by Jenna Barton
“I’ve had her for years,” she said. “While you’ve gone off to college and grad school and done exactly what you wanted to do, with no thought of me stuck with her. I have a chance to have something—finally—and you’re so—so fucking selfish. You won’t even consider what life has been like for me, having to cart her around everywhere like she belongs with Dante’s friends.”
“Belongs with his friends? You’re unbelievable.” Turning, I shouldered my bag. Across the restaurant, Kathy was standing at the hostess desk with an older man and woman, chatting amiably. Danielle’s fingers hooked around my elbow, twisting in the soft skin above it.
“No, you are unbelievable.” Her breath hissed at my ear. “I will not let you fuck this up for me. You always lived for yourself and acted like you were so much better than me. You trot off across the country with your stupid job and leave me back here with Mom hanging from my neck.”
“If you need some space from her, tell her. It’s certainly time you realized she’s your mother and not your partner in crime,” I said, wrenching my arm from her grasp. “She’s not an invalid and you’re behaving as if she’s completely dependent on you.” Across the restaurant, our mother’s laugh climbed, turning to a sharp cough.
“She’s embarrassed Dante more than once.” The pleading. I understood it, so much, this undertone in Dani’s voice, because I’d been there too. Kathy was too much sometimes. Add a couple of beers or a few glasses of wine, and she could be much too much.
“I’m sor—” Walt’s voice rang in my head from the day I’d first met him at Poplar Branch, and more than a few times since. No need to be sorry, Erin. “I know, Dani. I get it.”
“She won’t understand if we don’t have her move in with us once the house is finished, E.”
I looked from my sister to our mother, and back again. This was how Danielle always wanted her life to go. A rich guy, good friends, a nice house in the valley. I never looked forward to life defined by anything but space and the means to provide my own stability. With those things a relative certainty, I suddenly had Callahan and Claire and Lucy. And Walt.
Who refused to replace his dying truck so his aging grandfather could have a private room at his senior care home. Who, I knew, would make room in his life for my mother, if she appeared in my life.
A small Southern town, a rented house, my first two female friends, and a man who led hikes and flushed backed-up campsite toilets for his comparatively meager living. All of it mine, and not dependent on Danielle’s or Mom’s approval. Or open to their commentary.
“I’ve got to get back,” I said, gathering her close for a quick hug. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I drove back to Los Altos through the last, long shafts of afternoon light. Nearly two hours passed, but I barely noticed. Once I’d dropped the rental’s keys at the concierge stand, I made my way to my room on leaden legs. After nine in California meant past midnight in North Carolina. Just a few hours until Walt would dress in his ranger’s uniform, open the park gates, and begin his new day.
This wasn’t missing. It was an ache for him. I didn’t know how to say it out loud, especially to him. And, after Kathy and Danielle, I wasn’t sure if I was equipped to withstand it alone.
I reached for my phone and dialed. “Hi.”
“Is that you, Erin?”
“You sound surprised,” I said. “I told you I’d call. Are you busy?”
“No, no. Not at all. I’m happy you’ve called. Shall I come by for a drink, then?” Ardhi cleared his throat. “Or, we could go downstairs to the bar.”
I stood and began to shift files, my laptop, and several discarded changes of clothes from the small sitting area. “No, my room is fine. I have a couple of bottles of wine from my sister’s…um…I’ll call down for some glasses and a wine tool. Come over, I’m in seventeen-oh-three.”
“I’ll be right there.”
The difference in him was profound. Ardhi’s manner, his dress, even his glasses were completely different. He’d traded the small wire-rims I remembered for frameless, vaguely industrial-looking glasses that turned his features sleek and urbane. He’d shaved his goatee. And Bermuda shorts? A fresh, starched white dress shirt with the cuffs turned over a knife’s edge. Someone had been grooming my formerly rumpled, Tim the Beaver T-shirt-wearing old bed buddy.
Most of all, after two and a half months of Walt, Ardhi seemed very short.
“And how is Mama and Sister?” He kissed me on each cheek as he stepped into my room. I rolled my eyes in response as the door closed behind us. “Oh dear. That well, eh?”
“Mama has switched to wine. Sister is engaged to a vineyard-owning chef.” I pointed him toward the bottles of Boriello Blu’s Merlot and Chenin Blanc Mom and Danielle gifted me as a belated birthday present. “Your pick.”
“Ah, well, at least they sent you off with something to drink.” He studied the labels for a moment and finally snorted. “I’ve no idea what this white is. The red will do, I suppose. So Sister has landed the big fish?”
“It would seem so.” As the words came from my mouth, I winced. Ardhi and I had fallen into our familiar, snarky banter, but to my own ear, I sounded bitter instead of witty. “I’m…I’m glad for her. She seems happy.”
Accepting a glass of wine from me, one of Ardhi’s eyebrows climbed. “Romance, marriage. These things make people happy.” He looked at me closely. “They’ve made me happy.”
I sat in silence for a moment, waiting for him to complete the thought. And then I managed to follow his implications. “Oh! Ardhi, that’s wonder…um, I wasn’t—” I stammered, motioning at the wine and around my suddenly more-than-just-a-hotel-room hotel room. “I hope it didn’t seem like I was inviting you—”
“No, of course not. But in the interest of preventing a misunderstanding, I thought I should make myself quite clear.”
“You have, of course. And I don’t…well, I wasn’t seeking you out in that—when did you get engaged?”
“Officially, last month. A girl from home, family friends of ours, actually. Who would have expected me to become a traditionalist at the end of the day?” His disinterest in assimilating American-style social subtleties into his personality was something I’d liked about Ardhi immediately. He’d struggled with soft skills as a manager, as I did, but had done well with his data security team since returning to our Mumbai house.
“I…that’s fantastic, Ardhi.”
“And you? Now that we’re face-to-face, tell me honestly what you think of this new North Carolina house. I’ve heard it’s quite rural. Hillbilly horrors, Steve Gomez has been telling everyone.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrugged, while the faces of people I knew, my little house, the view from the overlook at Walt’s forest flashed by in my mind. “I’ve enjoyed it.”
He paused, head slanting, and sipped his wine. “You know, Erin, I think it’s been quite good for you.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. It has been. You’re much more relaxed. Softer.”
“Softer? Was I hard—”
“No. Not hard.” He considered it for a moment, swirling the remaining Merlot in his glass as he did. “Rigid, I’d say. Hmm, yes. Quite strict about things. Lots of expectations, lots of structure.”
I knew my mouth was open and felt myself blink as I listened to him, speechless and completely off-guard. Ardhi had worked relentlessly while he was in Los Altos at the Main house, as I did. As every rising member of ThinkMine management was expected to do. His appetite and stamina for taking the company public was near mythic. And to be called rigid and structured by him and with that particular tone in his voice…
“But these aren’t bad things. You love your work,” he said, raising his shoulders genially like he was discussing a sports score or a movie he’d seen over the weekend.
“You do too,” I muttered. Why was this a problem? Why had he noticed this and never mentioned it? And why was my hand fisting around itself, pressing into the sofa cushion behind me? �
�We all work hard and like what we do.”
“Yes, of course.”
I nearly heard the yes, dear in his voice. The near-physical sense of him patting my hand turned my rigid spine to glass. And almost as illogical as Ardhi’s surprise assessment of old me—the me he had been happy to have dinner and sex with two or three times a month when we were both still at the Main house—I suddenly drained my wine and blurted, “I have a boyfriend.”
“Do you? You’re dating? Seriously?”
Was I? Walt and I had started to be considered a couple among the people he knew. We had a routine, had reached a place with each other. Right there, as Ardhi looked on, I realized what that was. Trust. More than anyone in my past life in California, I trusted Walt. Claire, too, and even Lucy, whose judgment I was certain of when I met her.
Finally, I replied, “I am,” and heard my voice soften with it as I remembered what dating entailed.
“Oh, I see.” Ardhi chuckled a little and suddenly the man who used to whisper raunchy Mumbaiya phrases in my ear when we had sex turned doting and almost…paternal. “Yes, you are quite infatuated, aren’t you? So he’s another Miner, then? Does he know about the douchebag sys admin who keeps dumping lines from your code? I should speak with him, Erin. I’m not convinced this Alan bugger won’t cause a serious meltdown when the virtualization project rolls—”
“Wait, wait a second, there.” I refreshed my glass of wine so I wouldn’t pour the remains of the bottle in Ardhi’s lap. “Let’s correct some assumptions. He’s not a Miner, he knows about the dirtbag, and he thinks I can handle him myself. And so does Steve, and so do I. Jesus, Ardhi, I’ve been watching his CenterTalk windows through the mirror site for months. How do you think I knew he was dumping my code? I won’t let him crash my servers. I don’t need help running QA on my people.”
“No,” he said with an unruffled smile. “Of course not. And I apologize for sounding patronizing, which I did. You can mind yourself. Forgive an old lover who only wants to see you safe from douchebags, eh?”
God, he was still ridiculously charming. I giggled, shaking my head, and took a long drink of wine. “Okay, Ardhi, turn down the suave a little. You’re forgiven.”
“And you’re still a tigress under there, which is why I’ve always liked you. Now, tell me about your new love. Thank God he’s not one of us. Techies are the fucking bores of the Earth.”
We spent another hour catching up, discussing our new offices, and Ardhi’s fiancée Urmila, who he described as earthy and practical, as I claimed Walt to be. It was good being around Ardhi again. As we talked, I realized just how much I’d missed my friend.
“I think I’ve been so focused on being a manager that I’ve missed out on developing peers at Callahan House.”
“You know Steve,” Ardhi said. “He’s a good guy. I thought you two got on well.”
“We do, yeah. Of course. He wouldn’t have brought me to Callahan if we didn’t get along.” I tugged at my ponytail, flipping the ends around my fingers. “I need to get some face time with him about this admin, actually. I’ve done all I can. After that last botched patch job, I’m going to have to action plan him.”
Ardhi winced. Action planning an employee was a serious step. ThinkMine management culture emphasized problem-solving, not problem-stating. Action planning was the equivalent of not only stating there was a problem but naming how it came to be and how it would be fixed. Effectively, it put me on notice as a manager as much as it warned Alan his job was in jeopardy.
“After what I’ve seen and heard from you, I don’t think you have a choice.” He shook his head and drained his wine. “I don’t envy you. Kamal Gupta had to action plan one of his developers, and it nearly gave him a fucking ulcer.” He stood, smoothing at the front of his shorts. “Well, my body hasn’t a clue what time it is, and I’ve drank all your birthday wine, dear. I’m afraid I must be off for bed.”
I paused by my open hotel room door as Ardhi passed into the hall. “Let’s have lunch before I go home, okay?”
As we compared schedules, buzzed on wine and laughing over our conflicting cases of jetlag, a shadow passed behind Ardhi. A sharp cough echoed through the hall.
“Well, well, well,” followed.
I peered past Ardhi’s shoulder after the sound. Somehow, and thank God for it, I managed to stifle a gasp before it came out. But I couldn’t squelch what I knew was definitive shock and awe reading all over my face.
“What is it?” Ardhi’s hand fell on my elbow and he looked over his shoulder. I shook my head and stayed silent, waiting for the sound of a door thunking closed. Finally, it came. I looked back to Ardhi and let out the breath I’d been holding. “Erin, are you okay?”
“That was Alan. Dirtbag?” I shook my head. “No. I’m not okay.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE TOCHEEOSTEE RIVER was full. Full of water, let down from Highlands Dam, and full of boats, early arrivals for the long July Fourth weekend. Walt could see both, just beyond a thicket full of tulip poplar saplings fighting it out for dominance with kudzu, the vine that ate the South.
And Lucy was full of attitude. Too much attitude for seven thirty in the morning.
“You know you’re worse than an old biddy-hen lesbian, Wanda. A few dates with a new girl and suddenly you fell off the radar. So, you and the babysub picked out your kitchen curtains yet?”
Walt closed the passenger door of Tate’s truck. “Gonna take the boats down to the put-in,” he said over his shoulder. “Meet y’all down by the water.”
“Oh, please. You can’t carry Tate’s boat and that battleship of yours, big girl.” Lucy passed him before he could detach the first bungee cord from the side of the truck and swung herself into the bed between the two kayaks. After a few extra seconds of pointed silence, she sighed. “Okay, Walt. Shit…I’m sorry.”
“All right. Fine.”
Together they worked in silence, removing the boats and gear. Tate swung out of traffic, heading down the road to look for a place to park¸ shouting that he would meet them by the river.
A benefit of carrying close to nine feet of orange heavy-duty molded plastic over his head was the insulation from Lucy’s watchful stare, which was a hell of a lot worse than her continuing commentary. And it wasn’t Lucy, really. It was her questions, probable insinuations, and coming up with answers he didn’t have the words for yet.
Once Tate found them, they scooted into the water and set off, Walt in front, Lucy in the middle, and Tate, the best paddler, in the back. As the morning went on, Walt shut down Lucy’s attempts to make peace with sporadic grunts and huffs. After a couple of hours, she gave up, backtracking to smart-mouthing Tate and trash-talking Walt’s paddling skills. Finally, Walt spoke up, reminding her who taught the debutante to run whitewater in the first place and the morning settled into a companionable silence.
Past two in the afternoon, Walt, Lucy, and Tate pulled their boats from the Tocheeostee River, having skipped a break for lunch riverside to get ahead of the slower July Fourth vacationers. After stowing their kayaks and gear in the back of Tate’s truck, they crowded into the cab.
“Lunch? Crusts?” Lucy tucked her legs beside Tate’s once he’d climbed in.
Tate moaned. “Yes. Dear Lord, yes. Please. And after you two had me on a forced march all morning, you’re paying, Lu.”
“Buy your own, Tatiana, you’ve got plenty of money. Come to think of it, it’s time for second quarter dividends to roll out. You can buy mine and Wanda’s too.”
Their regular waitress, Ernestine, greeted them at the door.
“Afternoon, y’all. The usual?”
“Hey, gorgeous. No,” Luce answered before either Walt or Tate could speak. “This one wants the double bacon burger and sweet potato fries—with extra bacon. Tall, dark, and handsome and his delicate constitution will have the grilled chicken with candied pecans on organic greens, balsamic vinaigrette on the side. I’ll have the three-egg omelet with cheese and a double ord
er of extra crispy homefries with onions and green pepper.”
“No sausage?” Ernie asked, just beating Walt to the punch.
“Nope. Thanks, angel.”
Lucy fixed her with a dazzling and respectfully flirtatious smile, given the woman was well into her grandmother years, and turned her attention to looking through her bag. The waitress and Walt looked at each other, at Tate, and back to each other.
“Lucy, the omelet comes with sausage. You always get extra.”
“Sage, link, we’ve even got some of that extra spicy that you like so well, Lu,” Ernie added helpfully, her eyes seeking out Walt’s as she spoke. Of course, Miss Lucy Johns had only so much patience for helpful reminders of things she already knew. And she was busy looking busy with her phone.
Shrugging along with Tate, Walt shook his head and put on the happy face for Ernie. She’d been waiting on them since the three were transplants to Callahan twelve years before. After the first two years of trying to marry Lucy to Walt or Tate, a few sly attempts to couple up the men and introduce Lucy to her own grandson, Ernie settled into a familiar routine with them that didn’t include their relationship status.
“I’ll take the sausage, Miss Ernie. Would you care to bring Lucy some pancakes instead, please, ma’am?” Tate’s down-South manners always got to her. The old-school, country girl waitress pretended she hated his thick servings of charm almost as much as Lu, but was much more susceptible to him.
“Sure thing, Tate. There’s another pitcher of tea behind the cakes. Y’all help yourself.”
Walt watched Ernie as she cleared the gleaming stainless steel pastry cases and headed for the kitchen, purposefully not noticing Lu glaring at him.