2. Alec
ALEC
She arrived early.
I was halfway through setting up the grill when I heard tires on the gravel and looked up, and there Tamra was—same gray sedan, two hours before I'd told her the open house started.
She pulled into the spot she'd taken yesterday.
She got out wearing a yellow sundress with thin straps and a tie at the waist, and she had her hair pulled back.
She was carrying a camera bag instead of a clipboard.
I'd told her to wear something she could move in. She'd worn the opposite. I didn't say anything about it.
Instead, I set the bag of charcoal on the ground. I straightened up. I watched her walk across the gravel toward me with her chin set in a way that told me she'd decided something on the drive up the mountain and she wasn't going to back off it now.
"You're early," I said.
"I wanted to set up before people came. For the photos."
"Open house doesn't start for two hours."
"I know."
She stopped six feet from me. She didn't stop a foot too close, which was what I'd done to her yesterday. I noticed she’d noticed.
"Can I take photos of the property before the public's here? I'd like clean shots without people in them for the flyer."
"Sure."
"And of you, if that's all right. Working. Setting up. The flyer's better with a person in it."
"Sure."
"You said yes too easily."
"I'm not going to argue with you about whether I can be in your photos, Tamra."
The corner of her mouth twitched. She looked down at the camera bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a camera that looked too nice for a library flyer.
I figured out two things at once. One, the camera was hers and not the library's.
Two, she'd thought about what she was wearing today for longer than two minutes.
I went back to the grill.
She started walking the property. I tracked her in my peripheral vision while I built the fire. She photographed the office. She photographed the sign. She photographed the lower zip-line platform from three angles.
At one point, my guide Jeb came around the side of the office hauling a folding table, saw her, gave me a look I pretended not to catch, and kept walking. That was when she came back toward where I was crouched at the grill and stopped about ten feet off, lifting the camera.
The shutter clicked.
"You didn't ask," I said.
"You said sure."
"I did say sure."
She lowered the camera. She didn't put it down. She walked closer. The day was heating up, and the strap of her sundress was already sticking a little at her collarbone. I crouched at the grill and pretended I was occupied with the charcoal.
"Could I get one with you looking at me?"
I looked up at her.
The shutter clicked again. She didn't lower the camera right away. She held it there a half second too long, watching me through the lens, and then let it drop slowly to her chest.
"You're making this very hard to be professional about."
"I'm crouched in front of a grill."
"I know what you're doing."
I stood up.
She didn't step back. She tipped her chin up to keep her eyes on my face, and she was holding the camera against her chest the way she held the clipboard yesterday.
The camera was the same thing the clipboard had been. Something to put between us. Something to hold.
"Tamra?"
"Yes?"
"What time did you leave Hartsville?"
She blinked. "Eleven thirty."
"Open house doesn't start till two."
"I know."
"You're two hours early."
"I'm aware."
"You wanted to get here early."
She didn't respond to that one. She held my eyes and her chin lifted half an inch and she didn't answer.
"Come on," I said. "I'll show you the property before the grill needs me back."
I started walking and she fell in beside me. I took her up the gravel path past the office and up the slope to the lower platform. I'd built this whole place with my hands. I knew where every cable ran and every anchor was set, and I'd never once given a private tour to a woman before today.
I didn't tell her that. I just walked her through it.
"That's the kids' line," I said, pointing. "It runs over the meadow. Sixty feet of cable, ten feet off the ground at the highest point. The platform's that wood structure there."
"It's smaller than I pictured."
"That's the idea."
"Where's the big one?"
I pointed up the ridge. "That's the main platform. You can't see it from here. Three hundred feet of cable, lands across the gully. It's a long ride."
"How long does it take to come down?"
"Twenty seconds. Feels longer."
She turned her face up to where I was pointing and squinted against the sun. The line of her throat did something to me. I had to force myself to look away.
"And the cliff?"
"Other side of the property. Down to the river. I won't take you there today. Different conversation."
She looked at me sideways. She had a piece of hair stuck to her temple.
"Different conversation how?"
"Different conversation."
"Alec."
"Different conversation, Tamra."
She didn't push. She walked beside me up the slope a little farther, and I could feel her thinking.
I could also feel her not asking. We came to the meadow at the top of the rise where the kids' line ran out.
We stood there with the meadow in front of us and the cicadas working in the trees and the heat pressing down between us.
"Tell me about the library," I said.
"What about it?"
"How long have you worked there?"
"Three years."
"You grew up in Hartsville?"
"My whole life."
"How come I haven't met you before now?"
She looked at me. I hadn't meant to ask it that way. It had come out before I'd thought about it.
"You’ve seen me."
"I have."
"I thought so."
"Hardware store. About two years ago. You were buying chain."
"I needed chain for a curtain rod. I had no idea what gauge."
"You wanted a fourteen."
"I bought an eight."
"I almost said something."
"Why didn't you?"
"You were twenty."
"I was twenty-one."
"You were too young."
She looked at me for a long time. The meadow was bright behind her and her face was in soft shade from a tree I was standing under. Her camera was hanging against her chest, and she hadn't lifted it.
"I'm twenty-three now," she said.
"I know."
"And I'm standing here."
"I know."
"What was the different conversation, Alec?"
I didn’t answer right away. Finally, I said, "The cliff is for the kind of person who knows what they want."
Her breath went out of her. I heard it. Not a gasp, not a sigh, just the small involuntary thing a body does when it’s been told a truth it wasn’t ready for.
She looked down at the camera. She lifted it to her chest with both hands. She held it there.
"I want to take a picture of the meadow," she said.
"Take the picture."
She turned away from me and lifted the camera.
I watched her shoulders settle. I watched her thumb find the dial on the side of the camera.
I watched the back of her neck where the hair was coming loose from the band she'd pulled it back with, and I thought, very clearly, that I was going to spend the rest of my life looking at the back of her neck.
She took her photo, then lowered the camera. "Alec?"
"Yes?"
"What time does the grill need you back?"
"In about ten minutes."
"Show me one more thing."
I showed her the meadow. I showed her the path that led down to where the cliff was, which I originally wasn’t going to show her, but I walked her partway down it and stopped where the trees opened and you could see the river bend below.
She stood next to me at the overlook with her camera against her chest and her arm an inch from my arm. The inch was too far.
"That's beautiful," she said.
"That's the spot."
"For the cliff?"
"For the cliff."
"How high?"
"Forty feet."
She didn't say anything for a long moment.
"Tamra?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm going to need to go back to the grill."
"Okay."
"Walk back with me."
She walked back with me.
By the time we came around the office, the first car was pulling into the lot—early, like half the regulars always were. I had an hour before the open house officially started. The day broke open on us anyway, and I lost her to the public for the next five hours.
But she'd come back early. And I knew now that she'd come back early on purpose.