.

Another ten minutes and we're out on the street. "There's a quiet bar on the next street. At least, there used to be back when I lived here," I say to Gen, gesturing in the direction we should head.

We say nothing to each other on the short walk around the corner. At the door to the bar, I put my hand on her elbow just as I reach for the door. My mouth is near her ear; I know my voice is husky as I whisper, "Whoever you think I am, I'm not. But it doesn't mean I don't want to help you, Genoma. I can tell you need a friend."

"I just want this over." She looks me in the eyes. Suddenly, she puts a hand on my jaw. "If I went to bed with you right now, what would your report say about me?"

"I am not an investigator. Is that what you think this is? That I'm investigating you?"

"The thing is, Dean, I cannot trust you but ... damn ... but I do. There's just something about you." She drops her hand just as she laughs, short and manically amused. "Is this me? When did I ever trust anyone I didn't know?"

"I believe that sometimes our souls just recognize a friend when we meet. You were always someone who believed in her own instincts about people."

"How is it you seem to know me so well? That doesn't come from any file..."

"Look me in the eye while I tell you this, Genoma: you're never going to meet any man you can believe in like you can believe in me."