At Betty’s, I’d thought Zoe and I had called some kind of truce, but damn if she doesn’t get in my car on Friday afternoon and annoyme first thing.
“Look at this t-shirt,” she says, once she’s settled her bag in the backseat. She unzips her jacket and points at her chest, and it’s a good three seconds—too many seconds—of me looking without understanding that I’m supposed to be reading.Stanton Valley Campground,it says, in a retro, nineteen-eighties-style font, a cartoon squirrel’s face underneath, goofy and smiling. The t-shirt is gray, everything on it faded. It looks soft, thin. I can see the faint ridges of the cups of her bra.
“Uh,” I say, and I’ll bet if I got out of the car right now my knuckles would drag on the road.
She doesn’t seem to notice. “I got this at Goodwill. They had a lot! I guess your campground was pretty popular, huh? Anyways, I thought Lorraine would get a kick out of it.”
She turns to put on her seat belt, and I turn to look outthe windshield.
Here’s the problem: I don’t feel the right things around Zoe. She’s supposed to be an enemy I’m keeping close, a tool I need to get something I want. But I don’t feel what she’s supposed to be to me; I haven’t since that first day. And since Wednesday—hell, if I’m honest, since last weekend—it’s more than me noticing, in some semidetached way, that I find her attractive. Sure, she’s got an edge to her, one she seems to delight in sharpening on me. But she’s also whip-crack smart in a way that’s terrifying and exhilarating to be around, a way that keeps you hanging on for whatever too-true thing she’s going to say next. And seeing her at the bar—with her friends and with Ahmed and Charlie—I can see now that she wasn’t really faking it last weekend. She’s damned likable, that’s the thing. She’s got a smile that can go all the way up to her eyes, she kicks ass at darts, and when you talk to her, she listens to every single word.
“Oh, wait,” she says, undoing her seat belt and swiveling so her knees are on the seat. She reaches into the backseat, rustles around in her bag, her ass right next to my face.Not what Imeant by truce.
“We need to get going,” I say,my voice gruff.
When she turns back, a Tupperware container in her hand, she levels me with a long look. It’s a look that says,I thought we were going to try this another way.But I say nothing, just wait for her to put on her seat belt, and when she does, I pull away from the curb. She’s set the Tupperware on the floor between her feet, and I’m as curious about what’s in there as I am about what’s underneath that t-shirt.
Which is a lot.A lot curious.
I clear my throat, try to start this thing over. “How’d the rest ofyour week go?”
“Fine,” she sniffs.
The silence stretches, and finally I decide to get out of my own way for once. “What’s inthe container?”
Out of my peripheral vision I see her turn toward me briefly, and then she reaches down again, picks up the Tupperware. “It’s kind ofa long story.”
“Kind ofa long drive.”
“Well, I guess it’s not that long. I took a cooking class. It’s actually something I did with my former assistant from the firm.” There’s a pause, like she’s waiting for me to give some signal that I’m not okay with her talking about her old job. When I don’t say anything, she continues, her index finger tracing along the lip of the container. “I kind of—I used to give Janet a pretty hard time, made her work a lot.”
“After that she wanted to take a cooking class with you?” I ask, regretting it immediately when I see her expression turn stricken, hereyes widening.
“Oh, shit. Do you think she felt obligated? Because it was her idea. I took her out for lunch, and actually we got along pretty well, but maybe—”
I rush out a correction. “I’m sure she didn’t feel obligated. You don’t work there anymore, right?”
“Right,” she says, but she’s still got her lips pulled slightly to the side in concern, or maybe worry. This is what comes of my efforts at conversation. “Anyways,” she says. “We made cookies. Want one?”
Obviously I have to eat one. I’ll look like an asshole if Idon’t. “Sure.”
The cookie is disgusting, I mean really disgusting. It tastes like there’s soy sauce in it. But I say, “Good job,” and eat the whole thing. My eyes might be watering.
“You want another one?” sheasks, hopeful.
“Better not.” I’m close to saying a prayer of thanks when she relents and puts the lid back on. But it’s helped—she’s not so stiff over there anymore. Still, two polite questions and I’ve reached my limit, I guess. I don’t know what to say to her now. So I reach my hand down to the panel along my door and pull out my ace in the hole, my guarantee that she’ll see I was serious aboutletting her in.
“Brought this for you.” I pass the binder over to her.
She takes it, looking over at me, but I keep my eyes ahead, focus on the heavy Friday traffic. I’m nervous to have her see it—I’ve got no problem admitting that to myself. Zoe went to the best schools, did a tough job with a lot of smart people, and I had to work my ass off for a C average in both high school and college. The effort contained in that binder is more than I want her to know about, no matter what we’d talked about on Wednesday. The spreadsheets especially, fuck. I’d almost crushed the computer with my bare hands doing those, I swear to Christ. My hands tense around the steering wheel at the memory, and at the fact that she’sopening it up.
“This is your—is this a proposalfor the camp?”
I manage a grunt of assent, look over to see her rolling those eyes. Amber in this light, with that dark ring around the edges. They’re gorgeous, frankly—with her blond hair and tan skin she reminds me ofa bar of gold.
I try to concentrate on the aftertasteof the cookies.
“You must be terrible on road trips. Like it’s just all heavy silence and hands at ten and two. No license plate games foryou, I’ll bet.”
