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“Thank you,” she said. “We will but I’m sure everything will be perfect.”
Nothing is ever perfect, he wanted to say. Wanting everything to be perfect is a recipe for misery. But he kept quiet. Her skin was so dewy, her body toned and lithe. He wondered what it would be like to hold her in his arms, to feel her lips on his. He lost himself a moment to imagining, watching the way the sunlight danced on her hair, how she touched nervous fingers to her collarbone.
Was there something there? Would she move toward him?
He felt himself lingering, and the energy between them shifted. He wasn’t ready to go, but she wrapped her arms around her middle and shifted away a bit. She glanced back at the staircase, then toward the door as if wondering how she would get away.
“Thank you again,” she said briskly. A dismissal. And this time, he took the hint.
He gave her a little bow, and left.
He’d see more of her later.
8
Cricket
“We’re lost,” Cricket said. She tried to quell the rise of anxiety. Honestly, it had started hours ago—okay maybe days ago—the anxiety. This trip. It probably wasn’t a good idea. But like so many bad ideas, it seemed to take on an unstoppable momentum and here they were. On the way. “Arewe lost?”
“It’s literally impossible to be lost,” Joshua said. He was smoothly confident. “The modern infrastructure will not allow it.”
Weekend stubble, though it was only Thursday, a wrinkled but somehow still stylish blue gingham shirt, faded jeans, loafers. He was one of those men with his long, lean body, his floppy hair, heavily lidded eyes—he simply looked good all the time. When he just woke up, after his run, when he was taking out the trash. As if he’d fallen from the pages of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue and into her life. Cricket tried not to stare at him like a schoolgirl discovering boys for the first time.
“But the dot,” she said, looking at her phone instead. “Our dot. It’s just floating in—nothing.”
She resisted the urge to tap the screen, shake them loose from the void. Joshua glanced away from the road and at her phone quickly, then pulled the car over into the shoulder, tires crunching on dirt and gravel.
All around them fecund, electric green. Silence. The towering trees cast the road in shadow, a dappled light barely shining through the canopy. She didn’t know what kind of trees—pine, oak, maple, birch? Did it matter? Whatever normal kinds of woodsy trees.
Hannah would surely know. She’d know the trees and their medicinal properties, and which one would make the best firewood. She’d use one to build a shelter, splint a broken bone. Hannah wasoutdoorsy.
Cricket felt that her spiritual home might be Neiman Marcus.
She was far from the kind of place that made her feel comfortable—someplace gleaming and clean with lovely, expensive goods for sale. People were so into “nature,” weren’t they? Getting into it, back to it. Why? Nature just seemed spooky and unsafe to Cricket. There was that whole no-one-can-hear-you-screaming vibe. They hadn’t seen another car for ages. Ages.
Joshua took the phone from her and stared. “Huh. We lost the signal.”
They’d stopped in town a while ago, hoping to pick up some things—snacks, condoms, wine—even though she knew Mako would have enough expensive bottles to fill a cellar somewhere—some flowers for Liza and Hannah. She didn’t want to arrive empty-handed.
But when they pulled through town, she’d been a little surprised. She’d expected something quaint and maybe a little tony, catering to the renter crowd. But a number of businesses were shuttered, the streets having the air of desertion. There had been a dingy diner, a sad general store, deserted hardware shop, a laundromat that just looked dirty.
The general store shelves seemed just barely stocked—peanut butter, some deflated loaves of white bread, candy. The highest-end item Cricket found hunting through the dusty offerings was a can of Planters cocktail peanuts. The store had plenty of beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and jerky, though. Joshua—always the paleo, hence those absgood lord—stocked up on some organic deer jerky.
The man at the counter leered at her, and regarded Joshua—who PS looked like a goddamn supermodel next to the toothless, unshaven man in the red cap and dirty shirt—with naked suspicion.
“Up for the weekend?” he’d asked as she approached with their paltry collection of items, including a box of condoms. The clerk picked up the tidy black box and held it high, looking at it too long. His nails were filthy, cuticles frayed.
“That’s right,” she said keeping her voice cool. Usually she was friendly, chatty. Cricket knew her gifts; she was a pretty, busty blonde, flirty and sweet when she wanted to be. But men like that? They needed to get the message fast:Don’t even think about fucking with me.
She stared at him hard until he put the condoms down and started ringing up the other items. A fly buzzed in the window, knocking itself against the glass over and over. A rickety rack of magazines tilted, holding issues ofGun World,Hunting & Fishing,Prepper’s Household Journal.
“Storm coming in. Big one.”
She’d heard that on the radio but ignored it. Nature wouldn’t dare mess with Mako’s big getaway weekend. He’d wanted this—arranged it, harassed them all until they agreed, reminded them endlessly, paid for it. Some whim, some story he was telling himself about it, no doubt. Even mother nature wouldn’t stand a chance against a Mako narrative.
“We’ll manage.”
“Roads get washed out,” said the clerk, sucking at his teeth. “Might get stranded.”
