“Uh, do you want a ride?” she asked, looking past him.
The first fat drop of rain landed on his nose. He wasn’t a martyr, and they should talk. “Fine.”
She unlocked the door, and he got in, putting the box with fewer squares in the back for her.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“West End. Dovercourt and Dupont.” He glanced out the window. “If you want to drop me off at a subway station, that would be convenient.”
“I’m at Ossington and Dupont, so I can take you home.”
He looked over. “I didn’t realize we were so close.”
“I moved in a few years ago,” she said, changing lanes to turn on Lawrence Avenue.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Then Wes gave up on what was, by any measure, a pathetic conversation and returned to brooding about what happened. He was certain he had read the situation with Dot correctly. The silence in the car seemed extra heavy, and it took Wes a moment to realize it was because Nadine didn’t have music playing, like an absolute weirdo.
Nadine changed lanes with more aggression than required for a ten percent twist of the wheel, then sighed. “Look, I don’t like working together any more than you do, but you can’t deliberately try to hamstring me.”
“I know you want to think the worst of me, but she wanted us to go.”
“No. We were in a delicate dance of wits, and you bungled it.”
Wes wanted to tell her she was wrong and leave it at that, but she was correct about one thing. They had to work together, which meant they had to communicate and not only so she could see that he was right. This felt like one of those conversations where it was important to at least try to understand each other’s perspective. He would keep his mind open to her almost certainly wrong viewpoint. “You think Dotwanted to be forced into talking?”
She frowned. “You’re trying to make it sound bad.”
“Sorry, what euphemism would you find acceptable? Urged to communicate? Provided an opportunity for verbal collaboration?”
She jammed on the brakes harder than necessary at the red light. “Fine. I do think that. She said to go, and I said okay. Then she started talking about how we didn’t finish the squares, the same way she complained about us not bringing food to her gate.”
When Nadine put it like that, her (mis)reading of what happened made a little more sense. After all, it was how they got an interview with Dot in the first place. “I didn’t see it the same way,” he said. “When we were at her gate, she could have stopped answering. This time, we were in her space, and I saw an old woman who was a little scared of what she’d said and needed to come to grips with it. She’s on the verge.”
There was a long pause as Nadine negotiated traffic. “Why do you say she was scared?”
He thought about Dot. “She jerked a little after she said the revenge thing, and her eyes darted to the side. Then she pressed her lips, almost like she was biting the words back, you know?”
Nadine tapped the wheel. “We’re interpreting the situation in very different ways. All those things you noticed could have meant nothing.”
“Except she also told us to leave. I’m not going to force her into talking if she doesn’t want to. It’s her story.”
Nadine’s mouth was set in a line. “A story she offered us.”
He looked over. “She can change her mind if she wants.”
Silence. They passed the big storage warehouse on Dupont. “I’m getting near your place,” she said. “Tell me where to go.”
He provided the directions to his house. When she pulled up, he opened his mouth to suggest they finish the discussion, but she was steadily looking out the windshield, hands at ten and two on the wheel. He got the hint and got out. Nadine didn’t look his way as he closed thedoor, leaving him feeling empty.
It didn’t matter. Good riddance. He looked at the box in his hand. At least he’d kept the one with more lemon squares. Those things were delicious.
***
The next few days weren’t great for Wes. Work had slowed with the summer heat, and Rebecca had insisted on planning out content for the fall. Looking at photos of the autumn trends—the usual corduroy and plaid, although he’d made a pitch to feature a collection of socks made of spun oatmeal—made him feel prickly despite theSpear’s overly air-conditioned offices. At home, his mother had been upset because Ella wasn’t back from Vancouver, despite Wes reminding her Ella had never set a return date.
