He gave the car to her the day he rang the discharge bell on the oncology unit.Have fun, Pip. Roll the windows down and drive fast. Live your life.
Which she will, as soon as she’s in a position to help him live his.
“This is what you do for joy? Drive?” Smithson asks, giving her that searching, classifying look.
“Among other things. Why?”
“I haven’t seen you take the time to do it, is all.”
For some reason, her eyes get hot and tingly. “I’m doing it now.”
“I suppose you are,” he says in a way that clearly meansYou might be if I weren’t here.
She sends him a look. “You don’t have to go fast to have fun, Smithson. What do you usually do on road trips? You want music? Podcasts? Games?”
“Games?” Smithson frowns. “Shouldn’t you watch the road?” The morning sun moves across his thighs as he shifts in his seat, nervous and stiff.
“We’re not talking chess,” she says in a non-coddling way.“Think license-plate games. Word games. Didn’t you have siblings who saddled you with the letterXwhen you were naming animals for every letter of the alphabet?”
“Xenotarsosaurus,” he says immediately.
“Livinganimals.”
“Xeme.”
“Okay, well, it’s hard for most of us,” Ripley says. “What about a podcast?”
“Too distracting.”
“Music?”
“That depends,” he says forbiddingly. “Do you sing along?”
“Only by request.”
“My request?”
“No, mine.”
“Would you mind terribly if I said I’d rather you not?” It’s not a question.
“That doesn’t leave a whole lot on the table, Professor. I don’t know if you know how long seven hours is.”
“We could converse,” he concedes reluctantly. “About light topics.”
“Light topics,” she repeats, letting the sarcasm flow freely. “So what are the no-fly zones here? What do we not discuss?”
He looks at her sideways. “I thought all Americans had ready-made lists of forbidden subjects.”
“You’re not my racist uncle Marty at Thanksgiving dinner. And you’re not American, so how should I know what not to bring up? Brexit? The Loch Ness Monster?Yourracist uncle Marty? Enlighten me.”
“Oh, absolutely not Nessie,” he says, faintly smiling. “That’s a powder keg. Mo’s ass?” he says, parroting the crew’s mosasaur joke.
“Yo’ ass.” Ripley laughs. “And Nessie isn’t a mosasaur. She’s a plesiosaur.”
“Hmm, marine reptiles,” he says dismissively. “They’re not particularly interesting.”
“Um, the Scottish tourism board would like a word.”
