“I don’t want you to stick around.” I mean it, but the words come out flat, as if I’m having second thoughts. I’m not. I want my empty house back. I want my rules and full control over every aspect of my environment. I want something that, two weeks ago, my prognosis stole from me. Once Mark starts writing, I’ll be at the mercy of his pen. Can I tell him my story? Can I give him my heart and trust him with it?
We come to a red light and he turns his eyes from the road to mine. “I won’t get in your way. Just give me a little bit of time each day, and we can knock this out. Two hours a day, whenever you want. In a month, this could be on its way to the publisher.”
An entire book, written in just a month. He could do that? It sounds like heaven, to have everything off my chest in that length of time. It also sounds like hell, to go through all of that pain, that quickly, with a stranger.
I look away from his eyes and pull on the top of the seatbelt, my chest suddenly tight. “I don’t really work well with others. Literally and figuratively speaking. Plus…” I hesitate, unsure whether to mention the elephant sitting between us. “You and I don’t have a history of getting along.”
“You’re referring to the emails.” He tosses out our history as if it’s minor, a cutesy squabble between friends.
“Yes.”
“I thought we got over that.”
Did he? He thought that all of these years, all of these hateful words… had they not meant anything to him? Maybe the issue is that he knew. He knew, for all these years, that he wasn’t Marka Vantly, that it wasn’t a gorgeously annoying supermodel who was showing me up on bestseller lists, and outselling my print runs. He knew, and probably guffawed his way to the bank, and found me and all of my snide remarks amusing. My face flares with embarrassment, and I’ve never felt so stupid. “Stop the truck.”
“What?” He glances over, his foot not moving from the gas pedal, the truck still humming along at a pace that will surely kill me. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to ride with you.” And I don’t want to write with him either. How could I? Everything I knew about him is false. “You’re a liar.”
“A liar?” He finally slows, pulling the truck to the side of the road, the vehicle bumping over a curb and coming to a stop on the shoulder, so close to the guardrail it almost kisses it. I reach down, fumble for the handle, and crack the door open, the guardrail in the way, preventing it from opening. I feel claustrophobia swell and think of the safe room, the locked steel, being trapped. “Helena.”
I turn to him. “I’m stuck. Pull up and give me more room.”
“We’re on the side of a highway. I’m not letting you walk down it in this traffic.”
I close my eyes, slow my breathing, and try to think of a giant meadow, of wind, of open space. “Then pull forward. Start driving. NOW.”
I don’t open my eyes but I feel the truck lurch forward, the ease of the seatbelt as it loosens, and I relax, reaching forward and hitting the window control, welcoming the burst of fresh air.
“How am I a liar?”
He’s either an idiot or obtuse, and I’d place a bet on either. “You’re a man.”
“Yes.” He turns his head, one hand loose atop the steering wheel, and I glance nervously down the road. “And that bothers you?”
I shift in my seat, trying to formulate an explanation that I haven’t yet worked through myself. In some ways, I’m happy—overwhelmingly so—that he looks the way he does. I’d been intimidated by Marka’s perfection, her pouty lips and sex appeal. When you combined that with her writing, her sales, her following… it had been unfair, had pissed me off, put our relationship on uneven footing that had always left me the loser. Now, that intimidation factor was gone, the competition diluted, my vision of her gone.
Still, I knew how to battle with her. With a man, with HIM, everything is different. He smiles when I would have expected her to jab. He chuckles when she would have sneered. His eyes soften, are dipped in compassion and understanding—qualities I hadn’t expected her to possess.
In this fight, I don’t even know where to stand. I swallow. “You should have told me the truth.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he sighs, and he actually sounds sincere. It must be a cowboy thing, the ability to drag words along the ground and kick up emotional dust. “I’m not in the habit of telling anyone. My daughter and my agent. That’s all who know.” He leans forward, turning down the air conditioner. “Well, and now you.”
“And Kate.” I add quietly, and cracks form along the ridge of my anger. I, more than anyone, understand secrets. I understand how one person, one whisper of truth, can crumble empires, destroy lives, reveal monsters.
There was a day that I was a monster. And this man… he will soon have to carry that truth, hold that secret, guard that pit.
Maybe it isn’t a bad thing he’s kept this façade for so long. The man can keep his mouth shut. It’s a tool that will, in the next few months, come in handy.
I look out the window, and feel some of my hate fade.
“It won’t be that bad.” He puts on his turn signal and merges into a space between two cars that an elephant would find tight. “I talk less when I write. It can only be an improvement to this.” He gestures in the open space of the cab, and I smile despite myself. This: (a noun) the awkward exchange of words between two opposites.
He turns right, and I watch a jogger stop, bouncing up and down in place, her eyes meeting mine through the window. “I can’t even picture you writing,” I admit. The thought of this man hunched over a laptop is amusing. He probably pecks at the keys with his pointer fingers. He probably double spaces the start of each sentence and forgets to save his work.
“It’s a very masculine endeavor. A lot of grunting and flexing.”
I laugh, the sound barking out of me, and I lift my hand to my mouth to cover the slip. “You’re not going to take this seriously.”
“It sounds like a dark book, Helena. You’re going to need some comic relief at some point.”
I turn to look at him, and his eyes are soft, the kindness in them clear. It’s cute that he thinks he can handle this, that he can take in my sad story and create a novel from it. But all he knows is that I lost my family. He doesn’t understand how.
And it’s the how that is the most twisted piece of it all.
We end up at a Taco Bell drive-through, the Thai restaurant closed, a sudden yearn for chalupas rearing its head. There is a storm coming, the air electric with anticipation, the sky dark enough to be dusk. We head back to my house, racing the rain, his foot heavier on the gas, my eyes watching the clouds. He holds his hand out toward the takeout bag.
“Pass me a taco.”
I tighten my grip on the bag. “Not in the car.” If I had a rule book handy, I’d outlaw drinking, eating, and talking in the car. I’d insist that only eighties music be played, nix any air fresheners, and require absolute control over the car’s climate.
“I’m a grown man. If I want a taco I just paid for, in my truck, I can have one.” He shakes his hand and I scrunch up my face, digging in the bag and unwrapping one of the six tacos he’d ordered. Six. Who needs six tacos?
“Here.” I shove it into his hand and look away, closing my eyes briefly at the crunch made when his jaws close around the hard shell. There will be bits of cheese everywhere, strings of lettuce falling into the floorboard, his hand one dirty mop that will touch the steering wheel, gearshift, and door. In my purse are hand wipes, and if he thinks he’s stepping into my house without a thorough wipe-down, he’s crazy.
He puts on his turn signal and makes the turn without me telling him, his sense of direction better than mine. I used to constantly get lost. I once drove to a meeting in New York and ended up in Princeton. It was a lack of focus issue, my mind wandering through the pieces of my latest work-in-progress, miles and important turns slipping by unnoticed. Now, there are probably apps that keep you on the road, constant reminders of upcoming actions, a way to easily see where you are in your journey. But back Before, all I had were maps, ones with directions scribbled in the margins, my chances slim of getting anywhere on time. Simon always drove, his hand occasionally leaving the steering wheel to reach over and touch my knee, the weight of his palm comforting, his smile at me shy, as if I might push his hand away.