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Awkward silence, empty enough to form its own black hole and swallow both of us. I wondered whether I could crinkle paper near the receiver and pretend I was driving through a tunnel … in Nebraska. Did they have tunnels in Nebraska?
“I know you said you can’t talk about your clients, but can you at least tell me if this vampire is being nice to you?” he asked. “Do I need to talk to this Iris Scanlon about putting my girl in a car with the cranky undead?”
Something about the way he said “my girl” made me all warm inside. He used to address his notes to me with “To my girl.” Flowers, gifts, little tokens to show how much he cared, how often he thought of me. And I had loved knowing that I was his. It was the first time anyone had really claimed me. I mean, sure, my parents introduced me as their daughter, but they always did it with this note of apology in their voices. Jason had always introduced me with his hand on the small of my back, pushing me gently toward the other party, as if he couldn’t wait for them to meet me.
“He is decidedly not nice,” I said, smiling. “We’re getting to the point where we can tolerate each other without death glares. That’s about all I can say.”
“Well, if I need to fly up there and set him straight, you let me know.”
“As much as I appreciate it, I don’t think sending my ex in to beat him up makes me look very professional,” I said. “Also, he’s got all that vampire strength, so it probably wouldn’t end well for you.”
“I’m still your ex?” he asked, a note of hurt in his voice.
“At this point, yes. I haven’t made up my mind one way or the other, I’m sorry,” I said. “I need more time. And for the record, I also don’t think you could beat up a vampire.”
I admit, I was just trying to distract him with that little challenge to his manliness.
“Well, how much do you think you’re going to need?” he asked, his tone growing testy.
Apparently, the attempted distraction was a failure.
“However long it takes,” I said. “I hope to have an answer for you by the time I come back, but I’m not making any promises.”
“You’re just going leave me hanging until you decide whether you still want to be with me or not? That doesn’t seem fair, Miranda.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think the person who sent ‘I heart you, PoohBear’ texts to my maid of honor gets to make too many demands on me right now,” I retorted.
“Oh, Miranda.” He sighed and used that tone of voice that he only used when I was being stubborn or silly or both. “Don’t be that way.”
“What have you been doing while I’ve been away?” I asked, struggling to keep the petulant tone out of my voice.
“Oh, you know, staying busy with work,” he said dismissively. “Eating dinner at my mom’s, hanging out with Jake, that sort of thing.”
The unspoken question hung between us over the phone line. Had he seen Lisa? Had he kept his promise to put a halt to their relationship while we were still trying to work out whatever it was that we had? I didn’t know if I had the right to ask, given my circumstances, but he didn’t know that.
He really didn’t need to know that.
My inability and his unwillingness to discuss it irritated me for some reason, and I just wanted to get off the stupid phone and back to driving. “I need to go. I’m not supposed to take personal calls while driving.”
“Oh, all right, then. I just haven’t been able to catch you over the last few days. I thought you’d want to talk to me.”
“I’ll talk to you soon, Jason.”
“All right,” he said, sounding slightly wounded. “I love you.”
I clicked the “end” button before I could respond.
It wasn’t normal, I told myself. A simple conversation with a man I was supposed to love shouldn’t make me that uncomfortable. I hadn’t talked to Jason in days. I was supposed to be missing him, thinking about him. And talking to him had brought up all of these feelings of anger and disappointment. Was it the distance? Was his absence allowing me to feel the things I’d suppressed because I didn’t want to upset Jason, my mother, all of the people involved in the wedding?
The Miranda who had worked at Puckett and Puckett, putting up with her brother giving her noogies in the break room and her father checking her work for typos with a magnifying glass, never would have spoken to Jason in that flat, uninterested tone. She would have bubbled and placated until Jason got off the phone, assured him of her love. The girl who’d hung up without saying “I love you”? That girl had run away to work on a yacht because college bored her to death. That girl had set a stage magician on fire. She’d groped a vampire on a filthy motel floor.
Was I finding my way back to the girl I was? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Sure, I’d had more fun before I settled down with Jason, but was I a good person? I had way too much time on my hands to be asking myself these sorts of questions. This mental pathway promised madness.
I turned on the “Jason Called” playlist, which included a crapload of Pink and Joan Jett. I hoped that Collin couldn’t be roused out of his daytime sleep by aggressive femmes, because it was about to get loud.
I drove a little faster, skipping my lunch break. I drank too much cheap coffee. I got a lot of attention from truckers, thanks to my hood decorations. And I was very glad that the windows were so heavily tinted.
By the time the sun set, I’d been driving for twelve hours straight, and I was exhausted. I’d gone through the “Mom Called” playlist, the “I Haven’t Seen a Starbucks in Three Hours” playlist, and the “My Ass Is Numb” playlist. I was planning to pull the car over at 6:04 as scheduled, but I heard the cubby door open with a squeak worthy of any Dracula movie.
