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“What Roman wants to do there—it’s wrong,” she said. “It won’t feed your spirit, because there’s no place for that in his vision. He’s just throwing everything good about the Keys away. That’s not what you want, is it? To spit on my grandmother’s memory so you can go sport fishing?”
She flung the last words at Arvind, a curse and an imprecation, but he’d stopped looking at her around the time she’d banged on his table, and Prachi’s mouth was pursed in displeasure.
Roman stood up. His warm hand enveloped her shoulder.
“I’d like to speak to you. Privately.”
Ashley shook him off. She looked across the table at her friends. “Just tell me you’re on my side,” she said to Prachi. “Please.”
Prachi’s fingers rose to sweep a stray lock of hair back, tucking it into place with a dip of her hand. She looked uncomfortable, unhappy. “I’m on your side, Ashley,” she said. “Of course I’m on your side. But to be perfectly honest with you, I think …” Her eyes flicked to Arvind’s again, and she took a deep breath. “I think if your grandmother had wanted you to spend the rest of your life at Sunnyvale, she would have made it possible for you to do that.”
The room fell silent, but there was this sound inside her head. This far-away, high-pitched keening that kept getting louder.
When Roman touched her arm again, she slapped his fingers away.
“Excuse me,” she said to Prachi. “I have to …”
Go.
She ran from the room, thundered up the steps, and locked herself in the upstairs bathroom, where she turned her face into the nook where the wall met the shower, pressed her hand against cool plaster, and tried to push everything she felt down where it belonged.
There was so much resistance. Too much. Sorrow kept climbing up her throat, wanting to escape in noise, tears, exclamations, self-pitying speeches that did nothing to help her.
She couldn’t push hard enough, so she took a shower, even though she’d already taken one. She shampooed and conditioned her hair, soaped her skin, turned her face up into the spray and let it beat against her forehead.
When the hot water ran out, she dried off and put her clothes back on, still restless. The need to escape, to move, pounded through her, but what were her options, really? She was a stranger in this place.
“Ashley?” Prachi said from the hallway. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she called back. “I’ll be out soon.”
Under the sink, she found sponge, toilet brush, cleanser, paper towels.
She piled them into her arms and opened the bathroom door. From the kitchen, murmured voices and running water told her that Roman was with Prachi and Arvind, sucking up.
Ashley went outside and started cleaning the Airstream. She scrubbed the toilet, wiped down the shower and sink, swept dust out of drawers. She cleaned the linoleum bathroom floor tile by tile until there were no tiles left, and then she laid on her back, head on the disintegrating bathmat, and tried not to think about the cardboard boxes in the main room of the trailer.
She tried not to think about anything.
CHAPTER THREE
Ashley couldn’t sleep.
Prachi had put her in the guest room, right next door to Roman. He was sleeping on a pullout sofa in the craft room. Every time he moved, something creaked.
She listened for it. Twelve after ten. Eleven-thirty. Twelve-oh-five.
Creak.
The guest bed was a tall prison with a white ruffled canopy. Ashley kept twisting around, trying to find a comfortable position, but the pillow pushed too hard against her neck. The top sheet tangled in her legs.
She hated top sheets. As far as she was concerned, top sheets were purposeless and irritating. Purely decorative, overly civilized, far too fussy. They pissed her off. She spent an hour fuming about top sheets and then another half an hour constructing a mental list of all the other products that drove her up the wall.
Fabric softener. Washcloths. Those plastic net things you were supposed to use to scrub your skin with in the shower instead of a washcloth.
Scented lotion. Panty liners. Scented panty liners.
Scented panty liners made her want to punch the pillow, so she did. She punched it several times, but it didn’t help, so she went back to list-making.
