Rules of Engagement

By Charity Tahmaseb

I’m standing in the woman’s restroom of Kipling’s Grill and Bar, both hands plastered over my nose. Blood seeps through my fingers, coats my upper lip with a sticky residue. My mouth is filled with quicksilver and salt. The sink beneath me is a river of red.

My vision blurs, and a wave of nausea rolls through me. This isn’t the first time I’ve swallowed enough of my own blood to feel its weight in my stomach.

I hope it’s the last.

“There’s nothing wrong with a strategic retreat,” Frank says.

I peer over my fingers at him. He is as steady and correct as ever—or as anyone could be while covered in blood and standing in the woman’s restroom. Maybe he knows I feel like a failure, like ten kinds of coward. I ran. I hid. Now I’m trapped in the restroom with its infinity sinks and whimsical subway tiles.

“Don’t mind us,” he says whenever someone steps into the space. And because he’s Frank, they don’t mind. Really, he should be a fixture here. They all adore him. They chat while they wash their hands and reapply lipstick, occasionally throwing me looks that sting with sympathy and pity.

When we’re alone, and I can ease my hands away from my face, Frank uses a careful finger to inspect the damage.

“Not broken?” he ventures.

My nose throbs a strange, rhythmic beat. My eyes are still damp from tears. If I close them, I’m certain I’d see that fist—with its perfectly lacquered nails in a militant red—rocket toward my face, watch the stars burst across my field of vision, feel the gush of hot blood. That’s when I fled to the restroom with Frank, pain, and humiliation in my wake.

Despite all this, my nose—or its cartilage—is fine. “Not broken.”

“Ah, but here?” His fingers lights on the left side of my chest, right above my heart.

“I don’t know.”

“A good, honest answer. I like those.”

He pulls enough paper towels from the dispenser to soak up the water and blood, but not so many that someone might accuse him of being wasteful. Frank is seldom wasteful. He collects the droplets of water—some shining like rubies, others like diamonds—until only one large sparkle remains on the counter above the row of sinks.

“I don’t know what to do about that,” I confess.

The diamond is huge, somehow larger now that it doesn’t rest on my finger. My hand, too, feels odd—lighter, unencumbered.

Lonely.

“You could pawn it.”

“Is it real?” I never thought to ask. At least, not until this moment.

Frank plucks the ring from its resting spot and holds it up to the light. “Pretty sure.”

“Why? If he was ... I mean, one ring alone must have cost a fortune, but two—?”

“Guilt, maybe?” He turns the diamond so the facets catch the light. “After tonight, I don’t pretend to understand.”

“Then you didn’t—?”

“Know?” He shakes his head. “I would never do that to you.”

“Then he fooled us both.” The blow from this sucker punch isn’t any softer now that Frank shares it. Somehow, it’s worse. As if, in my ignorance, I’ve injured him as well as me.

“So it would seem.” Frank turns the ring again. Despite the stingy light, the blood, and the hard water, the diamond glitters. He studies it as if giving it significant thought. “Sometimes I think I wanted this as much as you did. Happiness, for someone.”

That sucker punch lands again. I yearn to say something, comfort him, but the words congeal in my mouth, caught by the residue of salt and blood.

“How—?” I begin, uncertain. How did I not suspect? How did I miss all the clues? How did Frank?

“You’d think one of us would’ve seen the landmine.” Frank gives his head another rueful shake. “Benjamin used to say we returned home with pieces missing, and not always the obvious ones.”

Now I let my fingers rest against the spot above Frank’s heart. It’s been years since our trio became a duo, since we left pieces of Benjamin behind in Afghanistan, since Frank’s heart shattered into just as many pieces.

He rouses himself—he always does—with a quick, full-body shake. His eyes hold the gleam that comes from having a mission. “There’s always the time-honored tradition of throwing it at him.”

“Yeah, but I think she wants it.”

“You did end up with the nicer one.”

A wave of bewilderment washes through me, joins the blood and the pain and the sorrow.

“It makes no sense.” I understand cheating, hookups, swiping right. But two engagements? Two rings? Two separate lives?

“Why wage a two-front war?” Frank says.

Exactly. What are the rules of engagement for this? How do you decide who wins? First blood? If so, I’ve lost not only the battle but the entire war.

A pounding shakes the restroom door, loud and insistent. The sound has the staccato of small-arms fire. It ricochets against the tiled walls, renews the ache in my nose, the throb in my temples. But something flutters in my stomach, something that might be tendrils of hope. I don’t even realize I’ve taken a step forward until Frank clamps a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re not ready.”

I open my mouth to protest, but I know he’s right. My heart beats a foreign cadence against my ribs. The fault lines run deep, and I haven’t confronted the damage of that first assault.

The pounding renews, frantic now, like rapid machinegun fire. No more three-round bursts. He’s putting all ammo down range. Enough to melt the barrel.

Or my heart.

“Simmy, baby, come on out. Please. Let me explain.”

Frank winces. He looks like he’s swallowed a mouthful of milky pink soap from the dispenser. He strides to the door, opens it a mere crack, and spits more than speaks.

“Simone isn’t ready to come out. Simone may never be ready to come out, never mind see you again.”

The door squeals on its hinges, like it, too, is in pain. The soles of shoes scuff against the floor. Frank’s wearing loafers, so his feet slide against the slick tile, but he gains purchase and throws his shoulder into the door.

He stares down the man on the other side, the one whose name I don’t want to say, never mind think. Frank, in his oxford blue button-down and plaid bowtie. Frank, who looks like an accountant with his dark, horn-rimmed glasses.

Frank, who did three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

“Come in here now,” Frank says, and his voice is calm, almost pleasant, as if he has simply asked the waitstaff for another platter of hot wings. “And you’ll leave on a stretcher.”

The bathroom door shuts without a sound.

“Where were we?” He turns and dusts off his hands. “Ah, yes. Ring disposal.”

Maybe my face crumples. Maybe it’s the fresh tears on my cheeks. Frank’s expression softens; his eyes are as stricken as I feel. He holds open his arms. That’s all the invitation I need. I step into his embrace. For the first time that night, I surrender.

It’s a wonder I don’t break.

* * *

A stunning woman with coiled braids offers up a tube of lipstick.

“It’s not really my shade,” she says by way of explanation, but the glint in her eye tells me she’s pleased to contribute to the cause.

The lipstick passes from woman to woman—and there are several now. They stream into the restroom as if a call has gone out in the restaurant. A summons for recruits, reinforcements, revolutionaries.

Bright red letters on the mirror bisect our reflections. Some suggestions are obvious, like flushing the ring down the toilet. This is a popular idea, but others require more skill and supplies, such as threading the ring through a shoelace and then flinging that around an electrical wire.

“Like you sometimes see with sneakers,” a woman says and unhooks a chain from around her neck. The links coil on the tiled ledge like a golden snake. “This could work.”

Those around her nod in appreciation.

Before long, the mirror is so crowded with scrawled red letters I suspect the world is filled with two-timers and false fiancés. Frank leans against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, chin tilted as he considers each option, offering up occasional commentary.

Good, but too many cameras in the parking lot.

Clever, but I think all the hardware stores are closed right now.

Oh, that one’s diabolical ... but a felony.

At last, the mirror is so full that no one can see their face, no one can check their own lipstick.

No one seems to mind.

“Pick one, honey.” The woman with the coiled braids touches my shoulder. Her fingers are so gentle it’s as if she’s afraid I might shatter.

I’m afraid she’s right.

My gaze jumps from one course of action to the next. I don’t expect any to spark joy, but one among the many should leap out.

“Go on,” another woman says, freckles and eyes equally bright. She holds up a bottle of champagne. “Pick one, and we’ll celebrate.”

A cheer goes up: heartfelt, joyous, conspiratorial.

I hate to disappoint them.

None of the solutions feel right. Perhaps because none of them are mine. Perhaps because the ring—technically—isn’t mine. Perhaps, despite everything, I can’t let it go.

“I can’t.” I hold up my hand, stilling their disappointment.

My gaze meets Frank’s. He gives me the slightest of nods. I know that look deep down in my bones, saw it endless times during our tour in Afghanistan. And now he’s trusting me to find a way to wage this battle.

I walk from the restroom, a collective moan echoing behind me.

* * *

At the bar, a woman is hanging off the arm of the man I thought I would marry. The other woman? Or is that me? Am I that woman? When a man has two fiancées, how do you determine that? Time in position? Who is more qualified in the role of potential wife?

To be sure, he’s trying to peel her off him, easing his fingers under her hand, pressing gently until her grip loosens and their hands rest on the surface of the bar.

But then he laces his fingers with hers, undoing all the gentle effort of before. That sucker punch lands again. My throat clenches. I forget how to swallow, and my mouth is thick with tears and regret. I remember when Dan—yes, I can think his name now—first laced his fingers with mine. How, in that simple act, I felt like I finally deplaned, left behind the noise and nightmares of Afghanistan.

How I felt like I finally arrived home.

She sees me first, this other woman. I catch her gaze in the mirror behind the bar. Her eyes are sharp like ice, like cut crystal, like a woman betrayed.

Does she mean to cut me? I don’t know. But she can’t bear to cut Dan, so I’m her only option. A strange urge to reassure her rolls through me. I want to tell her I know how she feels and how neither one of us should step onto this battlefield.

Before I can, Dan’s gaze touches mine in the mirror’s reflection.

It lands not like a sucker punch but a grenade.

I take careful, measured steps toward the bar. Its polished surface gleams, the glare of ice and crystal and alcohol harsh and unforgiving.

The woman at Dan’s side freezes. She is as still and sharp as all that cut crystal. In this standoff, I think we both might shatter, leave shards of ourselves embedded in the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

But there are rules here, and we’ll remain intact. There are rules, and she knows them as well as I do. There are rules, and now it’s my turn for a sucker punch.

So I catch Dan in my sights and say three simple words:

“I need you.”

* * *

Dan balks at the restroom’s entrance. I tug on his sleeve, and the linen is smooth beneath my fingers and oddly free of blood. With reluctance, he follows me inside.

To my amazement, women still crowd the restroom. Frank, of course, is still here, regaling them with a story—a funny one, about our time in Afghanistan. I once asked him why. Why the humorous, the surreal, the life-affirming? Why that and nothing else?

“I can only touch the edges,” is what he told me. “Besides, no matter what anyone says, no one wants to hear the truth.”

And yet everyone listens, expressions rapt, eyes tender. The woman with the coiled braids has her fingers on Frank’s shoulder—that same gentle touch as if she’s afraid he, too, might shatter.

In my absence, a few more suggestions smear the glass. My engagement ring still graces the tile with excruciating elegance. The sight hurts so much that, when I reach for the ring, I expect the platinum to scorch.

Instead, the band is cool and tempting. I hold the ring between index finger and thumb. The diamond sparkles, and it’s so perfect, so deadly. It’s like an IED, and my heart thuds a beat like it knows I’m going to trip the wire.

I turn to Dan. “You get to choose.”

He stares at me, face blank.

I gesture to the mirror with all its courses of action. In its reflection, we are both streaked with blood.

“You get to choose.” I take his hand and fold the ring into his palm. Then I do let go. Because I’ve tripped the wire. And it scorches.

No one—not even Frank—follows me from the restroom.

The door closes behind me, soft on its hinges. There’s a single pop, the sound of a champagne bottle losing its cork.

Or a gunshot.

And I know.

This war, at least, is over.

****

Charity Tahmaseb has slung corn on the cob for Green Giant and jumped out of airplanes (but not at the same time). She’s worn both Girl Scout and Army green. These days, she writes stories and works as a technical writer.

Her short fiction credits include Deep Magic, Escape Pod, Cicada, and Daily Science Fiction. Her novel (The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading) was a YALSA Popular Paperback pick in the Get Your Geek On category.