"Do you still believe your eyes?"

Kate hummed. "Right now? Yes. It's beautiful, today."

The quiet between them resumed for some minutes more, as is had on and off all day. Sunset was still a way's away, but the two lazily manned their deckchairs in anticipation. Their day at the beach had been ideal and scarcely marred by the anxiety that had assailed Kate in the days after the event at her home. Most such worry had passed, though there still was the occasional mild start when a bird dared enter her peripheral vision unannounced.

"I know you weren't talking about the view," she continued. "And I know you know that."

"So?"

"Do I still believe I saw the Flying Guy? Yes."

"So, what do you make of it?"

"I don't know, but I'm wondering what else is out there that I've never believed in before ... Bigfoot, El Chupacabra, Santa Claus, fat-free anything."

"You're not crazy, after all?"

"No more than my usual." She turned to him. "Do you think men actually walked on the moon?"

"For real? ... Yeah, I think so. Some things you just have to trust."

"Well, how do you know?"

He shrugged. "Remember I told you a neighbor let me use his garage to work on cars?"

"Back home?"

"Yeah, his name was Tyler, Mr. Tyler. He'd lived in that neighborhood forever, and when I knew him, he was nearly ninety. That was in what? '89 or '90 ... which means, he probably was born around 1900."

"Did he walk on the moon?"

"No ... not that I know of. But he was telling me one time that he grew up next door to a man who'd fought in the Civil War. Can you imagine? It really wasn't that long ago, you know. My point being that you don't have to rely on history professors to know the Civil War took place. There are people alive, even today, who knew people who fought in it. You could burn all the books, but we'd still know."

"The moon landings are the same," he went on, "a series of events of enormous scope with lots of participants and even more witnesses, many still alive. Hell, the entire world was watching. There might have been a huge plot to fake the moon landings, but I doubt it. It would've required a whole lot of people colluding, at least many thousands, for what result?"

"I get that," she said between pursed lips. "But why fake what happened in '91? Wouldn't it also require a huge amount of energy and the collusion of lots of people?"

"Oh, yeah, a huge effort. But maybe there was a good reason. Maybe something worse than a terror attack took place on that day, or there was something else that the government felt they needed to hide."

"The existence of Flying Guys."

"Maybe. But in the end, it's harder to fake something to which a large number of people have been privy. All the government censors and Internet conspiracy nuts in the world can't hide the fact there was an American Civil War, no matter how they try."

"Like in 1984?"

"I like Orwell," he said with a chuckle, "but I don't think any government could go that far. You can erase a person from history but not an entire war ... at least not a recent one. The best you can do is rename it, recast it, lie about some of the details, causes, rationales, those kinds of things."

"I get that, too." She nodded. "I read a book once on holocaust denial. That seems to be the modus operandi for those nuts. If you can't deny something happened, whittle away at the details enough, and you can shape the story to suit your needs. If you can't disprove the Holocaust, the next best thing is to claim it wasn't a deliberate genocide. It was ... what? Overzealous subordinates, the unfortunate side effects of war, military necessity ... or whatever lies." She gave Eli a perverse smile. "It reminds me a little of how your buddy Dave Montash shaves facts to make himself look better ... except it's more deliberate."

"And bigger," he replied with a faint laugh, apparently tickled at mention of their old schoolmate. "But big or small, that's what happens when agendas get involved. Any time you have people with axes to grind, you have got to listen carefully to everything they say. But Chupacabra? I'm going to have to see Chupacabra in the flesh before I believe in that ... and not a grainy video on the Internet of something funny-looking in some hillbilly's freezer in Idaho."

"But you believed me," she said.

"I did."

"Why?"

"There're a lot of reasons. First, you don't strike me as a fabulist."

"Again, why?"

"Because fabulists and people who are delusional don't try to hide what they've seen. They want everyone to know. You didn't call 911, and I had to twist your arm to get you to spill anything. But also, your emotional reaction was so authentic. When I first laid eyes on you in your drive, you were scared to death of something."

"You thought I'd been raped."

"You were scared to death, and, yes, I thought someone had hurt you. But you convinced me otherwise ... that and the fact you had no signs of physical trauma. So, something had to have frightened you."

"You're dodging the question. Why did you accept my outlandish story? I told you right up front. There is no way in hell I would have believed me."

"Because your story was clear, confident, and consistent."

"It sounds pretty much like you're relying on ... what was it you called them ... um, deception detection techniques, rather than following my story."

"Guilty," he admitted. "I did rely a little on reading you like that, but mostly I've tried to follow your story. Look, when you listen to someone's story, you look at two things. First, how does that story compare with what else you now about the rest of the world. And, second, how does a person's story bear up against other things that person has said."

"Eli, I should have failed on both counts. First, there's no such thing as a person who can fly like a bird. Second, you and I had never spoken about the subject before. You had nothing to compare my story to."

"Alright, you're right on the first part. But on the second part, no. We'd never talked about it before that day, but we've discussed the Flying Guy since, and you've always told the same story with little or no variation. So, that's a point in your favor. Also, I took the liberty of reading your notes," he said apologetically. "In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that without asking first. I'm sorry. But, I watched you write out those notes not two hours after the event. They were clear and detailed, and they're consistent with everything else you've said."

"In your professional opinion, I'm telling the truth?"

"I might have been swayed by personal considerations, but I stick with my first assessment. I'm one hundred percent certain you saw something. I'm ninety percent certain it was a man."

"And I can still work with those numbers," she said.

"The only problem is I can't figure out how ... and I have spent some serious time trying to work it out. I just can't figure out how the Flying Guy did it. Unless he's superhuman."

"Or magic," she suggested reluctantly. Something else occurred to her. "Is that really why you suggested I write down what I saw? So you could check my story.

"No ... well, yeah ... no...."

"Get your story straight."

"I'm trying," he said with one of his sweet smiles. "That really wasn't the reason. But I did want you to have a sense whether your story was a true one. Most people aren't good at dreaming things up on the spot and then remembering what they said, later. I wanted you to have something that you could look back to in the future and either know it was true ...."

"Or go seek help?"

"Would that be the worst thing imaginable? Not that I believe in shrinks, but there've been times when I wish I could've sought professional help."

"Why didn't you?"

"I had a government security clearance during the worst of it. Just a whiff of crazy, and our rich uncle would've pulled that. You can't be an intel officer without having top secret clearance."

"Were you delusional?" she asked in jest.

"I don't think so." His reply sounded serious. "After Rachel died, though, I went a little manic ... you know, did a lot of things I never would have considered myself capable of. It only lasted about a year, and then again after the divorce. It wasn't so bad that time, and I had the opportunity to go back on deployment." He looked hard at her again. "There's a lot to be said for being in a combat zone. It gives a clarity and ... I don't know. It makes everything else but what you're doing then and there fade into the background. After the divorce, I spent as much time as I could overseas ... either that or buried in books."

He wasn't joking. And her heart suddenly went out to him. There had been a few hints before, but for the first time Kate realized that the words he'd previously shared about his troubles were more than just his attempt to make her feel better, to let her know someone else had been there. 'Don't let the outside fool you.' Hadn't he said that?

"So, why'd you quit? I thought you loved the army."

"There were parts I liked ... even some I loved. But I was ready to move on. Do you want more tea?" As he spoke, he stood and moved toward a tray situated out of the sun, just inside the door.

"Yes, please."

She tried not to look at him. He was in regular swim trunks, but they showed off his flawless torso and—she almost shivered—his spectacular legs. Her friend had been a distraction all day, and for his part, he'd scarcely looked at her. Men up and down the beach had stepped on their tongues the three times she'd ventured out to swim, but not Eli. Bastard. She needed another distraction.

"What's that on your left shoulder?" she asked, referring to a small round scar where his heavily muscled shoulder met the arm. "A cigarette burn from one of your many paramours?"

"That's where I got shot."

She gasped aloud.

"Don't worry, it was just a jihadist ... not a jealous husband. The one down here," he pointed to a long, faint scar across his right calf, "I got at a rifle range at Fort Bragg. Dumbass paratrooper didn't clear his weapon, and dumbass range NCO didn't rod it."

He often talked casually about such things, things that were beyond her ken, and, as was so often the case when he did, she didn't know what to say.

"You've been shot twice?" she finally managed to ask when he handed her a glass.

He raised his right hand with his fingers spread wide as he sat, then, seeing she hadn't understood, spoke. "Five times. The three in the SAPI don't count, though."

"What's ... the ...?"

"SAPI ... ceramic plates in the IBA ... my bullet-proof vest."

"Oh, sweet Jesus, that must have hurt ... I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "I still liked being over there. And none of the hits I took were that bad. One of the one's I took in the IBA hurt a lot worse than this," he concluded as he tossed a lazy thumb to his shoulder.

"You're just trying to act manly," she prodded. "I bet you cried like a little girl."

"Weddings and funerals are the only thing that make me cry, woman ... and it has to be my wedding."

"Was it that bad?" she hesitated. Over the last days, she'd somehow developed a better sense of what the boundaries were between them. Asking such a question no longer seemed so much like prying.

He let out a long, even sigh. "It was pretty bad, but I think I could have moved beyond it. I mean, the whole thing about being let down in such a horrible way by someone you love, someone you trust ... someone you thought you knew, is always rough. But in a lot of ways, the divorce was much, much easier than the marriage. It was just so good to be out. But that wasn't the real bad part."

Kate also was beginning to learn her friend. He almost always looked at her when he spoke, right in the eye. But when talking about some subjects, his gaze would fix elsewhere, sometimes far off, sometimes at the ground in front of him, but never at her. His marriage was one of those things. And this was another moment where he seemed to want to vent.

"I think the whole experience robbed me of something," he continued after a time. "That may not make any sense ... I can't really blame her. Marriage was a hard look in the mirror for me, and I saw something I didn't like." He turned and looked her in the eye for the first time. "I've had nothing but one shitty relationship after the next since then. And I'm not a hundred percent sure why," he said with another shrug. "With a couple of exceptions, my relationships with women before the marriage were good. Every single one after," he blew a raspberry.

"Oh, Eli," she said with far more emotion than she'd intended, "I know so many smart, accomplished, and beautiful women in this town, I could set you ...." It was only then she caught herself.

"Kate Johnson, are you trying to play matchmaker for me?"

Her immediate response was to growl and ball her fists, but there was no suppressing a laugh.

"You really have taken a lot of sun," he went on innocently.