“Possibly needs some fluid? Water?” Elliot tried again.
“So.” Birdie flapped her arms around. “It could be anything? That’s what you meant to say. It could be anything, and for once in your life, you have no actual idea?”
“I have an idea!”
“Admit that you havenoidea.”
“I have plenty of ideas!” Elliot echoed. “I just listed three of them!”
Birdie shook her head and stomped back into the RV, then stomped back out with her phone in her hand. She punched at the screen, then held it up to her ear. Then she lowered it again and said, “Great, no signal. Do you have a signal?”
“Why, are you calling your mystery man to save us?” Elliot snipped, then felt his eyes go wide because he couldn’t believethat came out of his mouth.Mortification.Elliot O’Brien was known for being grace under literal pressure, and Birdie had reduced him tothis.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you, like, twelve?”
Twelve! If Elliot were twelve, he’d be running around his front yard with her, gawky and unselfconscious. They’d be playing capture the flag until dusk, when his mom would call them into the house, and Birdie would trail them because she never wanted to head home, where she felt like an outcast. She’d pile into Mona’s bed at night, and Elliot would sit on the floor, and they’d try to tell each other creepy stories until one got too scary, and Birdie would tell him to shut up and stop, and Elliot would because he wanted to prove to her that he was her match but also never wanted to upset her. So now, yes, Elliot could only wish he were twelve and things were that simple. At least things were pure and easy in the way that they can be in late adolescence before you grew up and the world got so much messier.
“Also,” Birdie added, “youleftme. Has your brain completely blocked that out? Do we need to fact-check this with someone at your paper? Because if you’re jealous or childish or whatever the hell this is,youleftme.” She marched off to look for a signal in one of the far corners of the parking lot.
No. Elliot hadn’t blocked it out. Not one bit. Not for even one day. But she had pushed him out, nearlykickedhim out, and he wasn’t about to spill his guts that morning when she was holding the door wide open. Now he should tell her the truth of his feelings after all this time, of how far he’d go if he was given the chance to act on them again. Maybe he’d write her a love letter. Maybe he’d put it down on paper and tell her that she was both his biggest mistake and his best chance for happiness. Maybe hecould do something to fix all this. But also, Birdie was rewriting history again, like she had decided to give notes on their story arc.
“Hey,” he shouted across the parking lot before he could overthink it. “Youkickedmeout that morning!”
Birdie made a face at him from a hundred feet away like either she couldn’t hear him or he was completely pathological, and Elliot wasn’t interested in asking which.
He sighed and checked his phone, which also had no service. He turned around with his hand aloft, waiting desperately for bars to appear on his screen. The sun had nearly set by now, and unless another traveler rolled in with a working cell phone, Elliot realized they were going to be marooned here until morning, when it would be safe to walk toward the highway and flag someone down.
“Well,” he said, calling toward her, trying to hold his voice steady. “I guess this is when an RV comes in handy.”
“When’sthat?” she yelled back, like she preferred the expanse of concrete between them.
“When you have to sleep over by the side of the road for the night.”
Now Elliot could see her face clearly, and she was looking at him like he had lost his fucking mind, but then she tilted her head back and screamed, her voice reverberating over the pavement and out into the void of the surrounding dead air.
“The only time in my life that I’ve wanted to be noticed, we’re absolutely screwed.”
“That’s not true,” he said, walking toward her.
“We’re not screwed?”
“No, we may be,” he conceded. “But the noticing part. There was a long time when that’s what you wanted.” He had to stophimself from sayingand I was the only one who did. But he was being snide, not sentimental, and she knew it. “It’s one night, Birdie,” Elliot chided, his TV voice making another appearance. “We’ve spent plenty of nights together in smaller quarters.” He meant, of course, in Mona’s room when they were kids, but as soon as he said it, he realized that they could finally, really, fully and completely, be talking about their one-night stand.
Birdie went statue still, and he knew that she was thinking about it too. She turned and stormed back into the RV, closing the door behind her, as if Elliot were going to have to work harder to join her.
He titled his head back and fought back his own urge to scream. He didn’t want to let Birdie know how much she still got to him, how easily she still rattled him, how she was the only person who ever made him feel vulnerable, exposed. He gritted his teeth and doubled down: focus on the work, focus on being the best goddamn reporter in Francesca’s arsenal, focus on his salary, which would be down to zero if he blew this. All he needed to do was keep this aboveboard for a few more days, keep his distance for a few more days.
How difficult could that be?
24
BIRDIE
Birdie woke atsunrise in the middle of a dream, her phone vibrating like it was looking for a fight. Cell service had come back up last night once darkness had set in, but by then, any nearby repair shop was closed, and Elliot left three messages on different auto shop voicemails before giving up. Now she patted down the sheets until she found her phone and cracked a crusty eye to check the screen: 6:53 a.m. Too early.
Five missed calls from Imani.
It was never good news when there were five missed calls from Imani.
