Great Big Beautiful Life(91)
I’m torn between trying to get more information and feeling like that’s somehow cheating in this strange competition Hayden and I have found ourselves in.
Because if I know anything about him, he’s not just humoring Cecil. He doesn’t do that. Which means he had a real reason for asking to see this picture. Or else he didn’t ask at all and Cecil just volunteered it, another distinct possibility, though with how direct Hayden tends to be, I’m really not convinced that’s what’s going on.
I tamp my curiosity down. “I’ll tell him,” I promise, and Cecil raps his knuckles on the table before turning and strolling away.
* * *
? ? ?
Hayden lowers his fork from his mouth, the bite of diner hash browns still dangling from it. “A picture?” he asks.
“That’s what he said.”
One side of his mouth inches up. “And you just let that go, did you?”
I fold my arms atop the sticky table. “Actually, I did. It felt like cheating.”
He sits back, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “I don’t want you to do your job any differently because of me.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s a lead you chased down.”
“I never said it was a lead,” he points out.
“Is it?” I try to arch my brow at him.
A quiet grunt of laughter escapes him. “You’re bad at that.”
“Well, I can’t be perfect at everything, I guess,” I say wistfully.
He sits forward again, his hands settling over my kneecaps under the table. “You could’ve asked him.”
“What if I ask you instead?” I say.
His head tips, and he draws in a breath between his parted lips.
“Never mind!” I say.
“Ask to see the picture,” he says intently, then adds, “It might not mean anything to you. It might not mean anything, period. But I’ll tell you why I wanted to see it. After.”
Not after you see it, I know, but after we know how this ends.
I stretch one hand out over the table, another handshake agreement in a series of them.
His hand eclipses mine, and I pull it across the table to press a kiss to the back of it, the only way I can keep myself from blurting I love you. The tender expression that dawns across his severe features makes me think he heard the words all the same.
* * *
? ? ?
On Saturday morning, on my way out the door, I run back inside and dig through the stack of junk by the front door until I find Captain Cecil’s card.
I fire off a quick text, and then I head over to Margaret’s.
Since Hayden’s and my arrival, she has apparently let her regular exercise fall to the wayside, which is how she convinced me that today’s interview should largely be conducted from her swimming pool.
I wish I’d packed a sensible one-piece, but being me, I’ve only brought a skimpy hot sauce–red bikini. The least professional swimwear, arguably, but we’ll make do. I sit on the edge of the sun-drenched pool, my legs in the water, and set up my recording devices beside me.
At the far end of the pool, she shrugs off her robe and tosses it onto a lounger to reveal a canary-yellow tankini, and I’m instantly less self-conscious about my own sartorial choices.
“I love your suit,” I call to her as she descends the steps, clinging to the metal handrail.
“Right back atcha!” she says. “I tend to trust people who love color. Shows good judgment, don’t you think?”
I can’t tell if that’s a compliment to me, a jab toward Hayden, both, or neither. Stranger, I can’t tell which I want it to be.
It’s a good thing if she trusts me. I want this job. But if she’s implying that Hayden in his understated, monochromatic wardrobe isn’t trustworthy, then I’m having a hard time not being a little offended.
Shit. Maybe he’s been right all along. Maybe this is all stickier than I realize.
It’s just one more week. Either way, things will be settled very soon.
I grab my notebook and pen and stack them on my thighs as Margaret begins wading back and forth, arms akimbo. “So,” I say, clearing my throat, “we’d just gotten to—”
“Cosmo,” she interrupts, still sloshing back and forth. “We’d finally gotten to Cosmo.”
The Story
Their version: For Cosmo Sinclair and Margaret Grace Ives, it was love at first sight.
* * *
? ? ?
Her version: She hated him. She blamed him. She didn’t care whether it was fair or not. She went down to the library with the intention of eviscerating him. She threw open both doors, for dramatic purposes, and stormed into the room like a heat-seeking missile.
He’d been looking at one of the many shelves of Gerald’s unread books, and when he turned toward the sound, his quiet smile was disarming.
She stumbled, just for a second, before resuming her march.
“Hello, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Cosmo.”
The Southern lilt of his voice surprised her. She’d heard the accent in his stage chatter, of course, but much of it had been buried beneath thousands of screaming voices, and what she had heard, she’d assumed was a put-on. An exaggeration.