My answer is a roll of my shoulders, a tightening of my hands on thesteering wheel.
“You can’t just throw money at this. Believe me.”
It’s that quick that I get angry, and I’m grateful to be driving, to know I have to keep half my attention on some other task. “Are you kidding me with that?” I ask her. “Your actualjobwas throwing money at this. I’m just the guy who had to catch all that money, and you know what? I can’t fuckingwaitto be rid of it. You know what the check I got said? The one that came from your firm?”
“No,” she says, her voice firm. She’s got a spine of steel, Zoe does.
“Aaron O’Leary Settlement. Right in the fucking memo line.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose, like she’s got to recover from that piece of information, even though it can’t be new to her. “But if you’re just trying to—getridof it…”
“Let me ask you something, Zo,” I say, my voice low, angry. “How’ve you been doing, spending all that money you’ve got?”
I see her, out of the corner of my eye, rub her palms up and down the thighs of her jeans, see her jaw firm briefly before she answers. “I told you, I’m taking some time.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t fucking feel like taking some time. Because your money and mine, those are two different things. You had a lucky night. You got drunk and bought a lottery ticket and beat the odds. My brother didn’t. He died like a bunch of other poor fuckers who get hooked on something, and every single dollar of this money feels like it’s for a hit he took, a bad decision he made. The best thing—the only fucking thing I can think to do with it that won’t make me sickis this camp.”
It’s maybe the most I’ve ever said to Zoe all at once, probably more than I’ve said to anyone in the last six months.She’ll quit now, after that,I think.Shewon’t fight me.
And for all of two minutes, she doesn’t. She sits silently, her eyes straight ahead, and as my words echo in the car around me, I feel all that quick-fire anger flame out. Now all I feel is tired, and confused, and sorry. Sorry for going so hard at her when all she wanted was to help.
“Hey,” Isay, soft now.
“Don’t apologize,” she says, sharply. “You’re right that I had a lucky night, and you’re absolutely right that I didn’t deserve it.” I open my mouth, ready to dispute that—who said anything about deserving it?—but she barrels on before I can stop her. “But I’m taking time so I don’t screw up again.”
What “again”?She reaches up and drags her fingers over her brow, a brief, casual touch that I notice more now that I know how her skin feels under my own fingertips. “Look, I don’t know what it’s like for you,” she says. “But for me, it’s easy to make mistakes when big things change. When my dad died, I—I made big mistakes, mistakes that lasted a long time. And winning this money—well, it’d be easy to make mistakes with this too. I’ve got a second chance here, and I want to do it right.” She stops, clears her throat, reaches out to adjust one of the heater vents away from her. It’s the barest, briefest pause, not enough time for me to even ask all the questions I have about what she’s said:What mistakes? How long did they last? What does it mean to you, to do it right?“I’m sure you do want to get rid of this money. All I’m asking is whether you’ve really thought about it. About the particulars.”
“You’ve seen all the work I’ve done.” But as soon as I’ve said it, I realize I don’t so much mean it as an explanation. I think maybe I mean itas a question.
She shrugs her shoulders, all nonchalance, like we haven’t exchanged harsh words. Maybe it’s the way we started, me and her—the fact that it was hostile from the start means that we don’t feel so uncomfortable when things turn tense. “How much work you do on something has nothing to do with whether it’s the right idea.”
I slide my eyes over to her again, take in the smooth lines of her profile. Anyone else would see her and think she’s entirely unbothered. But already I know better. I knowherbetter. I know she won’t answer if I ask her anything else, about her mistakes, her work, her money, anything. I know she’s given me all she’s willing to, and my chest feels tight with something like—frustration. Longing.
But that’s bullshit. Me and Zoe, we’re not the same. Thecampis what I’m holding on to, what I’ve been holding on to for all these months, and hell if I’m going to get talked out of it now. I’ve wanted this so bad I’ve been willing to lie to people I care about. I’ve been willing to get involved with a woman who’d been on the wrong side of my brother’s death. That I’m sleeping with her now makesno difference.
Zoe is temporary. This camp is my family’s—my brother’s—legacy.
“I want this to work,” I say.
She leans her head back onto the seat and turns her face my way. For what feels like a long time, she doesn’t say anything. She only watches me, and I wish I could get in that head of hers, hear the gears that grind, the ones that make her so good at figuring things out. “Then I want it to work for you,” shesays, finally.
It’s enough, this truce, enough for two people who’ve committed to a short-term arrangement, who don’t have to ask each other the big questions. But after this weekend, it’s different between us, however casual we’re keeping the sex. I reach out across the bench seat, take her hand in mine. She doesn’t have the ring on. Every week, when we get in the car to go home, she slides it off, puts it back in the box, then back into the glove box. I twine my fingers with hers, feel that bare finger between two of mine, ignore the answering disquiet that goes through me at the sensation. I give her palm alight squeeze.
She turns her face back toward the windshield, but she doesn’t pull away.
Chapter 11
Zoe
When Kit opens the door to me on Monday night, she looks me up and down, raises an eyebrow, and says, “What’s happening here?”
I move past her into the foyer, setting my briefcase on an old, weathered trunk that’s probably another gift from Ben’s father, so complete is his gratitude to Kit for bringing his son home. “This is nice,” I say, sliding out of my shoes and setting them tidily next to the trunk. I’m nervous, unexpectedly so, a flush of embarrassment all along the neckline of my blouse.
“Don’t change the subject. You look like you came from court.”
“I didn’t,” I say, quickly. “Is Greer here?”
“Here!” she calls, drifting into the living room, an apron around her waist and a frosting knife in one hand. When she sees me she stops, her eyes widening. “Seems a bit formal forour plans, Z.”
