Chapter 14 #2
Hollis’s usual light-olive complexion drains of color when Connie gives him an exaggerated wink.
I hug her tightly before she makes any comments about our future children and frightens the rest of the blood from his body.
“Thank you again for bringing my bag. We appreciate it so much. But we better get going before we get even more behind schedule.”
Connie hugs Hollis, and he murmurs a quick thanks. As predicted, Connie heads for the entrance to Belk.
Hollis gestures to the driver’s side, his face still unnaturally pale. “Uh, you mind driving for a bit? I’d like to get some more writing done.”
“I didn’t think you’d trust me behind the wheel again after what happened.”
“The deer really wasn’t your fault. Also, this isn’t my car, so what do I care?” He opens the passenger-side door and slides inside.
Once I’m settled in the driver’s seat, I riffle through my backpack to make sure Mrs. Nash, the letters, and everything else is there and undamaged. Not that I don’t trust Connie, but I feel a lot better after I take inventory and a few deep breaths.
“All good?” Hollis asks.
“Yeah.” I pull out my phone from the front pocket and find notification after notification.
“Except I have about a thousand texts and missed calls from my parents. They must’ve seen the video.
I’m fairly certain they have a Google Alert set up for my name in case I ever get into trouble.
My parents go a little overboard with the worrying sometimes. ”
“Do they? Your high school superlative should’ve been ‘Most Likely to Voluntarily Assist with Her Own Kidnapping,’ so I suspect they worry just the right amount.”
I read through the messages from my dad and respond as reassuringly as possible without actually explaining myself; the full truth—that I’m traveling to Key West in a borrowed car with a man I only kind of know (yet am sleeping with) to meet an elderly stranger before she dies—will not ease my parents’ concern in the least. The text from Dani that’s just a bunch of clapping-hands emojis requires no response.
“Hey,” I say, putting my phone down. “Those same decision-making skills you’re criticizing are the ones that very nearly led to me stroking your salami in a mall parking lot.”
Hollis cringes. “Please never ever call it that again.”
“No promises.”
“And just because your poor choices sometimes work to my advantage doesn’t mean they aren’t also deeply concerning to those who care about you.”
With Herculean effort, I manage to restrain myself from asking if that includes him.
Instead, I hug my backpack one more time before tucking it beside Hollis’s foot.
“That was some quick thinking with Connie. You’re a frighteningly good liar,” I joke, grasping for a change of subject as I turn the key in the ignition.
“Yeah, I can be,” he says, turning his head to stare out the window. “But I wasn’t lying to her.”
“Huh?”
Whatever he was watching must disappear, and his attention returns to me.
“What I just told her? That was the truth. I registered us under my last name to keep people from knowing who you were. That it helped cover our asses in case she was super conservative was an added bonus. I was extra glad I did it when I saw all those Jesuses.”
“So what you said about her not being cool with us—”
“I mean, the only other person I’ve ever met who decorated like that was my maternal grandmother, who definitely wouldn’t have been cool with unmarried people sharing a bed under her roof.
But when I talked to Connie and Bud Friday morning about staying a few more days, they mentioned they didn’t have anyone booked until Wednesday, when their nephew and his boyfriend are coming to visit.
They requested to stay in the Mustard Seed room—god knows why.
Anyway, Connie and Bud apparently don’t give too much of a shit about unmarried people rooming together.
Seems they’re actually pretty open-minded. ”
The thought of someone choosing to sleep with all of Connie’s Jesuses staring at them throws me until I realize that I would absolutely want to stay in the Mustard Seed room again if given the option. How could any of the other rooms top it?
“Why didn’t you just tell me the real reason you registered us that way from the beginning?” I ask, trying to get myself back on topic.
“You would’ve been convinced I was being nice to you, and I was too exhausted to try to convince you that I wasn’t. The Jesuses were a surprise, but they made an excellent excuse.”
“But you were being nice. That was a nice thing to do. Why would you need to convince me it wasn’t?”
He shrugs.
“You have issues, Hollis.”
“Well, yeah. Clearly.” Before I back out of the parking space, Hollis grabs his phone from where I left it in the cupholder. “Oh. I promised I’d call Elsie’s nursing facility for you. Want me to do that now?”
Although the sinking feeling I get imagining possible outcomes of that call makes me want to put it off even longer than I already have, I force myself to nod.
My hands tremble as I look up the number for the place and hit call before handing him my phone. “Use mine.”
“Speaker?” he asks, finger hovering above the symbol on the screen as the faint sound of ringing comes through.
I shake my head. My stomach feels like it’s getting tossed around by a choppy sea.
I don’t want to hear this directly. While bad news won’t magically turn good if it comes out of Hollis’s mouth, something tells me it will be easier to take from him than some stranger who doesn’t know what all this means to me.
My eyes instinctively go to the backpack on the floor, wanting to hug Mrs. Nash to my body again.
It’s as if some part of me thinks this might be difficult for her as well.
The truth is, though, she was way better at dealing with disappointment than anyone I’ve ever known.
There are a lot of things that don’t go your way over ninety-some years , she told me once when I asked how she remained so unaffected by it.
You learn to take it in stride and be extra grateful for the things that do.
Of course, that was about our favorite sub shop closing.
But I’m sure it applies to bigger stuff too.
Even trying not to listen, when the ringing stops and something like a muffled Charlie Brown’s teacher voice replaces it, my muscles freeze up like they’re bracing for impact.
“Hello,” Hollis says. “I’m calling for a status update on a resident. Yes. Elsie Brown. She’s in hospice care. Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”
There’s an endless pause that feels like it’s for dramatic effect but is probably the receptionist looking something up on the computer.
The womp-womp voice returns, and Hollis responds, “No, I’m a friend, on my way to see her, and I wanted to— Right.
Right. I do understand that but— Yes, but when my— I see.
Yes. Yes. Okay. I understand. Thank you, anyway. ”
He hangs up the phone and stares at me. His lips are pressed together in an odd expression, and I brace for the worst.
“Got a different receptionist than you did, I guess. One with a lot more qualms about giving out patient info to random people over the phone. She wouldn’t tell me anything.
Just kept repeating ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we cannot discuss our patients with anyone not listed in their file.
’?” He says this last part in a high-pitched nasally voice that would probably be funny if I weren’t on the brink of vomiting.
I take a deep breath, trying to navigate the tangle of relief, frustration, and disappointment resting in the pit of my stomach.
Part of me wants to believe that if Elsie were already gone, the receptionist wouldn’t have bothered being such a stickler for confidentiality.
But her lack of cooperation also might not mean anything at all.
Hollis’s hand closes around mine on the steering wheel. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’ll feel better once we’re on our way again.”
He nods and lets go, leaving my hand feeling cold and naked. “I’ll start the navigation. Now that you’ve finally relinquished my phone.”
The map lady in Hollis’s phone resumes telling me what to do in her commanding robot voice, and I intend to let my playlist lull me into a pleasant state of meditation that keeps me from further analyzing the receptionist’s response to Hollis, or Hollis’s confession to Connie, or his apparent genuine investment in this trip, or well, anything that isn’t Carole King’s “It’s Too Late. ”
But Hollis cuts into my reverie before it can really begin. “Is it true? What Josh said in this text?”
I glance over and see his red notebook still closed on his lap. He’s staring at the phone in his hand with a mixture of anger and disbelief, as if it just sucker punched him—which is basically how I felt when I first read Josh’s messages too.
“Because I know you’re new to this sort of arrangement,” he continues, “but there’s a difference between casual sex and using someone. And I’m not okay with being used, Millicent. So if that’s what this is for you—”
“What? How could you even—” Except I know exactly how he could think that.
I was all in on that Instagram post, knowing how Josh would feel about seeing his ex-girlfriend with his frenemy.
“I am not having sex with you to get back at Josh,” I reassure him.
Honestly it’s not even an added bonus anymore; reading those texts brought me zero joy.
“Okay,” he says. “If you say so.”
“If I say so ?”
“It’s just that you seemed pretty insistent that we make out in front of all those people at the parade. Like you knew this is what would happen.”
“Are you kidding me? You kissed me . In fact, you started all of this with your ‘Ahh! I’m so scared of thunderstorms’ act last night.” I’m vaguely aware I’ve said something super mean, but all I can think is Wow, was that really only last night?