Going the Distance

by Julianna Keyes

  “Favorite part?” Marcus asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Hmm?” She turned to look at him, his handsome face way too close in the crowded seats. They’d been unable to get spots in the nicer car with plush, comfortable chairs, and now sat on hard blue seats with worn foam cushions. They were the only foreigners in the car and garnered more than a few stares. Olivia was used to blocking them out, but every now and then she’d catch Marcus looking perturbed.

  “What was your favorite part?” he repeated.

  “Oh. Um…” She strummed her fingers on her denim-clad thigh as she pondered the question, unable to stop the sudden rush of heat that pulsed through her when she remembered how she’d asked Jarek something very similar after watching Love, Actually. And the very vivid memories of what had happened next. “My favorite part,” she echoed, mind racing. “The garden, maybe? I’m not sure how feng shui works, exactly, but it was amazing how peaceful it felt.”

  “Agreed.” Marcus nodded. “Definitely beautiful.”

  “Or maybe the stall at the market selling the silk paintings.” They were “paintings” done in tiny silk stitches depicting various scenes of day-to-day life in China. After some bartering, Olivia had managed to walk away with two. “Ooh, or the guy selling the Tony Hilfiger shirts.” When she’d stopped to browse he’d quickly pounced, assuring Olivia her “husband” would love the clothing made by the “very famous designer” himself.

  “Tony Hilfiger…” Marcus mused. “I’m going to wow all the ladies with my fashion sense.” He’d bought one of the shirts just for laughs, and to help get the guy off Olivia’s back.

  “Yep,” she agreed. “Paired with your Gucki belt, you’ll be the talk of the town.”

  “Who’s the watch for, Jarek?” Marcus inquired after a moment. Olivia glanced down at the bag holding a black box with a silver men’s watch “guaranteed” to be a real Rolex. Not for a second did she think it was, but her dad wouldn’t care. He was forever taking off his watches to distract kids with the ticking sounds, and somehow losing them.

  “My father,” she replied. “He can’t seem to keep one for more than a few months.” She’d gotten her mother a tiny vase painted with red flowers. There had been so many interesting and lovely items—fans, silk purses, tiny stamps. But she had no other friends to shop for.

  “I see.” A pause. “Did you get Jarek anything?”

  Olivia glanced over at Marcus. “A shirt.”

  He returned the stare, pale eyes steady on hers. “Are you two serious?”

  She shrugged, uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Not really.”

  “So, not exclusive?”

  She forced a smile. “You’re leaving in three days, right?” The rest of his group had left the night before, but Marcus had been asked to stay longer to help survey another piece of property for the builder.

  “Yep. Three…whole…days.” He looked at her so innocently she laughed, and then so did he.

  “I’m seeing someone,” she said. She hated that even she could hear the tiny note of doubt in her voice; she’d never felt that way with Chris. She’d grown up surrounded by so much support and praise that she’d never experienced any real uncertainty in her life, until Jarek. Did he like her? Did she like him?

  “Does he know I came with you today?”

  Olivia swallowed. “No. We don’t run everything by each other.” Plus he’d canceled their plans for the day before, texting her for the first time ever. Can’t make it tonight, was all he’d said. He’d offered no explanation and she hadn’t asked for one. Jarek was her closest friend in town and she didn’t want to push, even if she had been disappointed. Instead she’d watched a movie and gone to bed early, telling herself she’d need her energy for today anyway, and it was best he hadn’t come.

  “So,” Marcus said. “What does he do when you’re not around?”

  Olivia folded her arms and turned to look out the window at the dark landscape rolling past. She had no idea what Jarek did when they weren’t together. He’d begun opening up a little bit about his life, but the things he told her were mostly just broad strokes that left gaping holes that begged to be filled in, and she’d made the decision to accept it. He hadn’t pressed her about her secrets, and fair was fair, even when it wasn’t.

  The next day was a drizzly, dreary mess. Olivia was cramped and achy from the long day in Shanghai, and a hot shower had minimal impact on her sore muscles. She watched a movie and got some groceries, then came home and tried to work on the “script” for Little Red Riding Hood, which was not going well. Davy had volunteered his services as both a butterfly and a painter, Rose had insisted she be the one to cue the music—music that didn’t actually exist yet, but Olivia hadn’t told her that—and the four Spidermans were still wearing their costumes each day in an effort to appear better and more dedicated than the others. If she wasn’t mistaken, her classroom had an increased number of people walking past the window and peering inside, wondering what the hell she was doing. She had been teaching kindergarten for four years now, and often asked herself the same thing.

  At five o’clock she put on her gym clothes, tossed a towel and some water in her bag, and walked down to the Brant Construction site. She hadn’t used the gym in weeks since she’d been running outside with Jarek, and while she now felt comfortable enough in Lazhou to run alone, she’d avoid the rain if she could help it.

  There was a young man in a rain coat watching the entrance to the site. He recognized Olivia and waved her inside, otherwise the place appeared deserted. The doors to the other trailers were closed, and no lights blazed inside. She glanced in the direction of the apartment building that housed the workers, but its gleaming façade told her nothing.

  The gym trailer was predictably empty, so she switched on the lights, turned up the volume on her mp3 player, and climbed on the treadmill. She was just passing mile three of five when the door opened and Dale entered. Their eyes met in the mirror and they exchanged hellos. Dale didn’t unnerve her so much as he irritated her; after they met he’d spent the first week hitting on her, then appeared mildly disdainful each time after that. She was aware of his occasional glances her way, the way his eyes rarely lifted from her chest, and she wished she’d worn a baggy T-shirt instead of the fitted black tank top and capris.

  He was doing bench presses when she climbed off the treadmill and toweled off. After yesterday’s excursion and today’s run, she had to stretch, even if it meant moving to the middle of the trailer, closer to Dale. She sat down on a mat and reached forward to grip her toes.

  “How’re things?” he asked casually.

  “Good,” she replied. “Busy. The kids are a handful.”

  “I bet.”

  “How old are yours again?” She didn’t know why she felt the urge to make polite small talk with him; blame her decent upbringing.

  “Five and seven,” he answered. “Boy and girl.”

  “Those are fun ages.”

  “Yep.” He grunted as he pushed the loaded bar over his head, lowered it one last time, then returned it to the bench. “How about otherwise?” he asked, getting to the point. “How’s Jarek?”

  Olivia switched legs and avoided his stare. “I assume he’s fine. You see him more than I do.”

  “You see him today?”

  “No. Why?”

  Dale chugged half a bottle of something brown and chunky, likely a protein shake. He was big but not defined; she wasn’t sure the stuff was having its desired effect. “No reason.”

  He moved away to do leg presses, and Olivia let out breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, biting her lip as tight muscles continued to loosen.

  A few minutes passed before Dale spoke again. “He doesn’t have much to say about you.”

  She didn’t look up. “So?”

  “So if he was into you, he’d say so, right? Mention you now and then?”

  What was it with guys she barely knew pryi
ng into her relationship—for lack of a better term—with Jarek? “You’re the relationship expert. You tell me. Or don’t.”

  He snorted. “I’m just saying. If I fuck someone, it’s not a secret.”

  “Just from your wife, right?”

  He shot her a dirty look. “I don’t bag chicks I’m ashamed of.”

  Olivia stood and put the mat away. “This has been fun, Dale.”

  He might have said more, but the twist of the doorknob interrupted. They both looked up as Jarek pushed open the door and stepped through. The first thing Olivia noticed was that he wasn’t dressed to work out. He wore dark jeans and a black waterproof jacket with the hood up, rain water sluicing down the shiny fabric. He nodded at Dale, then turned to her, face impassive, though his eyes blazed with something she didn’t recognize. For a second she wondered if he’d heard Dale’s comments and had come to defend her, but then all he said was “hey,” and her hope deflated.

  “Hey.” She jammed the damp towel into her bag and slipped into her coat.

  Jarek looked at Dale. “How long do you think you’ll be?”

  Dale was doing extensions with massive dumbbells, shoulder muscles bulging. “A while. Sorry.”

  Olivia frowned and looked between them. Something was going on. She had no idea what, but she wasn’t really in the mood to sit around guessing. She strode past Jarek and stepped outside. The rain was coming down hard now, but she hadn’t heard it over her mp3 player and the unpleasant conversation with Dale. She tugged up the hood on her jacket just as she heard her name, and turned to see Jarek descend. He loomed over her the way he normally did, but there was something off about him this time. Something more ominous, more serious. In the past she’d attributed his general air of menace as a leftover from his previous line of work, nothing particularly deliberate about it, like how she was always talking with her hands. But now it felt intentional, like he was trying to warn her away from him even as he told her to follow.

  “Where?” she asked, her feet ignoring her brain and trailing him to the locked carpentry trailer.

  “In here’s fine.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door, gesturing for her to enter first.

  She glanced at his face as she slid past, and flashed back to the first time she’d seen him, when her instincts told her he was dangerous. She’d tried hard to dismiss the impression, attributing it to the events of the past year, when everyone was the enemy. Even in the time since, the times he’d hurt her feelings or gotten under her skin, she’d ignored the feeling, recognizing that he didn’t relate well to people, apologizing for him when he should have been apologizing himself. And then sometimes he did apologize, and it carried more weight than a normal apology, because she knew how hard the words were. She was always making excuses for him; she wondered what the excuse would be today.

  “What’s going on?” she asked when he followed her inside. The trailer was dim, even with the blinds raised on its two small windows. The rain drummed on the roof, a steady, dull roar that slowly worked its way under her skin and made her antsy. The room smelled like sawdust, the way the kitchen had when her parents renovated it years earlier. She felt a sudden pang of yearning then, for the company of people who loved her unconditionally. In theory.

  Jarek didn’t speak for a while. He turned on the lights, then locked the door, then unlocked it again and put his hands in his pockets. Olivia shivered; her skin was clammy from the workout, and the air was damp and chilled. She watched him pace, his eyes on the tabletops, scanning the walls of tools, the neatly ordered desk she’d let him fuck her on. That day suddenly felt like a long time ago; it had been different then, she’d known what she was coming in here for. Now she didn’t.

  “Jarek,” she said, finally. “What is it?”

  He paused mid-step, as though he’d forgotten she was there. Emotions warred in his eyes, and she could see him fighting to keep them in check. It was the way his shoulders never relaxed, the way he kept stuffing his hands in his pockets so his fingers didn’t curl into fists. “What’d you do yesterday?” he asked quietly. He was about seven feet away, and somehow the words cut through the pounding of the rain on the roof, clear as a bell.

  Olivia watched him as he waited for her response, gaze trained on her face. He was waiting for her to lie, she realized. This whole thing was some sort of creepy interrogation dance, the only difference being that he’d left the door unlocked. As an afterthought. “I went to Shanghai with Marcus,” she said, keeping her voice level. “I told you that.”

  “I don’t think you mentioned Marcus, Liv.” He stepped close so suddenly she barely saw him move. Instinct had her shifting away, but the tabletop bumped her lower back and kept her in place. Jarek didn’t touch her, just stood there, too close, waiting for something.

  “It was last minute.”

  “How was it?”

  “It was great. Lots of fun.” A muscle ticked in his jaw and he studied her shoulder, her chest, her hip, looking anywhere but at her face. “I invited you, remember? You said no.”

  “I remember.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  He let out a slow breath and raised his eyes to hers. “What do you think the problem is?”

  She arched a brow. He might have been an interrogator at one point, but she taught kindergarten. She knew how to handle a hissy fit. “You’re the one with the problem, evidently. You tell me.”

  “All right. How about you spent the day on a date with Marcus, while I spent it here with my dick in my hand while everybody asked how I felt about my girlfriend going on a date with Marcus.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “A trip!” She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away, tired of being loomed over, as though that were somehow going to help him ascertain the truth. She had nothing to lie about; hell, her life had fallen apart because she’d refused to do precisely that.

  “With fucking Marcus!” He grabbed her elbow and yanked her back, spinning her up against the table again. She’d stiffened in surprise when he yelled, and winced as her tailbone hit the wooden edge.

  “Back up, Jarek,” she hissed on pained breath.

  He didn’t budge. “You know how you asked me not to talk about you, Olivia?”

  Goose bumps broke out on her skin. “What did you do?”

  He gripped her chin and tilted her face to look at him. “Nothing. I gave you what you wanted, and I didn’t ask you for anything in return, because I thought it was implied.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t fuck around. That’s the only rule.”

  “Rule? I—Jarek. First of all, there are no rules, and you have no business trying to make them; you’re the one who’s terrified I’ll start to expect something from you at any second. And I already told you, it was just a trip. You think we screwed on the train? Get away from me. This is none of your business.” She shoved him again but he still didn’t move, and she saw that her hands were shaking. She was upset, not afraid. She was almost positive.

  “Nothing’s my business with you, is it?”

  She glared up at him. “What?”

  “Not the shit that happened in Michigan, how they chased you out of your own home?”

  She wasn’t all that surprised, but she wasn’t happy either. “You looked into me?”

  “Sure. Why not? I had some time on my hands.” She could picture him now, hunched over a computer for hours, scouring the articles and the web sites, equally divided between praising and flaying her.

  “I told you I didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “And we didn’t, did we?”

  “Is this what you’re really upset about? I didn’t tell you about Chris and the video, so you accuse me of screwing around with Marcus?”

  His face was so, so cold. She shivered. “No, this is definitely about Marcus. The other stuff is shit you should have told me.”


  “You’re such a fucking hypocrite, Jarek. I didn’t go online to find out what you used to do.”

  He laughed. “What’d you think a search would turn up, Olivia? I don’t exist. The shit I did doesn’t exist. There’s nothing to find.”

  “Okay. Great. You’re a real man of mystery. It doesn’t mean you get to drag me in here and accuse me of something I didn’t do. As you’ll have noticed in your research, I have plenty of experience being harassed by assholes. I’m not looking for more.”

  “What’d you two talk about?”

  She heaved an exasperated sigh. She wanted to leave but he had one hand braced on the table between her and the door, and she knew it was a losing battle. “Everything. Our lives. Being here. People we were buying gifts for. He knows how to have a proper conversation. Not everything is a secret or a scandal.” She raised her brows meaningfully.

  “Did you tell him about what happened at home?”

  “No! Why are you stuck on Marcus?”

  “Because you spent all night talking to him at the bar last week, then you snuck off to go out with him all day!”

  “I invited you! You said no. And I would have told you Friday, but you blew me off with a text message!”

  He ran a hand through his hair, obviously trying to get a grip on things. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to control himself. He so rarely showed any emotion, this was a novel experience. A little nerve-racking, sure, but…insightful.

  “Is your temper tantrum over?” she asked.

  He shot her a patronizing look. “Tell me about it.”

  “I already told you. We went shopping. I bought you something, but I’m keeping it for myself now.”

  “Not about that. About Michigan.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, suddenly tired. She wondered if this was an interrogation tactic: keep people off balance so they never knew what the real issue was. But Olivia thought she knew; she dealt with children every day, after all. He was jealous. Michigan was just a diversion.