“Thank you kindly, sir.” I curtsied.
He threw another piece of celery and kept going until I missed on number eight. We stopped then and took our salads to the table. After we sat, Wes studied me for a minute, contemplating his words. When he spoke, he acknowledged the elephant in the room we’d worked to ignore.
“Ellie, I need to tell you something about Arch. Something he probably won’t be able to tell you himself, at least not for a while. I shouldn’t be telling you now, but you need to know.”
“Okay.” I imagined all sorts of scenarios, the least scary was Arch thought I was a troll but wanted my money for his firm.
“If he cares about someone, he can’t stand not being able to get a hold of them.” My eyebrows furrowed with indignation. Wes stopped picking at his salad. “It’s not like he needs to know where you are at all moments of the day. He’s not controlling or anything. But if he randomly needs to get a hold of you and doesn’t hear back quickly, he gets major anxiety.”
“Why?” I couldn’t understand why he’d freak out over something so minute.
“See, that’s the private part. Arch has only been in one serious relationship in his life.” Wes sighed. “Enough time has passed; I hope he doesn’t get mad at me for this.”
“One?” I asked in disbelief.
“He’s had dates, sure, but Penny was different. She went to school with us, we grew up around her. She knew our parents, knew the farm—Gray said he told you about the farm?”
“Yeah, it sounds kinda idyllic.”
He took a big bite of salad before replying. “It kind of was, kind of wasn’t. That’s a whole ’nother story though.”
“Okay, so she was his high school sweetheart?”
“Right. We were in school at Emory. It was great because of how close to home it was. We were all there, the three of us and Penny.”
“How old were you?”
“Juniors. Arch and Penny had an apartment off campus. Gray and I had one beside it, same floor and everything.” He paused to clear his throat. “They were pretty serious. He bought a ring, but she didn’t know it yet. They talked about all aspects of their future. It was all planned out. They even discussed kids.”
He stopped to clear his throat again. I jumped up. “Let me get you some wine.” I scurried into the kitchen and soon returned with a glass.
“Thanks, I had some lettuce stuck.” He took a few big gulps. “One day, Arch texted Penny to call him after her morning class. He had some question to ask her. Something about dinner or some such. She never called. He wasn’t worried, assumed she missed his text or got busy or something.” He gulped down some more wine. “He waited until he knew she was done with her afternoon class and called. She didn’t answer. He kept calling all evening. When it got so late she couldn’t possibly still be held up at class, he called us, and we started searching for her.”
“Why didn’t he call the police? Or her parents?” My salad wilted in front of me, forgotten. I sipped my wine mindlessly as I listened to the tragic story, tears gathering in my eyes. I foresaw a tragic ending.
“He did. The police basically blew him off, of course. Her parents freaked and joined us in the search. From what he could tell, she could’ve disappeared before she even got to her first class. We hacked into her e-mail, found one from her study group, and contacted them. They confirmed she never made her morning class.”
“My god, what happened to her?” My heart hurt, knowing where he was going with the story.
“We couldn’t search well in the dark, though we tried. It wasn’t until daylight that we found her car.” He shook his head, the pain of the memories on his face. “It happened in the winter. Atlanta winters are mild, but the temperature had dropped pretty low the night before. The best we could tell, she hit a patch of black ice and went off the road.” He took another moment to drain his glass.
I filled it up. At this rate, he’d be drunk before the lasagna. If it was thathard forhimto share the story, I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for Arch to tell it. Wes sighed. “Her brown sedan blended in with the branches and trees in the ditch, and no one spotted it. By the time we found her, she was dead. She would’ve made it if the wreck had been found sooner, but she had a bleed on her brain. That’s what killed her.”
My heart thumped painfully. “I don’t even know what to say.” I had to find Arch. I had to tell him I understood, and I’d be considerate of his feelings. “Wes, I’m so sorry to do this to you, but I have to go apologize to Arch. Would you be upset if I invited him to join us?”
Wes leaned in and kissed my cheek, a move that shocked and pleased me. “I’m glad you want to. It’s been years, and I think he’s ready for another commitment, but it’ll be a pain he never escapes.”
I jumped up, ran across the hall to Arch’s apartment, and rapped my knuckles on his door. No answer. “Arch,” I called. “Open up!” With still no answer, I knocked harder, closed-fist. “Come on, Arch! I need to talk to you.”
Just as I gave up and turned to my apartment, dejected, he answered. I whirled around to Arch glaring at me from his entry. He left the door open as he turned back into his apartment. I took it as my cue to enter.
The catchy theme song from a classic video game filled the air as Arch grabbed his controller, jumping on turtles and shooting fire at moving plants, as he staunchly refused to look at me.
“Hey.” Once I was inside, I had no idea how to bring up the subject.
He rolled his eyes at my attempt to make conversation while ignoring the greater issue at hand.
I scrambled for something to say. I didn’t know how to bring up Penny. I pointed to his paintings, abstract and alluring. “Your artwork is intriguing. Is it by anyone I’d know?”
