Page 21 of Famous for a Living

There’s a long pause.

“Sure,” he says, and positively looks like he wants to scratch the back of his neck while muttering, “Women.”

To his credit, however, his very tiny credit, he scoops four handles into his hands. The suitcases no longer roll at the pressed angle at which he holds them, and I try hard to keep my eyebrows from rising in quiet amazement as I watch him lift all four off the ground.

He takes a few steps—while I try to calculate exactly how many pounds all those hefty suitcases add up to—then stops and looks over his shoulder. “Ready?”

My eyes snap up from the suitcases. “Yes.” I gather the single suitcase and carry-on in my hands. We move steadily down the hallway, past the last of the stores showcasing magazines and papers. But as we begin to move past the car rental area, I slow.

A line of people getting their keys and moving off with notable relief toward the exits makes me stop entirely.

I want that kind of end-of-a-long-journey relief.

I don’t want to have to trek back here in two or three days.

Not to mention, why should I avoid driving a car right now when all of these people are considered perfectly capable? That woman with the cane is getting hers and looks not a day younger than ninety. I mean, the woman’s seen the TV screen go from black-and-white to color. Her glasses are, quite literally, thicker than my cutting board back home. If they can hand her keys, trusting her fortitude and physical capabilities, surely I can trust myself too.

We’re just a few feet off from the double doors now, and I stop. “Actually, Zaiah,” I say, taking my hands off the bags. “I’ve already made the reservation. I’m just going to get my car now.”

He stops with a look of disbelief as he faces me.

No, disbelief isn’t the right word for his expression. Uncertain, as though maybe he’s on orders from his boss about his to-be-handled-delicately niece and now doesn’t quite know what to do.

I help him out. “I really appreciate it, but I can take care of myself. We get snow in New York too.”

“You have a car in the city?”

“No, that’s not,” I begin, shaking my head, unwilling to answer that question head-on. “That’s irrelevant.” I shoot for another angle. “I’d hate to put anyone out by having to take another trip here in a few days.”

“Oh.” He sets the suitcases down. “Really, it’s no trouble—”

I raise a hand, stopping him. Perhaps he’s one of those men who needs to feel appreciated, that his toil is worth the trouble. Perhaps he needs reassurance that he’ll still get that gold star for effort.

“I’ll just follow behind you to the park,” I say buoyantly. “That’ll be very helpful.”

For one long, long moment we are in a stalemate, him looking from me to my raised hand still in the stop position, me looking resolutely into his not-too-shabby green eyes above the blanket of a beard covering the rest of his face.

At last, while making clear from his expression that he can’t disagree with my decision more, he turns the suitcases toward the car rental line. His voice is even lower, not quite at growl level, but close. “We need to hurry. The snow is coming quick.”

I don’t know why I need to feel this win with him. It must be something about how he so clearly disagrees with my life’s choices (which I feel even more acutely given recent events), but I do. I take in a breath. “Terrific.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m up.

“Name, please.”

“Catherine Cranwell.”

The woman typing away at her computer takes my ID in a way that makes it evident she does this a thousand times a week.

As her eyes flicker over from my ID to my face, she pauses. Her fake lashes quake as she blinks several times.

Looks back at the ID.

Then at me.

“Yes, Ms. Cranwell.” She fidgets with the hem of her vest, in quite a new tone. Her fingers begin flying across the keyboard. “I have your vehicle ready. Should be in space 2B. Unless”—she pauses, and her fingers inch toward the walkie-talkie on her uniformed chest—“I can get someone to bring it out to you.”

“No, that’s all right—”