“Oh, she was. A brilliant chemist too,” he says, and now she knows what it sounds like when James Smithson talks about someone he loves. His voice is the embodiment of an affectionate glance over his shoulder, an embrace, a kiss on a fevered forehead. So much is becoming clear about James, who draws dinosaurs that break your heart but only puts his name on his scientific work. James, who believes it’s his duty to give himself—and anyone else he can—to science. James, who adored his brilliant scientist mother.
Ripley suddenly misses her mother—not Vivienne herself, but the shadow she cast. The idea of a mother she never had; the space her love would have filled.
“Brilliance runs in your family, I guess,” Ripley says.
Fat raindrops spatter on the windshield, first a few, then a steady stream. He fidgets in his seat, leaning forward again to stare at the sky.
“You good?” she asks.
“Fine,” he says, but the conversation has clearly hit a wall.
“You never did tell me what you usually do on car rides,” she says.
“I work,” he says, flinching as a burst of drops rattles against the roof. “Or sleep. I wouldn’t do that when I’m with y—With a friend.” He’s messing with the ring, pulling it over his knuckle, pushing it back down. He’s going to give himself a blister.
“I don’t mind if you sit in the back and act productive.”
“I wouldn’t fit in the back of this car, Ripley.”
He has a point. His long, wool-trousered legs barely fit in the front.
“Fair, but you can put in your earbuds if you want. Break out the laptop. I can amuse myself.”
“No!” he snaps. Then: “I mean, I’d rather we continued our conversation. It’s…it helps.”
“Really?” Ripley asks. “Me bringing up your worst memories? Doesn’t seem that helpful.”
“Itis,” he says in a low voice. “If you want to know what I usually do on car rides, it’s this.” He taps his pants pocket with the tip of his middle finger, producing the muffled metallic clinking Ripley remembers from the Clever Girl Museum. “I take sedatives and I sleep until it’s over. But if I do that, you’ll have to take care of me. So I’d rather not.”
“Jesus. Why are you torturing yourself by coming on this trip?”
The rain is coming down in earnest now, the blacktop slick with water. Ripley pulls into the left lane to pass a semi, flipping the wipers on high.
“It’smyinvestigation. I refuse to dispatch you to hell and gone without me.”
“It’s not hell,” she points out reasonably. “It’s just Canada.”
There’s a silence, then he laughs a little wildly. A second later, she’s laughing too. A glance from her makes him crack up all over again; his unintentional snort-laugh and subsequent mortification has her almost crying.
“It’s not that funny,” she says, gasping, blotting her eyes with her sleeve.
He’s wheezing so hard he has trouble answering. “That’s what makes it so funny.”
“I cannot understand the British sense of humor.”
“You understand it well enough to makemelaugh,” he says. “I like it when you talk, Ripley. I like talking with you.”
And then they’re not laughing anymore. His eyes flash; his lipspart like there’s something he wishes he could say, or touch, or taste. It’s hard to breathe, harder to look at him, impossible to speak.
Right now, sheknowsthe rawness in his gaze is all for her. Right now, it seems like a fabulous idea to say something and see where this goes.
But she can’t. He can’t. It’s fucking with her head.
“You hungry?” she asks right as he says, “Ripley.”
“We could eat,” she says desperately.
“We just ate.”
