“I have to talk to my crew,” he said.
“I’ll wait near the highway on-ramp. Fifteen minutes. If you take any longer, I’ll go home and take care of this myself.”
That did the trick, finally. He closed his eyes for just a second, and she was able to slip out from under him and walk onto the porch, across the pavers to the parking lot. Not too fast or too slow. Not clutching her clipboard or limping. Just the right speed.
She got into her Mercedes, started the engine, and backed out of the lot.
But when she got beyond the place where someone might see, Carmen pulled over and dropped her head onto the wheel, because she was shaking and cold, and she didn’t know how to get warm.
Roman put the receiver back on the hook and let his hand fall.
From this vantage by the open front door of the office, he could take in the entire expanse of the campground. A kid skipping toward the bathhouse. The Escalade with the Airstream hitched to it, the campsite empty now of his tent and the ephemera they’d strewn around yesterday.
Ashley, Stanley, and Michael were huddled together in a conference by the picnic table. He’d thought at first they were saying their goodbyes, but this didn’t look like a fond farewell. Michael was leaning in, saying something to Ashley. Stanley stood with his arms crossed, silent. Ashley was seated below them at the table, nodding her head, listening.
All of them there, and in his mind’s eye: Carmen in Florida. Noah at Sunnyvale, the crew ready, and the only thing stopping them from knocking it all down was Roman’s word transmitted over the line.
Even without his word, it would be so easy for Carmen to knock it down. A quick job, over and done with and then too late to take it back. Roman didn’t think she would do that. But maybe he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.
She’d threatened him.
She’d threatened to use Ashley’s father as a lever, and Roman knew just enough about Ashley to understand what a dangerous idea that was.
He knew just enough to be all caught up in her, but not enough to make him feel safe. He’d lain awake in the half-collapsed tent, green nylon six inches from his nose, and made a list in the quietest hours of the night of all the things that could go wrong if he took her to bed.
Anything.
Everything.
He’d decided he shouldn’t pursue this attraction to her any further.
He’d known he would do it anyway.
Now he went inside the store and bought some snacks for the road. Chips. Candy. Gum, because she seemed to like gum. Since Michael was occupied, Roman left twenty dollars on the counter beneath a can of soda.
After finding a place in the Cadillac for his purchases, he walked into the uncomfortable tension at the picnic table. “Everything okay?” he asked Ashley.
“Yeah.”
“You ready to go?”
“Yeah. But, uh, we’re going to have another passenger.”
“What do you mean?”
But he understood even before he finished articulating the question, because when he lifted his eyes, Stanley was there with his arms crossed, his gaze steely and determined. Michael looking apologetic but resigned.
“Stanley’s coming with us,” Ashley said.
“Why?”
She looked at her toes. “He won’t say.”
Michael started spewing out information then, something about Stanley’s right hip and North Korea, he didn’t drive anymore, Michael would take him but the campground needed tending, somebody had to, and Ashley was headed up north anyway, so they’d got to talking—
Busy sorting through all the implications of this announcement, Roman tuned him out.
Stanley’s demand. Ashley’s assent. The way she didn’t seem to want to meet his eyes today. Those were the key elements.