He follows me to the kitchen, where I pull out ingredients for tonight’s meal prep. Cooking calms me—has ever since I was twelve and learned that feeding Mom was easier than watching her forget to eat.
Thankfully, she’s doing much better and, after a couple of decades, is finally seeing a therapist. We meet for breakfast at least twice a month. It’s like getting to know a new person.
Tonight’s meal is a chicken, rice, and vegetable casserole. While it cooks, I flip on the TV. There’s a hockey game on—not the Reno Rebels, but I’ll take it.
However, I can’t focus.
My mind repeatedly drifts back to a certain Parks & Rec employee. Starting with the flash of hurt when I refused her a Crush Cake, which she immediately covered with a bright smile. To her in the parking lot with a dead battery, trying so hard to seem like she had everything under control when she clearly didn’t. The moment our hands brushed when she gave me her number on a sticky note—sending dangerous volts of electricity pulsing through me. How I notice her perfume in the cold air even when she isn’t in my proximity. It smells expensive, Italian—I’m sure of it—given her name. Not overwhelming like the stuff some women practically bathe in. Pleasant. Like walking past a rosebush in the spring.
It’s annoying that I noticed.
More annoying that I’m still thinking about it.
I should dislike Vincenza. She makes everything complicated. She asks too many questions, waves too enthusiastically, and decorated the office like Valentine’s Day threwup in there. She’s everything I avoid—erratic, emotional, and aggressively optimistic.
So why do I keep replaying the way she looked at me when I jumped her car? Like I’d done something surprising instead of showing basic human decency? I saw her walking to the parking lot in the dark. Peeked outside to make sure she was safe. Heard the distinct whine of the engine. It’s not entirely out of the purview of my job.
My phone buzzes again.
Vincenza Sorrentino: For the bakery, I need site measurements for the accessible entrance permit. Can we walk over tomorrow at six-thirty? That would be before you have to leave for the meeting in Carson City.
She’s relentless.
Me: Sure.
Vincenza Sorrentino: Perfect! See you then.
She sends me a smiling face emoji.
I send a thumbs up emoji, which I belatedly realize she’ll probably think is smug, but what does she expect, a heart with an arrow through it like on the Valentine’s Day décor that continues to multiply, Gremlin style, in the municipal building? I set my phone down to try to focus on the game and the onions burning in the frying pan.
However, all I can think about is tomorrow morning.
Oreo whines at my feet.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter. “It doesn’t mean anything.” Just like it didn’t mean anything when I saw her for the first time last summer and felt a wild lurch in my chest. Thinking back to my hotshot crew days, I designated her as atrigger point and vowed to myself that she was off-limits. A no-go area completely beyond my reach.
Oreo tilts his head, skeptical.
I tell myself not to think about how smart and intuitive dogs are.
8
PATTON
Bright and early thenext day, I’m at the old firehouse with my keys, a measuring tape, and a fierce determination to make meeting Vincenza quick and painless.
She is already here because, of course, she’s early. Bundled up like a snow bunny, she wears a cream-colored coat with a faux fur-trimmed hood. Her hair is pulled back in a neat bun, and under her mittened hands, she carries a clipboard.
“Good morning!” she says as bright as the February sun reflecting off the snow. “Thanks for doing this before your meeting.”
I mutter, “Let’s get this over with.”
“Absolutely. Efficiency is my middle name.”
“I thought it was Sparkles-Sequins-Sticky Notes.”
She stops walking. Blinks at me. “That’s three names.” As if belatedly realizing something, a crease forms between her eyebrows. “Wait, did you just make a joke?”
