by Kristy Tate
Penny raised her eyebrows at Drake, and he scowled at the middle-aged Scandinavian beauty approaching their table.
“Are you Helene?” Penny asked, sitting up straight, ready and eager to be taught something culinary.
Helene studied Drake, and Penny watched him squirm beneath Helene’s steady gaze. She silently nodded at both of them before returning to the kitchen.
“What was that?” Drake asked.
“That was obviously Helene,” Penny whispered, leaning across the table toward Drake.
He rolled his eyes. “I know that, but—” He pressed his lips into a straight line when Helene returned carrying a large tray laden with a steaming pot and a basket of bread.
“Soup,” Drake said.
Helene shook her head. “Cheese fondue. To sooth your secrets.”
“My secrets?” Penny asked, delighted that Helene read her so well, although not so delighted with a gooey pot of cheese and a basket full of bread tinged with rosemary. It smelled like heaven, so maybe she’d try just a bit of that golden, beautiful bread, but she couldn’t try the cheese. She’d have to let her secrets stay put—no amount of cheese could spill her secrets out.
“Your secrets are safe,” Helene told Penny as she set the tray down on the table. She tilted her head at Drake. “His are dangerous.”
Penny propped her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Dangerous secrets?”
Helene shook her head and a tiny strand of hair escaped her tightly pulled braid. “Your secret is safe,” she repeated. “He needs cheese.”
“Do I need cheese?” Penny probed.
“No, you need curried squash bisque.” And Helene set a bowl in front of Penny, pulled a tiny glass vial from her apron, and sprinkled a dash of fragrant spices on top of the soup.
Penny couldn’t help it, she squealed in delight as she inhaled and tried to guess the ingredients. Giving up, she picked up her spoon. “How did you know I needed curried squash bisque?” she asked Helene.
“You are very easy to read,” Helene said, and she pointed at the goose pimples on Penny’s arm. “See, you are cold. I brought something to warm you.”
“But what if I don’t like cheese?” Drake asked. “What if Penny is allergic to squash?”
Helene smiled at him. “Do you like cheese?”
“Of course, but what if I didn’t?”
Helene shrugged. “I will bring you something else.” She moved to take away the pot.
Drake put his hand on the pot to stop her. “No, leave it.”
“I can understand your hesitation. It can be very difficult to share secrets, and you’ve held yours close for such a long time.”
Penny wondered about Drake’s secrets. The most obvious one was their fake marriage, but Drake hadn’t held onto that one for very long. Not very long at all. How long had they been sharing the beach house? Two days? Only something with a very short life span, like a fly, would consider two days a long time. Drake must have another secret—maybe a dark, hidden secret.Taking a bite of her soup, she tried to distinguish the many flavors as the soup slid down her throat and warmed her belly. Squash and curry obviously, but also garlic, maybe a bay leaf, oregano, cinnamon, and maybe nutmeg.
“I win,” she whispered to Drake as he continued to frown at his cheese. But Drake didn’t look like he minded losing as he dipped a crusty piece of bread into his pot of cheese.
***
Drake drove a fifteen-year-old BMW convertible with a leaky roof. Trevor, on the hand, drove a brand spanking new BMW convertible. One was new, one was old. One purred, the other spat. Drake called his car Monique, because occasionally, without warning or any visible signs of distress, the car moaned.
When the car began to shake, Penny glanced at Drake’s frown and said, “Maybe you should have named her Shookie.”
“What kind of name is Shookie?” Drake said, holding onto the vibrating steering wheel with both hands.
“You know, like Sookie Stackhouse.”
“Who?”
“She’s the main character in The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels—I honestly don’t know how you can teach literature, because you obviously don’t read.”
The car’s shaking rattled the windows and Penny’s bones.
“I don’t read vampire books!”
“Bram Stoker?”
“Okay, fine, I’ve read Dracula.”
Penny smiled. “One for me.”
“What does that mean?” Drake shot her an annoyed look. He’d been cranky ever since the cheese incident when Penny had made it her mission to weasel out his secrets. “Why are you keeping score?”
Penny ignored his question and gripped the door handle. “We need to pull over,” she told him through rattling teeth.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
She would have to travel hundreds of miles to find nowhere in Laguna, but nowhere was everywhere in Washington. The road stretched ahead of them, a long ribbon of gray slicing through the woods. Trees and bushes, green and thick, crowded the gravel shoulder as if trying to creep and overtake the one manmade creation in sight. No houses. No cars. As they rounded a hill, a clanking sound came from the engine, like pots banging against each other.
“That can’t be good,” Penny said.
Drake eased the car to the side of the road, looked at her sore foot, and fished his phone out of his pocket. He slumped in his seat. “No service. Now what?”
“We walk,” Penny told him.
“Penny, you have a gash on your foot.”
“Drake, if you don’t want to limp with me, I’ll wait here and you can walk for help.”
Drake looked at the roof of the car. “I can’t leave you here alone. Didn’t you see Breakdown?”
She shook her head.
“A thriller from the nineties about this guy and his wife with a broken down car…”
“And it doesn’t have a happy ending?”
“Well, maybe, but there’s all sorts of unhappiness that starts pretty much as soon as their car engines dies.” He thought for a moment and then admitted, “It’s an awful movie, but it presents a convincing case not to ever leave your wife on the side of the road.”
“I’m not really your wife,” she reminded him, laying her hand on his arm.
He shook his head. “Not the point.”
“So, you’ll watch awful movies, but you won’t read vampire books?” She laughed, put her hand on the door handle and opened it. “Another point for me,” she said, right before climbing from the car.
Drake followed her. “By my count you have two.”
“Two to nothing.”
“I’m losing.”
“I didn’t say that,” Penny said, as she limped away.
“You have two, I have nothing, and I don’t even know the rules to the game.” Drake caught up to her in two easy strides. “Where are you going? Home is that way.”
The way he said home sent a small thrill down Penny’s back, although she didn’t know why. She looked up and down the road and pointed the direction the car had been headed. “Home is that way, but I think the nearest gas station is that way.”
Drake considered this. “Maybe,” he said slowly.
They walked, or Drake walked and Penny limped. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.
When she didn’t answer right away, he asked again, “Penny, does your foot hurt?”
“I’m fine. I was just trying to decide if I got another point.”
“I want a point,” Drake said. “You seem to gather them with every breath. There should be one or two to spare for me.”
Penny sighed. “Okay, I used to have a dog named Muffin. Now you have a point.”
“Muffin? I get a point for a muffin?”
“Actually, muffins are usually four points.”
“Four points? Then I’m ahead.”
“No. A typical muffin has four Weight Watcher points, and you still only have one point.”
He was silent for a moment. “I get it. I get a point when I discover something I didn’t know about you.”
“Very good, Professor Poet.”
A hurt looked flashed across Drake’s face. “Please don’t call me that.”
“Professor Poet?”
He nodded.
“Three points!” She laughed. “Really, this is very simple game. It’s amazing I haven’t discovered your secret yet. Unless Professor Poet is your secret.”
Drake shook his head. “No, that would be a stupid secret.”
“Then what’s so wrong about Professor Poet?”
Drake swallowed hard. “Pretentious Professor Poet piss pot producing pompous, pedantic, popish, putrid poetry.”
He probably expected her to shout out four points, and she nearly did, but she saw his expression and instead gently asked, “And that hurt your feelings?”
“It was meant to.”
“Of course it was, but no one can really hurt your feelings unless you think highly of them. You must have cared about this person.”
“She was crazy.”
“Of course she was.”
“No really, she was insane. Charlotte Rhyme, the artist.”
“You knew Charlotte Rhyme?” Another point. She was now at five, but she didn’t think she should mention it.
Their footsteps crunched on the gravel, and Penny thought about how the quiet could be noisy. She wanted to ask how he knew Charlotte Rhyme and what he had done to make her call him names, but she didn’t know if she should.
“Auntie Mae once helped Charlotte find her way home. I guess she got lost a lot. Charlotte gave us that painting in the beach house in return.”
“I dated her niece.”
“That must be Blair.”
“Which puts you at six, and I still only have the one point you gave me.”
He’d been keeping score too. That surprised her.
Drake stuck his hands in his pocket. “This game is almost as insulting as being called a piss pot.” He thought for a moment. “How do I win?”
“I’m not telling,” she shook her head.
“What? I refuse to play a game where I don’t even know how to win.”
“Then I win.”
“No. No way.”
“It’s true. You win if the other person refuses to play.”
“This is an evil game.”
She nodded. “It’s a junior high sleepover sort of game.”
“I’m playing a teenage girl game?”
“We’re not playing anymore, because I just won.”
“That’s so not right. I didn’t even know how to play. Start over.”
“No. This game can get real ugly.”
“One point.”
“Wait, no.”
“Absolutely. I just learned you don’t want to play this game.”
She rolled her eyes and carefully thought. “Are you writing a book about a Viking named Hans?”
Drake stopped in the middle of the road and opened his mouth then closed it. After a moment he asked, “If I don’t answer then I lose?”
She nodded.
“Of all the questions you could ask, you want to know about Vikings?”
“No deflecting! You can’t answer a question with a question.”
“Is that a rule? What are the other rules?”
Penny hobbled along, her foot throbbing. “Yes or no? Are you writing a book about Vikings?”
“You play mean.”
“I could have asked much harder questions.”
“Like what?”
“You’re deflecting again.”
“I want to know the harder questions.”
“I’m saving them for later. So yes or no? Are you or are you not writing a Viking story?”
“Yes.”
Penny squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh, I can’t wait to finish it.”
The corner of Drake’s lip twitched. “Just because I’m writing it doesn’t mean I’ll finish it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s trash, that’s why.”
Penny stopped and put her hands on her hips. “How can you say that?”
“Says the girl who reads about vampires named Sookie and Snivel Drivel.” He turned around to walk backwards and grin at her.
“Vikings are way cooler than vampires and drivel.”
His shoulders twitched.
“Everyone writes about vampires. No one writes about Vikings.”
“I’m not writing it, Penny.”
“Well, obviously you are.”
He sighed. “Only when I can’t write anything else.”
“Oh my gosh! That’s your secret! You write what you consider trash, which I consider brilliant, by the way, and you don’t want anyone to know! You’re afraid all your professor friends will find out you write about Vikings and sea serpents.”
He scoffed. “I thought you said you read it.”
“I did.”
“Then you would know there are no sea serpents.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know, but there should be.”
“And maybe some ninjas?”
“Don’t be silly. There weren’t any ninja’s in the 800s.”
“Oh, but there were sea serpents?”
“Probably. How could we possibly know? And since we don’t know then we shouldn’t rule out the possibility.”
“It doesn’t matter, because Hans lived in the eleventh century.”
“He was a contemporary of Chaucer?”
“No, Chaucer lived in the fourteenth century and Hans never existed.”
Penny considered this then asked, “Why didn’t you want to go into the Bluebird Café?”
“What? One minute we’re talking about sea serpents and Chaucer—”
“Vikings,” Penny corrected him.
Drake dipped his head, acknowledging his mistake. “And now you want to talk about the Bluebird Café?
“You’re deflecting, again.”
Drake shrugged and opened his mouth.
“If you lie, I win.”
Drake closed his mouth and pinched his lips. “How will you know I’m lying?”
“I’m very good at reading people, and you’re deflecting again.”
Bright lights crested over the hill and spilled toward them making their shadows long. Drake lifted his hand and Penny shielded her eyes. The pickup, an ancient Ford, rumbled to a stop next to them, and Mick, the driver, offered them a ride.
“Flashes of Breakdown,” Penny said.
“I thought you said you hadn’t seen it.”
“I haven’t,” Penny said. “But I bet there’s a truck in it exactly like this one.”
Drake nodded solemnly. “There is. And the wife gets in it then disappears. That’s why I’m going with you.”
The quarters inside the truck were cramped, so Penny had to sit on Drake’s lap. The last time she’d sat on someone’s lap she’d been younger than twelve. After that, only the truly brave, stupid, or masochistic would have offered her their lap, and no one ever had. But back then she wouldn’t have found Drake’s legs so hard. He had his arms loosely around her waist, holding her to him.
Zero, a dog of indeterminate parentage, watched them from under his bushy eyebrows, waiting for signs of aggression. He clearly wasn’t happy about being rousted from his spot on the passenger seat.
“I’m sure you two don’t mind being squished together,” Mick said as he put the truck in gear. “It’s better than walking.”
“Of course,” Drake said, shifting Penny on his lap.
Penny wanted to ask why Zero couldn’t go and sit in the truck bed, but since she’d rather ride with a dog pressing against her leg than limp the remaining five miles home, she tried not to mind the drool. Or smell.
“When I saw you hobbling down the road, I knew you had to be in trouble.” The tattoos on Mick’s forearms moved as he turned the truck around a bend.
“Our car broke down,” Drake told him.
“You’re a lifesaver.”
Mick flashed mismatched teeth at them. “No one’s ever called me that before!”
Drake’s arms tightened around her.
“Where you two headed? Back to your car or to the gas station?”
Penny looked up the road. “If you could drop us off at the next stop sign, we can walk home.”
“Penny—” Drake began.
“There’s a cut through the woods,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s still there. We used to take it all the time when we were kids.”
“It’s dark,” Drake said.
“There’s a moon,” Penny retorted.
Mick laughed. “You two must be married.”
Penny tried to catch Drake’s eye, but since his face was somewhere over her left ear, she couldn’t see his expression.
“Yes,” Drake said. Penny felt his answer, because his breathing changed.
Mick laughed. “I can always tell.”
Neither Penny or Drake spoke, so Mick asked about Drake’s car.
While Drake provided the make, model, and year, Penny leaned against him, her eyes heavy with sleep.
“It made a ker-chunk, ker-chunk noise,” Drake told Mick.
Penny smiled, loving Drake’s use of words. Her mind drifted back to the Viking story.
***
“Penny,” Drake gently shook her. “Wake up. We’re here.”
“Hmm?” She brushed her hair back and pushed Zero’s head off her knee. The dog gave her a reproachful look.
The truck idled in the driveway, and the headlights illuminated the yard.
“We’re home?” Penny said, surprised.
“Yes, thanks to Mick,” Drake said, sliding Penny off his lap before climbing out of the truck. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Can I pay you?”
“No, let me,” Penny said, reaching into her purse.
“She’s a keeper, man,” Mick said, laughing. “Now, my wife, she don’t pay for nothing but hairspray.”
“I don’t use hairspray, so I have cash,” Penny said, pulling out a twenty.
“You don’t owe me nothing,” Mick said.
“Are you sure?” Penny asked.
“Naw, just go and do good,” Mick said, putting his car into gear as Penny jumped out. She’d forgotten about her hurt foot and would have fallen if Drake hadn’t caught her.