“Right.” He started down the porch steps, heading to his truck parked behind the cabin. She didn’t want him to go but she didn’t know what to say to him if he stayed.
“And you have to carry my polka-dot underwear in your pocket.”
Chris pulled something out of his back pocket. A pair of her panties, which he spun on his finger as he walked to his truck. Joey laughed. How could she not laugh with her underwear twirling in the wind? Chris stuffed them back into his pocket, got in his truck and drove away. For the second time in ten minutes she
listened to wheels on gravel, the sound receding into the distance.
But when Chris drove away it was different.
When Chris drove away, Joey cried.
13
“YOU LET HIM drive away?” Kira asked. “You just...let him go?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Joey demanded. “Shoot him?”
“Why would you shoot him?”
“Because he cheated on me? Or on his wife with me? Or something?”
“I wasn’t talking about Ben. I was talking about Chris! Why the hell would you let that beautiful bearded boy of yours drive off? He fucked your brains out against a wall, told you he loved you, showed up when Ben was there but didn’t start a fight with him and then he left and you let him go?”
Joey didn’t answer at first. She leaned back on the tree stump behind her and sighed. In an hour and a half she’d have to hop in her car and drive to the wedding, and she hadn’t even taken a shower yet, put on her costume yet, fixed her hair yet. Every attempt she’d made at pulling herself together and getting ready had failed. Finally, she’d given up, put on her boots and coat, and went for a walk to clear her head. Somehow she’d ended up at the edge of the lake. She sat in the shadows of a million Douglas fir trees on a fallen log. In the distance, Mount Hood’s peak rose up white against the blue-gray marbled sky. It was lovely, unbearably lovely, and she was lonely. Unbearably lonely.
“I don’t know what to do,” Joey finally said.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe tell Chris you’re crazy about him, too. You are, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I just got out of a relationship two weeks ago. Two. Weeks. Ago. That’s not even a whole month. That’s half a month. That’s a fortnight.”
“What’s a fortnight?”
“Two weeks!”
“You dumped a cheater. You’re not a grieving widow.”
“A cheater I’ll have to see at work.”
“Quit the job.”
“You’re the one who told me not to do anything drastic for six whole months, Kira,” Joey said, shouting the words because it felt so good to yell.
“So? You don’t have to listen to me. And that was before Chris. Rules exist. So do exceptions to the rules.”
“This is not helping.”
“Tell me—what’s stopping you from getting together with Chris?”
“We’ve had sex like twenty times in eight days. Nothing stopped me from getting together with Chris.”
“You know what I mean. Is this idea that you can’t quit your job for a guy the only thing keeping you from quitting your job for a guy?”
“Kira. I cannot quit my job for a guy. I cannot. I will not. It’s not happening. I love working.”