“That’s really awesome.”
“Walk with me? I need to get Harold from the field and take him back to his shed because it’s getting really hot right now.”
“Sure.” They walked over together, the sun beating down, and Elle unfastened Harold’s lead from a stake in the grassy enclosure. She watched as Elle led Harold to a red shed instead of to the little cottage with the rustic sign that read Harold’s House. “Wait, I thought we were going to his house.”
“This is his house. His real one, that is.” Elle opened the door, revealing a large stall with hay, water tubs, and a cooling system. “He has his own cooler in here, and a plastic-sheet-strip door to go into his yard.”
“But this other house?” She pointed back to the cute cottage with the blue roof.
“Off the record? For tourists.” Elle rolled her eyes. “Do you think I’d really make a llama live in a silly house with a couch and a TV? Please, Harper.”
“But you made such a big deal out of it.” Harper was dumbfounded. “And there was hay and water in there, too, right?”
“Well, that’s—off the record—so much better for publicity.” Elle smiled brightly. “But I’d never make an animal like Harold live in uncomfortable circumstances. Even though he can be a total asshole.”
“But you love Harold!”
“I love what Harold does for my business,” corrected Elle, removing the harness and patting the llama on his side. “And I think he’s pretty okay.” She closed the door the stall and hung the harness on a wooden peg. “So. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a very savvy businesswoman.”
“Thank you. I try. And right now my store is considered funky and off-the-beaten-track. Odd in a cool way. But not too big and commercial yet. And I’m gonna ride that wave as far as I can.” She zoomed her hand like a wave. “Usually, though, I don’t come clean to anyone about quirk being my façade. I just let them think that’s all there is.”
“Why did you tell me?”
CHAPTER 17
Elle tilted her head. “Sometimes you want to tell someone something,” she said, her voice thoughtful. “You have a secret, and it needs to be shared. It’s like it’s not as much fun when it’s hidden away for so long. And anyway, after seeing hundreds of people each week for years, I have a pretty good sense of who I can trust.”
“What about me says I can be trusted? I mean, I’m not saying I can’t be trusted. Just—why me?” Pleased and confused at once, Harper looked at Elle.
“I guess I can’t put it into words,” Elle said, after a pause. “It’s just a gut feel I got when I looked into your eyes. Okay, I teased you a little bit first for fun, the first visit, gave you the full ‘Elle Experience.’ But after a few minutes, I could just feel that you were all right.”
“But everyone tries to come across as all right.” Harper wanted to know what it was, what elusive gesture, what flicker of the eyes, what was the thing that had convinced Elle that she, Harper, was all right?
“Have you ever heard of a chicken sexer?”
“What is that?”
“A chicken sexer. In the chicken processing plant, there are experts who can look at a baby chick and tell instantly if it’s a male or female. It’s important to separate them out early to save money.”
“Ah, okay.”
“But it’s incredibly hard to tell them apart, like crazy hard. And it’s even harder to describe the differences in a way that people can understand. It can take up to three years to get good enough to develop 95% accuracy at the necessary speed, which is a chick every seven seconds.”
“Wow.”
“In Japan, where chicken sexing originated, here’s how they’d train newbies. The new person had two bins, male and female. They’d examine the chick, and pick a bin, male or female. The expert, watching over their shoulder, would say simply either yes or no. Instead of trying to show them the differences, or make charts or graphs, they’d just make the person look and guess, and say yes or no. And this was the quickest, most effective way to train new people. Over time, just hearing the expert say yes or no to their guesses, they quickly learned the differences and could sort with nearly 100% accuracy on their own.”
“That’s incredibly strange.” Harper was fascinated.
“There are minuscule differences in their genitalia, but you can’t just read a manual and start sorting them without errors. You have to develop a kind of second sense, the ability to look at something and know for certain whether it’s male or female even if you can’t put into words exactly why. You might not know in the instant why you’re putting a chick into the bin marked female, but you know you’re right.”
“How can you do it and not know how you do it?”
“Because the human brain can learn complex pattern recognition very quickly and divert that knowledge to be used in the decision-making part of the brain before the logical part of the brain catches up.”
“And you’re going to tie that back into trusting me with your secrets?”
“Well, that’s how I know who I can trust. I just… know. I can’t tell you how or why, just that I do. And so far I haven’t been wrong very often.”
“So you chicken-sexed me. I see.” Harper smiled. “I feel honored. Maybe you should start a side business helping out the local chicken industries.”
“Eh, no. Smelly and messy.” Elle waved her hand. “And I have enough trouble keeping Harold clean.”
“It would be quirky though,” Harper reminded her.
Elle laughed. “Maybe too much. But somehow I recognized you as someone who’d appreciate the truth of my Harold.”
“You don’t think other people would?”
“I don’t think most people really care, or think about it beyond a funny experience,” Elle said. “It’s just something silly and weird to do, and they don’t want to look deeper, because the surface fun is really all they want. So it’s surface fun I provide.”
“Well, it’s probably safe that way,” agreed Harper. “Otherwise people might lose interest, if they found out you were providing surface-quirk instead of deep-down-in-the-heart quirk.”
“Your boss quirky?” Elle raised an eyebrow.
“If by quirky, you mean flirty? Then, yes. Yes, he is.” Harper shrugged. “Why?”
“Just curious.” Elle regarded her.
“I mean, who brags to strange women that he’s more built than a llama?” Harper rolled her eyes. “And somehow makes that attractive to the woman he’s hitting on?”
“Are you and him…” Elle waved her hand. “Did you ever…?”
“Why do you ask?” Harper touched her cheek.
“I don’t know. Maybe the way you looked at him. The way he looked at you.”
“How was that? The way he looked at me?” Harper stopped and looked at Elle’s face. “How did he look at me?” She noticed her intensity and smiled, twisted a piece of hair. “Sorry. Just, I mean, I’m just curious.”
“He looked at you like he wanted to burn you up with his gaze.” Elle’s voice was soft. “And I haven’t seen a man look at me that way in a very long time.” She sighed.
“Well, but—” Harper didn’t know how to respond. “There’s really no possibility for us, though. We’re not suited.”
Elle gave a noncommittal head bob. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Life is strange sometimes. I suppose we make the best of it as we can.”
Harper struggled to focus on something other than herself. “So, are you dating anyone?”
“No.” But a little sly smile spread across Elle’s face. “But there’s someone at the bulk feed store where I get the dried alfalfa for Harold. We have a little flirtation going on.”
“Is he a farmer?”
Elle snorted. “No. He comes into the feed store for a snack on his lunch break.”
“Elle, please tell me that he’s not also a llama?”
Elle laughed. “It’s a feed store for animals that also has a lunch counte
r for humans. My guy is a retired policeman. It’s called Reza’s Animal and Human Feed Shack. But the ‘and human’ is written in Sharpie onto the original sign. It’s a local thing. A funky local place.”
“Oh my God. I should visit them, too for my article!” Harper got excited.
“Well, the food’s not that great, and it’s not very photogenic. I come in once a week for Harold’s snack, even though I have to drive thirty miles to get there. And Eric is there at noon on Fridays, so I come at noon on Fridays. And we eat a human snack together. And talk about our lives.”
“That’s… sweet.”
“Every time, I hope he’s going to ask me to have sex in his parked car.”
Harper spit out her saliva. “Whaaaa?!”
Elle smiled beatifically. “We could play criminal and cop. It could be a lot of fun.”
“So you are seeing him. And you do get the laser eye thing, whatever,” Harper said, waving her hand in the manner of what she thought a laser might look like.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Elle’s voice trailed off. “We get along just fine. But I’m not sure.” She pursed her lips. “Whether it means anything or not.” She shrugged. “Like I said. We make the best of it, right?”
“But if he meets you at the store, on purpose, every time you come? That sounds pretty serious to me.”
Elle looked at her. “I’ll know that look when I see it, and I haven’t seen it from him yet. Nor have we been on a real date. I know all about his grandchildren, but not about the color of his front room. I’m not getting younger, Harper.”
“Oh.” Harper nodded. She thought about kisses on airplanes, kisses that meant the entire world compressed into his lips and a few seconds of time, all of her life meeting all of his. And then, this. Him in the llama store, flirting with a cute young tourist. Her with sweaty hair and a decidedly non-kawaii shirt, yearning for something that didn’t exist inside him, and might never. A strange bargain that took them farther away from physical intimacy.
Feeling a sudden kinship with Elle, she touched the woman’s arm. “If I had a drink right now, I’d toast to laser gazes from the men who matter,” she said, and lifted her hand.
“Make it a margarita,” said Elle. She smiled. “I’d toast to that.”
“SO HOW WAS your day without photographs?” Zach, lounging beside the pool, was undeniably sexy. His abs glistened in the sun, and his tan skin looked delicious. Harper could barely resist getting on top of him and running her hands down his chiseled torso.
“It was good. You’ll never believe the conversation I had with Elle.” She flipped out her towel, and sat on a deck chair beside him.
“Harold’s mom?” He looked over at her, and his eyes seemed to study her curves. A muscle clenched in his jaw.
She laughed. “Yeah. She’s not as weird as she seems. It’s all a big act.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Totally serious. She spilled her whole life story to me. But all off the record, of course.” She leaned back, liking the way his eyes focused on her body as she did so.
“Of course.”
“It was fun. I think going without the camera allowed me to be more open. And her, too. Maybe just me. I don’t know. I might be making that up because I want my days without photographs to be meaningful and awesome, so if they are, I’m going to assign all of the blame, or accolades, as the case may be, to the fact that I’m photo-free. Even if one didn’t really cause the other, I’m going to pretend.”
“Isn’t that a logical fallacy?” He smirked at her. “Not that I want to disabuse you of your theory.”
“Yes!” She nodded. “I went without my camera, and afterwards I had a great conversation with Elle. Therefore, the great conversation must be due to the fact that I didn’t bring my camera.”
He laughed. “I wore my lucky jersey, and then my team won. Therefore, my team must have won because I wore the lucky jersey.”
“I’m glad you recognize that one as false.” She smiled.
“Oh, here’s one. You on the plane: ‘I gripped Zach’s hand hard enough to deflate it, and we landed safely. Therefore, the fact that I gripped his hand must be the reason we landed safely.’ You’ll be doing that every time.”
“Actually Talia suggested… ah, never mind.” She flushed.
“She suggested what?” He looked up, alert.
“Nothing really.” She wasn’t going to tell him about the “just have Zach stick his tongue down your throat when you fly to keep you safe,” discussion, now that they were just friends and all.
She looked as his ripped abs gleaming in the late afternoon soon and rued that decision. Why could her hormones and her brain not get on the same page? Jesus. Why was it so hard for her brain to just accept the fact that this man was not in the line-up for the near future, and it was a good idea to stop lusting after him?
He was watching her, too; her bikini looked good, and she knew it did. She’d been working out a lot the last few months and she was proud of her muscles and trim physique. Clearly, his brain wasn’t totally accepting the “buds” message either.
But the alternative—a night of passion and then a shit-ton of messy clean-up—was that worth it?
“So how did you do on your flirt-free routine? Did you manage? Be honest.” She gave him a stare.
“I flirted with nobody,” he said, “including Carlos, Jeremy, and Marielle.” He raised an eyebrow. “I was the master of class and respectful conversational without leading anyone on to think there was anything more promised.”
“That must have been disappointing for at least one of them.” Harper was thinking of Marielle.
“Jeremy sobbed, but I told him that he’d find someone new soon,” said Zach, and they both laughed, because they’d discovered that Jeremy—a devoted husband and father—spent significant amounts of time on the phone with his young wife, whispering endearments in Spanish that sounded really dirty, even if you didn’t speak Spanish fluently.
“And was it fulfilling in a way that you’ve never before experienced?” She was being sort of playful and sarcastic, but she was curious, too.
He shrugged. “I suppose I felt more honest, not flirting with Marielle. I was friendly, but not flirty like you saw the other day. And she got the message and it was more, maybe relaxed. But I mean, it was one short conversation. I can’t really say that I feel very different, no.”
“Well, it’s only one day. Rome wasn’t built in one.”
“True. Although, what am I building here, again? I forget.”
“You’re constructing the opportunity to relate to people through your personality, not just by dangling the possibility of sex with you in front of their eyes.”
“The thing is, isn’t that an integral part of life, relating to people through the allure of sex?”
“To some degree, of course.” She thought. “Obviously. Sexual attraction is what keeps the world going ‘round, right? People have to be attracted to others, and find potential mates, and test out potential mates, and all that. So sex is a fundamental part of our society at its core. Sex, because of procreation. We love it. And in our modern times, it’s not taboo anymore to have sex whenever we want, so people can indulge.”
“Right.”
“It’s just that there’s more to life than that. Why do we write poetry and build skyscrapers and learn about the mysteries of ocean trenches? Why do we chart the stars and learn about the oddities of the brain, and polish gems from the middle of the earth?”
“Still sex.” He gave a wry laugh. “Sex and death.”
“I used to think that every single impulse in the entire world, every emotion—whether it be love, or hate, or anger, every war, every kiss—it was all fear of death.” She picked up her drink and watched the ripples in the pool as a wasp landed on the surface and darted away.
“Maybe it is.” He sounded melancholy now.
“Because every single thing we do, isn’t it all about extending our life? If we’r
e good to our child, it’s to enable our genes to continue into the future. If we’re nice to another person, it’s a selfish motivation at core; being nice to them guarantees them to be nice back to us, which in turn enhances survival, whether it’s because they’ll share food or make us laugh, which increases the happy chemicals in our brain that allow us to better adapt to this world and in turn to live longer.”
“Even Mother Teresa, selfish?”
“Of course! She’s the ultimate example, but she represents a higher level of it, a more adapted version. Some people do it on a stupid, animal basic level. She elevated it to an art. By caring for the sick and poor, she was helping to extend their lives, and showing the world that we can all survive better together than apart. She was a role model for why we band together into teams, into societies, a reminder of why humans work better together. She was reminding us to fix the gears and cogs in our broken-down machinery of humanity. But because we all benefit from it.”
He reached out and took her hand. “I have never talked about this with anyone before, outside of a philosophy class in undergrad.”
She squeezed his fingers, warm from the sun. “I know. Me, too.”
“They should add that to the thirty-six questions. In which ways is Mother Teresa a selfish bitch? Discuss.”
“So you being helpful to me on the plane, was that selfish?”
“All I knew in that moment was that I wanted to help you.” He sounded genuine. “If it was selfish, and according to our conversation it clearly was on some level, it still meant that I wanted to make you feel better. That part was real.”
“Because you wanted to stock me up as a potential conquest for a future night when you might be lonely?”
“No.” His answer was immediate, his voice firm. “It was more than that, Harper.” The look in his eyes, so serious, made her suddenly shy, and also nervous to continue this thread of conversation, afraid of where it might lead.
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