I overheard Waverly say once that when her team reached out to Aspen, Aspen’s initial response was basicallyyou can’t fool me, assholes.
My grandmother absolutely would’ve said the same.Why would someone on top of the world want to talk to me? You can’t fool me with your shenanigans, whoever you are.
I finish Aspen’s tea and carry it to her in the living room, then retreat to the kitchen and pretend I’m reading something on my phone.
What I’m really doing is watching her.
She blows on the tea before sipping it. Sets it on the half-barrel end table beside her, then goes back to her journal, occasionally bopping her head or lifting her chin like she’s looking to the ceiling for an answer.
“What rhymes with tomato?” she says suddenly.
I almost drop my phone in a rush to answer. “Space potato.”
“Something not food.”
“Purple Play-Doh.”
“No, something in nature…like…”
“Tornado,” I say at the same time she says, “Volcano.”
She frowns at me. “I might like tornado better.”
“Why are you writing lyrics with tomato in them?”
“That’s for me to know and you to be hella impressed by when my next album drops.”
“Ah. You don’t believe fully in the tomato yet.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself…”
“Ibelieve that you can make the tomato work. I just don’t thinkyouthink you can make the tomato work.”
Another gust of wind shakes the cabin, and we look at the front windows.
Full darkness surrounds us, so all there is to see is the two of us staring back at ourselves like the window is a mirror.
But theplink plink plinkagainst the glass tells me what I already knew.
We’re headed into ice storm territory.
If that’s the case, I’m not leaving in the morning. Even if the tree gets cleared away. Which is feeling less and less probable by the moment.
And given all of that, it’s also unlikely that I’m sleeping at all tonight either.
4
Aspen
I retreatto the bedroom shortly after nine and spend a couple hours attempting to binge a television series I want to catch up on. The cabin’s WiFi works so-so with my phone, so it’s a glitchy binge-watch, but I manage to mostly enjoy it.
No messages from the owners.
And it’s getting later and later.
But I can’t fall asleep.
Drifting off is absolutely impossible.
