She had to bring him down a peg or two.
“I guess romance is no longer giving you the high of hating a single feeling,” she told him. Then instead of ending the sentence withCaleb, as she’d intended, she ended it with something that felt more right. “Miller,” she said, and was almost certain she saw him sort of flinch. At the very least, his eyes flicked to her.
So she added one more thing, with relish.
“Now even zombie stories are too sappy for your stony heart.”
Five
She tried to tell herself it would be fine. She would simply hire a massive car, and they would barely have to see each other. Or she would sit in front, with a driver she had hired, while he sat behind dark glass, in the back. Though really, she should have understood that this was never going to be a thing. That he was never going to allow something like that, on multiple fronts.
It made no sense at all to be thrown when she got there and saw what he was doing. Yet, somehow, she was anyway. He let her in through the gate, and there it was: her total shock and horror at seeing the vehicle he expected to cross the country in. A pickup truck, she thought it was, that looked like it was on the verge of collapsing. Blue paint almost faded to white, one side slightly sagging, the headlights murky looking and set in surrounds that made her think of something from the movieGrease.
And then there was the unsuitability.
The truck bed only had an old tarpaulin to secure and cover suitcases. The whole thing was inexplicably tall, ina way that would mean she’d be constantly struggling to get in. But at the same time, absolutely tiny in the place she’d have to get into. She peered around him at the cab, and couldn’t believe how minute it looked.
Like a postbox.
She was practically going to be sat in his lap.
One sharp turn and they’d merge, like amoebas.
And she couldn’t even protest. He cut her off before she got ten paces into her spiel about a limo and a driver. “If you think I’m about to let some stranger control a car that I am in, probably disobeying all the rules of the road, tailgating everybody in sight, tamping the brakes every ten seconds so I lose my lunch—you got another thing coming. And that’s before I even get into the idea of being carted around like a goddamn king, when I’ve got my own two hands and eyes and feet to do the job,” he said, just as she’d known he would.
But she was desperate enough to keep trying.
“Okay, but you understand concepts likea huge distance, right?”
“My yearly vacation is a cross-country trip from here to California.”
“And that’s great but this isn’t going to have a bunch of fun stops on the way.”
“Neither does any trip I’ve ever taken.”
She fell silent, stuck briefly betweenof fucking courseand incredulity. And in the end incredulity had to win. After all, she was trying to sell the idea that he was being ridiculous. “So you just… drive? For… fun?”
“Don’t say it like it’s weird.”
“Believe me, I do not have to try very hard. I mean, at least tell me that you stop off to see the world’s largest ball of string or something. Maybe take a picture of a sunset somewhere striking. Mediate on the nature of man and existence while planning the great American novel,” she said, sure that the last one would at least seem palatable to him. But instead the last one just seemed to make him blanch even further. It almost looked like a wince. And he stopped loading bizarre-looking bundles and packages to answer her more firmly.
One hand on the edge of the truck bed.
The other gesturing at her like his fist was a gavel and she’d just been judged guilty. “I genuinely cannot imagine anything more horrifying. I should sue you for assaulting my ears with that nonsense. Balls of string. Sunsets. Talking to me like I’m someone who can remotely stand Kerouac. If I could go back in time I would make sure he fell in a well before he ever wrote a word. Worst thing to ever happen to literature. And men. And humanity,” he said, as if that made any more sense than the last thing.
He was supposed to love writers like that.
But she remembered now that he had weirdly never seemed to. And she’d never been able to understand why. “Man, you’d think he’d written a happy ending the way you’re going on,” she tried.
But he just shrugged it off, like a coat that fit him poorly.
“There are other things I hate in books, all right.Plentyof other things.”
“Like someone having an emotion, you mean.”
“No, like someone being a little smart-ass.”
“What are you talking about, you love a little smartass. I saw you that time almost chuckling over the lass inZombieland,” she said, and when she did she saw and heard it in her head. In that dark little makeshift theater, a sound from the back.
