He adjusts his hand on the steering wheel, grips it a little tighter before loosening his fingers again. “I don’t think we’ll get around to talking about stuff like that.We’ll be busy.”
“Okay, but if we show up and it’sthis awkward—”
“Fine. You can tell me your basics. Where you’re from, that kind of thing. You know more about me than I know about you.”
That’s a painful truth between us—I not only know what I know from the background check, but I also know too much about what has to be the worst tragedy of his life.
“I’m originally from Pasadena,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “My mother still lives there.”Stick to the basics,I remind myself. “I went to USC for undergrad. UVA for law school, and moved here right after. I worked at Willis-Hanawalt until—well, you know. But probably you don’t want to mention anything about where I worked. You can say—I guess you can just say I’m a lawyer, if it comes up.”
“But you’re nota lawyer now.”
“I’m still a lawyer. I’m just not practicing,” I say, surprisingly defensive. Aside from a little informal work I’ve done for Greer over the past few months, Ihaven’treally thought of myself as a lawyer, not since I quit the firm. But once, being a lawyer was so much of my identity that I had hardly any room foranything else.
“What do you do all day, anyway?”
There it is again, the most incisive question he could have asked. I entirely ignore it.
“The two most important people in my life are my best friends, Kit and Greer. I met them when I first moved here and they’re like my family. They both have your number. Kit’s a research scientist, and Greer’s recently gone back to college. I’m missing six of our weekly Sunday brunches for this,” I add, uselessly. It’s not because I’m trying to complain, though I realize now that’s how it sounds. It’s struck me, suddenly—I miss them already. They’re my anchors, more so now than before the jackpot, and I feel more than a little at sea drivingaway from them.
“What a shame,” he deadpans. “Missingbrunch.”
I fold my hands tightly in my lap, clamp my mouth shut and feel my molars grind together. I can’t imagine the next two hours like this, let alone thenext six weeks.
After a while, I get up the courage not to initiate conversation but at least to manage the crushing silence. “Should we puton some music?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, and just because he is being so recalcitrant, so sullen and walled off when that is entirely counterproductive to our mission, I feel a streak of belligerence. I feel the opposite of warm and friendly. I lean over and turn the knob, tune to the most irritating station I know, the one with the guffawing morning show hosts and the same ten pop songs in constant rotation.
“Oh, listen to this,” I say, dramatically, when the electronic beat fills the car. “This is a song, I believe, about a young man who doesn’t mind a woman with small breasts, so long as she has a larger than average posterior. What a delight! Already I feel so encouraged by this song, which is obviously a femin—”
He leans over and shuts it off.
I pause, letting the moment stretch. “Is it because you do not share a fondness for a large—”
“Zoe,” he says, and I clamp my mouth shut. That is definitely the first time he has said my name. It sounds like a different name the way he says it—a gruff exhalation. “Is this you being yourself?” For a flash, nothing more than a second or two, he slides his eyes my way, then snaps them back to the road. “Because I remember you being a littlemore—reserved.”
I shrug, reaching over to turn on the radio again, though not quite as loud this time. “I’m a woman of many contradictions, Aiden,” I say, trying for levity. “Much like our friend thepop star here.”
He doesn’t even blink in reaction.
It’s going to be along six weeks.
* * * *
For the rest of the drive, we’re mostly quiet. I offer something from the goody bag again when I finally give in and go for a donut, and Aiden takes the other. This alone feels like an Olympic-size victory, like maybe it’ll crack open some reservoir of conversation, but nope. The next time Aiden speaks, it’s to point out to me that we’re in a small town called Coleville, only about fifteen minutes outsideStanton Valley.
“There’s a drugstore and a small grocery,” he says. “You need to stop for anything before we head on?”
I do kind of want to stop—Coleville looks lovely, a half-mile main street dotted with small, quaint shops, the sidewalk liberally dotted with elaborate planters full of blooming chrysanthemums and trailing ivy. It’d be a nice place to stroll around, get some small town flavor. But since my companion doesn’t much seem like a stroller, I pass.
And then it’s straight on to Stanton Valley, the road becoming more wooded, more narrow as we approach. When we’re about two miles away, I notice the signs—old, painted wood withStanton Valley Campgroundcarved into them, arrows pointing the way. When we reach a tall, wide wooden arch,Welcome Homecarved across the top, I brace myself, thinking we’ll pull in and be there, but it’s another mile of bumpy terrain, dust and gravel kicking up all around us. Aiden, if it’s possible, seems even more tense than before, the kind of tense that you canfeelradiating off a person. I sneak a look over at him, notice the clench of his jaw, the corded muscle of his forearm as he again tightens then loosens his grip on the wheel.
We pull into a dusty lot where there’s only two other cars, both pickup trucks. Through the windshield, I can see a large, two-story lodge, paneled with rounded, honey-colored wood, like the whole thing has been built with perfectly halved tree trunks. There’s a porch running the length of it, the railings bulky and rustic, including those that line the big stone stairway rising up to the lodge’s front door.
“This is really—” I begin, ducking a little for a better look, but I’m startled by Aiden’s arm reaching over to pop open the glove box in front of me. I shift, so there’s more room between my knees and the panel, and he grumbles out an apology before reaching in and grabbing something he encloses in his fist, popping the door closed again withthe side of it.
He clears his throat and sets his hand down on the bench seat between us. When he lifts it, there’s a small box there, old, faded blue velvet.
A ring box.
