Chapter 5
Five
Jason sat at the scarred wooden table and glanced around the kitchen. It was a spacious and cheerful room with painted cabinets, retro cherry-printed wallpaper, and soapstone counters. The massive pantry was filled with baking ingredients stored in penny-candy jars, and canned goods stacked three and four rows deep.
He watched as Justine unearthed glass Mason jars filled with pickled vegetables and brought them to the table.
Pulling a bottle of Stolichnaya from the freezer, she set it in front of Jason along with two glasses. “You pour,” she said, and went to slice a baguette into delicate ovals. He could barely tear his gaze from her long enough to comply.
So far in their brief acquaintance, Justine Hoffman had teased and mocked him in a way that no one else dared. She had no idea how much latitude he was giving her, how easily he could have crushed her. But the truth was, she interested him more than anyone had in a very long time.
She was a beautiful woman, with a slender build, long, dark hair and fine skin, and a delicately angular face. She gestured as she talked. Had there been a blackboard in front of her, it would have been erased several times over by now. He should have found that annoying, except that he couldn’t stop imagining ways to slow her down with his mouth, hands, body.
A background check had revealed a woman who wasn’t given to excesses of any kind. She had grown up without a father, which would have made her more likely to have had behavioral problems, drop out of school, abuse alcohol or drugs. But there had been no signs of trouble. No credit issues. No prolific sexual history, only a couple of quiet relationships, neither of which had lasted more than a year. No arrest records, medical issues, or addictions. Only a parking ticket issued by her college’s campus security. So the usual things that made people tick—lust, greed, fear—none of that seemed to apply to Justine Hoffman.
But everyone had something to hide. And everyone wanted something they didn’t have.
In Justine’s case, he knew what the first thing was. The second thing, however… that was the question mark.
Standing at the table, Justine arranged food on a large sectioned plate. “You’re a vegetarian, right?”
“When it’s possible.”
“Did you start eating that way when you went to stay in the Zen monastery?”
“How do you know about the monastery?”
“It’s on your Wikipedia page.”
He frowned. “I’ve tried to get rid of that page. The administrators keep overturning the deletion. Apparently a person’s right to privacy doesn’t bother them.”
“It’s hard enough for regular people to have privacy these days. It must be impossible for someone like you.” Justine unwrapped a wedge of cheese and set it on a cutting board. She began to cut it into thin translucent slices. “So did you become a vegetarian for karmic reasons? You got worried you might come back as a chicken or something?”
“No, it was what they served at the monastery. And I liked it.”
Holding up a hard-boiled egg, Justine asked, “Are eggs and dairy okay?”
“They’re fine.”
Justine loaded the plate with pickled yellow wax beans and cauliflower, salted Marcona almonds, buttery green Spanish olives, coral slivers of home-cured salmon, hard-boiled farm eggs, translucent triangles of Manchego cheese, a fat gleaming wedge of triple-crème Brie, a handful of plump dried figs. The plate was accompanied by a basket of baguette slices and salted rosemary crackers.
“Bon appétit,” she said cheerfully, and sat beside him.
As they ate and talked, Jason found himself enjoying Justine’s company. She was engaging, quick to laugh, the kind of woman who would call you on your bullshit. Her face was as cleanly structured as a haiku, the eyes velvety brown, the mouth as plush and pink as a cherry blossom. But there was something intriguingly unsensual about her, a delicate frost of remoteness. It made him want to burn through that vestal coolness.
“Why did you decide to run a bed-and-breakfast?” he asked, centering a slice of radish on a buttered cracker. “It doesn’t seem like something a single woman your age would want to do.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a quiet life,” he said. “Isolated. You live on an island with no more than eight thousand year-round residents. You must get bored.”
“Never. My entire childhood was spent moving from place to place. I had a single mom who couldn’t stay put. I love the comfort of familiar things… the friends I see every day, the pillow that feels just right under my head, my herb garden, my mountain bike. I’ve run on the same trails and walked on the same beaches until I can tell whenever there’s the slightest change. I love being connected to a place like this.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. The Japanese believe that you don’t choose the place, the place chooses you.”
“What place has chosen you?”
“Hasn’t happened yet.” By now it wasn’t likely. He owned a condo on San Francisco Bay, an apartment in New York, and a lodge on Lake Tahoe. Each of them was beautiful, but none had ever given him a feeling of belonging when he walked through the front door.
Justine stared at him speculatively. “Why did you go to the Zen monastery?”
“I needed the answer to a question.”
“And did you get it?”
That brought a faint smile to his lips. “I found the answer. But also several more questions.”
“Where did you go after that?”
Jason lifted his brows into mocking arches. “It’s not on my Wikipedia page?”
“No. Your life is a big blank for a couple of years. So what were you doing?”
Jason hesitated. The habit of protecting his privacy wasn’t easy to set aside even when he was willing.
“I signed a massive confidentiality agreement,” Justine told him. “You can spill your guts and I won’t say a word.”
“What happens if you break the agreement?” he asked. “Jail time? Monetary damages?”
“You don’t know? It’s your contract.”
“We have three versions with different fine print. I want to know which one Priscilla gave you.”
Justine shrugged and grinned. “I never read the fine print. It’s always bad news.”
Her unguarded smile went through him like slow-motion lightning.
He hadn’t expected her effect on him. He’d never felt anything like it before. Something about her had set his nerves on tripwires, unknown feelings ready to be sprung. Carefully he closed his fingers around his second shot of vodka and drank it in a practiced gulp.
Justine tilted her head, studying him. “Why did you go into the video-game business?”
“I started as a game tester when I was an undergrad and wrote a couple of simple 2-D games. Later a friend of a friend was setting up a studio and needed someone to help with designing and programming. Eventually I was hired to launch the gaming division at Inari.”
“That explains how you got into the business,” Justine said, “but I’m curious about why. What is it about video games?”
“I’m competitive,” he admitted. “I like the aesthetics of a well-designed game. I like world-building, setting up challenges, pitfalls…” He paused. “Do you like gaming?”
She shook her head. “Not my thing. The couple of games I’ve tried are complicated and violent, and I really don’t like the sexism.”
“Not in the games I produce. I don’t allow story lines that include prostitution, rape, or demeaning language toward women.”
Justine seemed unimpressed. “I’ve seen some of the ads for Skyrebels—that’s one of yours, right?—and most of the female characters are dressed like space hookers. Why do they need to wear leather minis and boots with five-inch heels to fight off an attack of armored soldiers?”
She had a point. “The teenage male demographic likes it,” Jason admitted.
“Thought so,” she said.
“But no matter how they’re dressed, the female characters are just as tough as the males.”
“Sexism is about presentation and tone as well as actions.”
“Are you a feminist?”
“If you define a feminist as someone who wants to be treated with equality and respect, yes. But some people tend to think of feminists as being angry, which I’m not.”
“I’d be angry if someone sent me to war in five-inch boots and a leather mini.”
Justine burst out laughing and poured more vodka. She took a sip and nibbled at a big green olive. As Jason watched the movements of her mouth, her lips pursing around the plump swaddle of the fruit, he felt a deep, disconcerting tug of response.
“Have you ever played truth or dare?” Justine asked, setting aside the pit.
“Not since high school,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve missed it.”
“Me, neither. Still… want to play a couple of rounds?”
Settling back in his chair, Jason gave her an assessing glance. No doubt she thought it would disarm him, coerce a couple of answers he wouldn’t have given otherwise. But it would work both ways. “I never take dares,” he said.
“Okay, then for you, it’s all truth. Now, about limits, I think we should—”
“No limits. It’s not worth playing otherwise.”
“No limits,” Justine agreed, a new and faintly wary edge to her tone. “What about penalties?”
“Whoever loses a round has to remove an item of clothing.” He had the satisfaction of seeing Justine’s eyes widen.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll start: Tell me your idea of true happiness.”
He reached for a small white paper napkin and folded it diagonally, using the flat of his thumbnail to sharpen the crease. “I don’t believe in happiness.” Turning the napkin over, he folded it into a small square. “People think they’re happy when something like a box of doughnuts, a Lakers win over the Spurs, or a sex position with a Latin name causes certain chemicals to attach to receptors in the brain to stimulate electrical impulses in neurons. It doesn’t last, though. It’s not long-term. It’s not real.”
“What a downer,” Justine said, laughing.
“You asked.” He folded the sides of the napkin inward to form a compressed triangular base. “Next round: truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she said promptly, watching the careful, deliberate movements of his hands.
“Why did you break up with your last boyfriend?” He began to fold and crease the flaps of the triangle.
A swift tide of pink swept up to her hairline. “It just… didn’t work out.”
“That’s not an answer. Tell me the reason.”
“Sometimes there is no reason for why people break up.”
He paused in the middle of folding the points of the paper shape and gave her a mocking glance. “There’s always a reason.”
“Then I don’t know what it is.”
“You know what it is. You just don’t want to admit it. Which means you lose the round.” He looked at her expectantly.
Frowning, Justine wriggled her foot out of a delicate white sandal and pushed it toward his chair.
The sight of her bare foot, beautiful and long-toed, the nails painted with glittery pale blue polish, seized Jason’s attention.
“Your turn,” he heard her say, and reluctantly he dragged his gaze back to her face. “Where were you during those two years after you left the monastery?”
He peeled the edges of paper away from the folded model until they resembled flower petals. “I went to stay with relatives in Okinawa. My mother was half Japanese. I’d never met any of her family, but I’d always wanted to. I thought it would help me feel closer to her.” Before Justine could respond, he gave her the finished origami.
She took it hesitantly, her eyes round and wondering. “A lily.”
“Yuri,” he murmured. “The name comes from a Japanese word that describes how the flowers move in the wind. Truth or dare?”
She blinked, caught off guard. “Truth.”
“What caused the breakup with your last boyfriend?”
Justine’s mouth dropped open. “You already asked me that.”
“Still not going to answer?”
“No.”
“Then hand over another piece of clothing.”
Indignantly Justine removed her other sandal and flipped it to him. “You’re going to keep asking the same thing over and over, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Until you’ve answered, or you’re naked.”
“You can’t think of anything else you’d like to know about me?”
“Afraid not.” He tried to look contrite. “I tend to hyperfocus. One-track mind.”
Justine gave him a fulminating glance. “Next round. You said you went to the Zen monastery to learn the answer to something. What did you find out?”
“I found out,” he said slowly, “that I have no soul.”