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I slide the phone into my pocket and walk back into my bedroom. Like I did a little while ago, I catch myself staring at the bed. Gwenna made it before she left. Piled the pillows up, straightened the duvet so there’s no wrinkles. I don’t think I’ve seen a bed this neat since boot camp.
I step over and look down at the note still lying where she left it right in front of the pillows.
How’d you know my favorite scones?
Don’t be a stranger. Pretty please…
XOX
I tuck the note into my pocket and consider getting up there on the bed, but decide to leave it untouched for right now. I go over to the armchair, which I pulled away from the window when Gwenna was here. It feels strange, sitting in it near the middle of the room. I start to drag it to the window, but for some reason I stop halfway there.
I sink back into the chair and scroll through my phone. Sooner or later, someone’s going to notice I still have it, or maybe they don’t give a fuck. It is mine, after all. I did all the coding. They would need to gut it—software, hardware, all—so it’s nothing more than just a case, and what would be the point of confiscating that? I could build the same thing inside any regular ass iPhone case. Easier just to let me keep the one I have already. That way they can still track me. We’re told they won’t do that once we leave the Unit, but when I called Alec Ludlum about tracking Blue, he asked me what I was doing down in Tennessee.
I look open my phone’s screen and look briefly at the picture of Gwen’s little snowflake tat, then nav over to track Blue. I find him sidelined in Kentucky, somewhere known as Berea, where he seems to be spending time at a local library.
Then I read Dove’s latest text.
‘All cool, Bear?’
‘All cool,’ I reply.
I shut the thing right down, then wash my face with ice cold water and pop a piece of MEG gum so I don’t have to drink a coffee or a Red Bull. I make a mug of Keurig hot chocolate and take it to the back porch, where, for once, I don’t do anything but sit there watching the trees.
Then, when the sun starts slipping behind the foothills, I grab the groceries I bought a couple hours ago, after I delivered Gwenna’s scones, and put them in my rucksack. I leave it at the bottom of the stairs and go back up to the bathroom, where I stare at the tub for a minute before brushing my teeth.
I rinse with mouthwash like a fucking teenager and can’t resist a quick look in the mirror. Looking fucking weird with this long hair. I trimmed the beard down so it’s kind of prickly. I rub my eyes and look down at my white shirt and black jeans.
I should maybe call first…but I don’t. I go downstairs and get my pack and lock up. I put my hand against the swing, making a mental note to bolt it down or move it before I go down the stairs. As I step into the woods, I check my pants for my .38 and find I left without it.
That beats all. Unarmed and with a rucksack full of food. I smile a little as I trek toward her place.
GWENNA
It’s too warm in Tennessee for hibernation—at least the kind you hear about. Black bears just curl up nice and cozy somewhere and don’t move much. But they’re still bears. Their bodies still know the cycle of things. So they still try to stock up on food before.
I have cameras set on two of their most common dining halls: a patch of wild grapes and a grove of oak trees, heavy with acorns. When I look, after I get home from Barrett’s in the morning, both places look pretty picked over. So I make an unplanned trip into the enclosure a little after noon.
I throw out nine vitamin ball bombs and sink a wooden case of frozen rainbow trout in the pond. I don’t see Papa, who I know from my pre-visit cam check is many acres away. I decide not to linger, even though it makes me sad. I consider going back in tomorrow to organize the stock shed. If Papa scents me and wanders over… Well, who am I to protest?
With a silly smile on my face, I walk back to my cabin, call the local Wal-Mart to ask about Christmas lights, and spend the next two hours catching up on work-related emails—with St. Jude’s, with the stuffed bear supplier, with a few Beary Appreciated Donors, and with the fencing company, who last week was supposed to send someone to patch a weak spot on the east side of the fence, but didn’t.
I realize as I wait on hold with the fencing place that I haven’t even thought to check the cameras for my creeper. I skim through a few hours of footage, then Jamie calls and I keep on skimming as she tells me about Niccolo, and how his mom is depressed because she and his dad are having trouble, and Nic’s brother—the poor, sweet, dead one, John—was honored recently with some kind of posthumous Army award, and did I know Jamie thinks she might have gotten her very first gray hair, and before I know it, I’ve skimmed 42 hours of cam footage and there hasn’t been a single trace of anybody.
Sweet!
I hear Jamie stop her motor-mouthing and take a sip of something.
“Are you at Starbucks?”
“I’m meeting a client.”
“When?” I giggle. “We’ve been on the phone almost an hour.”
“Hmm, well then they’re late. I should go find out what happened.”
We hang up without me telling her about my night with Barrett, and to be honest, I’m kind of glad. It’s nice to keep it to myself: my very own delicious secret.
I spend the next hour doing Bible study and then meditating, and by the time I’m finished, I’m feeling very zen about this thing with Barrett. Either it’ll bloom into something or it won’t. All I can do is open myself up to what God wants to give me and continue trying to be grateful for whatever comes my way.
