“The money my family got from the settlement,” I begin, keeping my back turned to her while I spread the peanut butter, thin on each slice of bread, then jelly in between. “I’ve been left in charge of that.”
“Has something happened to your parents?” From behind me, her voice is higher, concerned.
“Other than them not wanting to deal with a payoff for my brother’s life? No.” She says nothing to this—fair enough—and I slice her sandwich in half, set it on a plate, and turn back to her. “This is a good sandwich,” I say, ridiculously. It has three fucking ingredients, and I’m acting like there’s something to sell.
I think her lips might purse in suppressed amusement. “I’ll try it. Do youhave a napkin?”
A napkin? For Christ’s sake, this woman. It’s peanut butter and jelly, not lobster. I tear off a paper towel from the roll beside the sink and hand it to her. When she smooths it across her lap, I have to press the heels of my hands in my eyes, just to process the insanity of this entire situation.
“Anyways,” I say, leaning back against the counter and crossing my arms, “I’m in charge of the money. I’m looking to buy a large piece of land with it, a campground in Stanton Valley, about two hours from here.”
She takes a bite of the sandwich, small and precise, then lifts the paper towel to the corner of her mouth. I have a weird hope that some of the jelly blobs onto her chin, or dress, or something. Something so she doesn’t look soperfectsitting there. “Continue,” she says, once she’s swallowed.
“The current owners are...” I have to pause, to think about how to phrase this to get her on board. “They’re—a very traditional couple about certain things.”
“Fair Housing Act applies. They can’t choose a buyer based on religious beliefs.”
“I didn’t say it was religious beliefs,” I say, curt, frustrated more at myself than at her. The truth is, Paul and Lorraine are religious, had always incorporated a bit of their faith into the running of the camp. But it wasn’t what the camp wasabout. “They—they’re hoping to see the camp continue with similar traditions. They want a family-owned operation. They haven’t fully committed to a sale yet, but they know there are a few people like me who are interested. People who knowthe camp well.”
“This was a camp you went to?”
I nod. To say Iwentthere feels like an understatement. I lived a good portion of my childhood summers there. Almost all my best memories of Aaron, of me and Aaron together, are at that camp. I swallow down an inconvenient waveof fresh grief.
She makes a small hum of assent. “Is this jelly homemade?” she asks, taking another bite.
“Yes,” I say, involuntarily glad on my mother’s behalf that she’s noticed. And that she’s eaten an entire half. Her color looks even better. “The Dillards have invited some of the interested parties to spend six weekends in Stanton Valley, starting next week. To see what people imagine for the future of the camp. To…” I pause, recalling Lorraine’s exact words. “To feel that they are making the choice God wants, if they decide to sell.”
She makes an unladylike snort, a sound that, weirdly, sends a shot of heat through me. When the tip of her tongue snakes out for a fraction of a second to catch a crumb in the corner of her mouth, I have to lower my eyes to stop my thoughts from going where they’re going. “And you think you have a better shot at this if you’re married?”
“I’m the only person going who doesn’thave a family.”
I can see from her thoughtful expression that she knows this would matter, myoutlier status.
“What do you want to do with the campground?”
I think of the small bedroom at the back of the house, the one I’ve turned into my office. The drawer of files I’ve kept, meticulously. The whiteboard I hung on the wall to keep track of my ideas. The bookmark folders on my browser, each full with websites related to different aspects of my plan. It is months, hours upon hours of work, work I do in between my shifts, work that is challenging and sometimes goddamn painful too.
I don’t want to tell her any of this.
“That doesn’t have to be your business,” I say, and at this, I see something true in Zoe Ferris, something beneath the placid demeanor she’s worn like a piece of clothing since she got out of that car. I see a fire in her—an eyebrow arch, sharp and eviscerating, a tightening at the corners of her mouth, tiny parentheses enclosing everything she’s not saying. If I could set a hand on her, I think, I’d feel that all her muscles have gone tight.
But it’s gone in a flash. She’s collected herself, distant again. “I’m assuming they’re not stupid?”
I cock my head at her, a wordless inquisition.
“Because if you know these people, even casually, they’ll wonder why you’re showing up with a wife they’ve never heard of. Better if I’m a fiancée. It might be helpful, actually. Lots of—I don’t know. Promise for the future, or something.” She calmly takes another bite of the sandwich, then sets it down on the plate and wipes her mouth again, folding the paper towel and setting it on the table before clasping her hands again and looking back up at me. Everything she does is careful and exact. I am standing, looking down at her, using her guilt to get something I want. But somehow nothing about this interaction suggestsI’m in control.
“That makessense,” I say.
“It doesn’t bother you that you’ll be lying? Lying to good people?”
Yeah. Yeah, itdoesbother me. But this idea—it has so much potential, so much opportunity to do good, to make that money feel less like it’s coated in my brother’s blood. And I have to believe that Lorraine and Paul will see this, once they get to know the idea. I just need a wayin. “Did it ever bother you?” I ask, and watch her face transform, mask-like and frozen. I expect her to say that she never lied. That she did her job within the law, that her particular role had nothing to do with whatever deceptions the makers of Opryxa had perpetrated.
“It did,” she says, simply. She’s looked right at me to say it, and there’s something about it—that fire in her eyes set against that flat tone in her voice—that thuds right into my chest, makes me vibrate, for a split second, with a curiosity I haven’t felt about anything in months and months.
I look down at my feet, break the connection, clear my throat. “I want in the door. I want an opportunity to show them what I can do with the camp. Once they hear me—once they agree to sell to me—we move on from this. We have an amicable breakup, whatever. It doesn’t have to be dramatic.”
“You’re that confidentin your idea?”
