Kat
“I’ve been thinking,”Silas says the next afternoon as he starts his truck. I click my seatbelt into place and as the engine turns over, the air conditioning blasts me right in the face.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Great joke. Original,” he says, giving me a broad grin. “We’ve got an agreement, and we’ve got rules. What we don’t have is a plan of attack.”
With a flourish, he pulls a slim manila folder from where it was stuck between the seats and hands it to me.
“If this is a literal plan of literal attack I don’t think I should look at it, for courtroom reasons,” I tell him as I take it.
“The plan is literal, the attack is figurative,” he says, pulling out of the parking spot in front of my apartment.
“So when I open this I’m not going to see a map of our office building with, like, sniper vantage points and routes of egress,” I say.
He shoots me a look.
“Or whatever a battle plan looks like,” I go on.
“Have you ever even seen a war movie?”
I think for a moment.
“Mulan?” I say. “Oh, and Star Wars, of course. That one’s got war right there in the title.”
“Then surely, you’ve noticed that battle plans rarely fit onto an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper,” Silas says. “Let me know when you’re ready to have a conversation.”
I look from him to the manila folder and try to act like this isn’t a little jarring. That I’m not currently somewhat jarred by the difference between the quiet, subdued man who said two words on the drive home early yesterday morning before saying goodbye with the softest kiss I’ve ever had, and the guy full of loud cheer and blatant charm and effortless bravado.
Then I shove those thoughts aside because apparently I’ve got a battle plan to look at, and open the folder.
Inside is a schedule that covers the next three weeks. It’s beautifully formatted, like he used a Word document template for it, with a header that says The Dating Plan and underneath that, a line that says Objectives: convince partners at Hayward and Marshall that our relationship is serious; inspire jealous rage and subsequent penitence in Evan Meckler.
“What?” I ask, even though I clearly know what.
“You can’t start a mission without a memo,” he says, a smile in his voice. “I’d’ve made a PowerPoint, but this seemed better.”
Below the heading and the objective is an itinerary. Each entry, starting with today, has a time, a place, an activity overview, and an objective.
Today’s reads:
Sunday, 5pm: Burnley County Agricultural Fair
Activities:see animals, eat funnel cake, ride Ferris wheel.
Objective:present selves to wider community as happy, functional couple.
“Did you plan dates?” I ask, still confused that Silas has not only used bullet points, but mixed serif and sans serif fonts to pleasing effect.
“All tentative,” he says, shrugging. “If we get better intel about Meckler’s movements then obviously, we’re positioned to pivot on a dime and re-strategize, but it’s a guide to follow in the absence of better information.”
“Intel,” I echo. “About Evan’s movements.”
“Up until now, we’ve been winging it,” he says. “And I think we’ve got a better chance of making the bastard crawl if we stay on top of things. Instead of overhearing that he’s considering the county fair and guessing when he might want to go, we choose whereabouts and activities that are likely to put us and our very happy love affair directly in his path.”
I scan the schedule: Coffee Outing, Mountain Grind, 10am. Lunch, LouAnn’s, noon. There are dinners, happy hours, breakfasts, a movie. No: a play. An art show. The last thing, on Labor Day weekend, is labeled Hayward & Marshall Soirée: Cocktail Attire Suggested.
“How do you know where he’s going to be?” I finally ask.