Chương 2
LOIS: Big news. Try to be happy for me.
Miles did not look at the screen. He studied a crack in the tabletop as if he had suddenly become interested in carpentry.
I turned the phone facedown.
“Do you have plans Saturday?” I asked.
He looked up.
The question had escaped before I understood its shape.
“What kind of plans?”
“Normal ones.”
“I’m beginning to suspect our definitions won’t match.”
“I need a boyfriend.”
He blinked once.
“For the afternoon,” I added.
A woman at the next table looked over. I lowered my voice.
“I mean, I don’t need a real boyfriend. Obviously. I need someone to appear with me, stand near me, answer a few harmless questions, and prevent my family from treating my unmarried status like a gas leak.”
Miles stared at me long enough for the air-conditioning to become audible.
“This is the part where you say you’re joking,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You met me six minutes ago.”
“Seven.”
“You poured coffee on me.”
“That gives us history.”
He rubbed his thumb across the scar on his knuckle. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you didn’t yell at a woman who dumped coffee on you. You listen without interrupting. You make jokes when people are uncomfortable. You own a watch instead of checking your phone every twelve seconds.”
“I could be married.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“You could be dangerous.”
“So could you.”
“I work in museum collections.”
“That does lower the odds.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I heard the desperation in my breathing and hated it. “I’ll pay you.”
His expression changed, not with offense exactly, but with a small withdrawal.
“Forget it,” I said. “That was insulting.”
“It was practical.”
“It sounded awful.”
“It sounded like you’re trying to buy a controlled outcome.”
“Yes.”
“At a family party.”
“Yes.”
“With a stranger.”
“Yes.”
He looked out the window again. Across the street, a tow truck had stopped beside a dark pickup with its hood raised. The driver pointed at the engine while talking to a man in a reflective vest.
Miles exhaled through his nose.
“How long?”
“One until five.”
“Where?”
“My parents’ house in Westport.”
“How many people?”
“Between sixty and eighty.”
“That’s not a family party. That’s a campaign event.”
“My mother likes rented chairs.”
“Any ex-boyfriends likely to appear?”
“No.”
“Anyone violent?”
“Only emotionally.”
He gave me a look.
“No,” I said. “Nobody is violent.”
“Drugs?”
“My uncle Gary puts whiskey in iced tea and calls it portion control.”
“Police?”
“My father knows several.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No police.”
He picked up his coffee and drank, still watching me over the rim.
“What would I have to lie about?”
“That we’re dating.”
“For how long?”
“Three months sounds respectable without inviting wedding questions.”
“It invites other questions.”
“Two months.”
“How did we meet?”
“At the museum.”
“I don’t know anything about museums.”
“That will make you sound like most visitors.”
“What do I do?”
“Stand beside me. Be pleasant. Don’t flirt with Lois.”
“Your sister?”
“She’ll assume you want to.”
“Anything else?”
“Don’t mention I hired you.”
“That seems central.”
“I know.”
He set down his cup.
“No kissing,” he said. “No overnight implication. I bring my own car. I leave whenever I want. You send the address and your family’s names before Saturday. I send the address to someone I trust. If anybody gets drunk enough to become unpredictable, we go.”
My mouth went dry. “You’re agreeing?”
“I’m establishing conditions.”
“What would make you agree?”
He looked at the message still glowing faintly beneath my phone.
“Tell me why a competent adult would rather bring a stranger into a house full of relatives than arrive alone.”
“I already told you.”
“No. You told me what they say.”
The barista called out a drink order. Somebody dropped a spoon. On the street, the pickup’s hood came down.
I rubbed condensation from my cup with my thumb.
“When I was twenty-six, I brought someone named Daniel to Christmas,” I said. “My mother asked him what his intentions were before he had taken off his coat. Lois asked how much he made. My father offered him advice about real estate. Daniel left early and broke up with me the next week.”
“Because of them?”
“He said the family pressure showed him what our future would feel like.”
“That’s not quite the same thing.”
“No.” I looked at the floor. “It showed him what I was willing to tolerate.”
Miles stayed quiet.
“Since then, every event has become proof,” I said. “Proof that I ruined a good relationship. Proof I’m too difficult. Proof Lois is moving forward and I’m standing still. My mother called me from a restaurant last month because a woman she knew had asked whether I was seeing anyone, and apparently not having an answer was humiliating.”
“And Saturday?”
“My father turns sixty-five. Lois has some announcement. My mother invited clients, neighbors, people from their club. She wants a photograph of the family she thinks she earned.”
My voice had begun to shake. I took a drink, but the straw clicked against my teeth.
“I don’t want to win,” I said. “I want four hours where they have to find something else to discuss.”
Miles glanced at his watch again. The tow truck outside pulled away with the pickup behind it.
“I have one more condition,” he said.
“What?”
“The money goes to the Bridgeport food pantry.”
I stared at him.
“Four hundred dollars,” he said. “You send it before Saturday. Not to me.”
“Why?”
“Because then neither of us has to pretend this is employment.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes enough.”
“You do understand the point is pretending.”
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “Send me the details tonight. I’ll decide after I see them.”
May you like
He took a pen from his pocket, wrote a number on the back of a café receipt, and slid it across the table.
The handwriting was compact and clean.
