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I swear, the guy prefers to make feral animal sounds over bothering with sentences.
“Wonderful,” Skye repeats. She actually sounds thrilled about what she just witnessed. Like me getting impatient with Cole is the most spectacular thing she’s seen all day. “I believe I’m getting a feel for your dynamic already. I’m getting the impression that you two have known each other for quite some time?”
“Years,” Cole grumbles.
“Well, don’t sound so happy about it,” I tell him with a nudge. “Honey.”
“I’m really looking forward to working with the two of you,” Skye says, as another car pulls into the lot. “You’ll both be in the Milky Way yurt. Now, is that your brother I see, over there?”
“That’s Trent alright,” I gesture across the way. “And that’s his bride-to-be… I mean, hopefully. If they can work it out. This was her idea to begin with. She’s a yoga instructor.”
“How delightful! I’ll go have a word with them. Remember, the opening ceremony is at five. Interpretive dance.”
As she pads away on her bare feet, I wonder how it is that the pebbles in the dirt lot don’t hurt her. Maybe it’s like walking over hot coals. A mind-over-matter kind of thing.
I also wonder what she meant about interpretive dance.
I know what dancing is.
But what makes it interpretive?
What will we be interpreting, anyway?
“So, party pooper, hm?” Cole says as he yanks his duffel from the truck bed.
“Big old party pooper, I think is what I said.” I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach my suitcase’s handle. The metal of the bed’s edge digs into my armpits.
Thanks for the help, bud,I think as I hoist my luggage up and out. It lands on the dirt with a thud and a little cloud of dust rises up.
Now I know what fine red dirt tastes like. And gnat.
I do believe I just swallowed one.
I turn to the side and spit, and then jog to catch up with Cole, who’s trudging toward a set of sandstone steps. “Did you see how Maggie was so frosty with Trent?”
“Big. Old. Party pooper. That’s really what you think of me?”
“Oh, would you get over that already? I want to talk about Maggie.”
“I am big. I’mnotold. And I know how to have a good time.”
Okay, so we’re talking about this.
“Look, nursing beers at the bar doesn’t count as a good time. You don’t do anything fun, that’s all I meant.”
“If this is your idea of fun, then no, I don’t.”
“This is the two of us helping out Trent and Maggie because we love them, and we want Maggie to be in the Scott family, and we want Trent to be happy and shave and eat actual meals. Oh my gosh, it was so weird seeing her be so withdrawn back there with him. They always kiss hello, and they didn’t even hug. I’m really worried.”
What if my brother can’t get his act together and actually fix whatever this is, with Maggie?
Cole doesn’t have a response for me. I’m not surprised.
“What are they fighting about, anyway?” I ask. “It’s probably nosey of me, but I really want to know.”
My suitcase bumps along behind me as I drag it along the path. Smooth, square stones form a staircase, and there are yucca plants and sage bushes on either side of us. Cole’s partingthe cloud of gnats, too, which is nice. Either his big frame’s scaring them away, or they’re too busy biting him to bother with me.
“Yeah, I’d call that nosey,” he says.
