Chapter Twelve #2
“When I told her about the job,” Merritt added, after far too long a delay. “I told her about the job, is that okay?”
Now he definitely looked at her. “Your mom? Of course you can tell your mom. I think I trust her more than Diana.”
“Don’t bring up Diana anymore, please.”
Whit laughed.
“But if your mom tells anyone, it’s curtains for her.”
Merritt sensed a tiny edge of seriousness there, but she smiled at the joke.
“Curtains? Are you a 1920s mobster? Anyway, Kathleen Pryor is a locked box, and you are not allowed to threaten her.”
“If she tells anyone, she’s sleeping with the fishes.”
“Please, stop, you’re making it worse.”
“She tells anyone . . . we’re going to the mattresses,” he said.
“Leave the gun,” she said in a bad Italian accent, “take the cannoli.”
He gave her a look.
“What? I’ve seen The Godfather.” She smirked. “I definitely don’t just know those lines from You’ve Got Mail.”
He grinned. “I love that movie.”
“Now you’re mocking me.”
“No,” he said, actually pointing a finger at her. “I never joke about Nora Ephron.”
Merritt leaned back against the cool window, evaluating him. A playful smile pushed his cheeks up toward his eyes, making
them into joyful little half-moons.
“Fine,” Merritt said. “On three, the best Nora Ephron movie is, one . . . two . . . three—”
“When Harry Met Sally,” he said, and she shook her head.
“No. That was a test. It’s still You’ve Got Mail.”
Whit gave an exaggerated eye roll, but then stopped halfway through.
“Crap.”
“What?” Merritt said, following his eyeline. “Oh.”
They were not back in town, but instead in a line of cars leading to what looked to be a school.
“Muscle memory—I just drove straight here. I’m sorry. I’ll turn around.”
Merritt watched as he glanced at the clock.
“Will you be able to drop me off and make it back in time to pick up Annie?”
“I’ll just be a little late,” he said, beginning to fiddle with the gear shift.
Merritt imagined Annie waiting for her dad as the line of cars slowly came to an end, and the image almost broke her heart.
She placed her hand on Whit’s but drew it back when she felt his eyes on her once again.
“Don’t do that,” she said, as if it hadn’t happened. “We can just get her and then drop me off on the way back home.”
Whit thought this over, but only briefly. “Okay,” he said, relieved but not exactly settled.
“What?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know, it’s . . . it’s just a small school and people are weird.”
She laughed to cover up the blush spreading across her face.
“You think people will talk about . . . us?”
He shrugged.
“Do you want me to hide in the back?”
He paused for just an instant too long.
“Oh my God, you considered it.”
“No,” he said quickly, half-laughing. “No. I just, I don’t know, I’ll—”
“I will behave myself,” she said, performing confidence to cover her awkwardness. “Everyone will know that this is purely
professional.”
This, she thought to herself. Us. Purely professional. As if it would be anything else.
God, she could die. And Whit looked as if he was considering swerving into oncoming traffic. She pushed her cheek into the
glass of the window to cool her burning face.
“Oh!” Whit said abruptly, pulling her head back up.
“What?”
He turned the volume dial slightly and a man’s voice filled the car.
“Scott Horsley,” he said, triumphant.
Merritt threw her head back against the car seat headrest.
“Dammit,” she groaned, “I didn’t know we were playing.”
“From this moment forward, we are officially keeping score.”
They waited in line after that, and Merritt focused all her attention on listening to a story about the latest stunts of extremist
congresspeople jockeying for power and then one about a girl in Tuscaloosa whose lemonade stand had raised over $700,000 for
MS research.
“That’s nice—”
“—Oh fuck me.”
“Whoa,” she said, genuinely surprised. “What’s wrong?”
Whit was clenching his jaw and shaking his head as if he were in some sort of psychic pain.
“I just cannot stand this guy.”
He nodded at a bald man with hexagonal glasses wearing a bright neon safety vest and a cheerful smile.
“He looks . . . nice,” Merritt said tentatively, surprised by Whit’s sudden vitriol.
“Just wait,” Whit said, pulling to a stop as the drivers in front of them had their doors opened so their kids could pile
in. Merritt watched as Whit’s face shifted only slightly—from murderous to willing-to-seriously-maim—and then was surprised
when the stranger tapped on her window.
“Oh,” she said.
“Mm-hmm,” was Whit’s response, in an I-told-you-so voice. He rolled the window down. “Hello, Noel.”
“Hello, Whit,” the man beamed, placing his hands on the open window and leaning forward, far too close for Merritt’s comfort.
“We don’t usually see you for pickup. And who is this?”
His tone, Merritt noticed, was akin to that of a grandmother asking after a college kid’s plus-one at a family wedding.
Okay, she thought, I’m starting to get it.
“I’m Merritt,” she said, so Whit didn’t have to go into details.
“I see.”
Noel winked visibly at Whit, whom Merritt felt tense next to her.
“I work with Whit,” she explained. She wanted to add more, but then that felt suspicious, like she needed to give a reason
for being in his car, as if it were shady or fishy or any of those words that mean untoward, when in fact, it was entirely toward that she was here. It was!
“Mm-hmm. Well, as much as I’d love to chat,” Noel said, as if he weren’t the one leaning through the car window, “I have a
job to do.” Another wink. “But I did want to ask if you’ve given any more thought to—”
Whit cut him off. “Carpool duty. Yes.”
Noel’s eyes went big. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’ve given it more thought, and no, I won’t be volunteering. Would you mind sending Annie this way? The line is starting to back up.”
Merritt tried not to laugh at the positively affronted look on Noel’s face. In response, the man seemed to grip the car door
more tightly as he actually lowered himself to be eye level with Whit, as if Merritt were invisible between them.
“You know, Whit,” he said, his tone more serious now, “I’ve told you that I think it would be good for you, now that Helen
has passed on to the Great Beyond—”
Merritt stifled a gasp at his absurd word choice. Whit cleared his throat as if to interrupt, but Noel barreled forth.
“—but I also think it’s worth reminding you that we parents are expected to demonstrate a certain level of commitment to this
school. It’s in the handbook that each of us signs during the enrollment process every year.”
Noel shrugged, as if offering this reminder was just an unfortunate duty. Merritt waited, training her eyes on the windshield
before her. She wanted, desperately, to look at Whit. She could feel him radiating angry heat and the potential energy that
would precede a punch to the face.
“You know what, Noel,” Whit said after a pause, in a low voice Merritt had never heard him use before, “you’re right. You’re
totally right. I think I’ll call the head of school and ask when she thinks the goodwill should run out from the million-dollar scholarship fund established in Helen’s name.”
Noel pulled back slightly, but Whit continued.
“As soon as it does, and I mean the minute the required sympathy for my wife—who is dead, by the way, Noel, not in ‘the Great Beyond’—the minute that sympathy runs dry, you can expect a call from me, just begging
to throw on a high-viz vest and open car doors under your distinguished leadership. Does that sound like a deal?”
Merritt stared at Noel then—she couldn’t resist. And to her pleasure, he looked as though he had been slapped.
“It does indeed.” His voice was an enfeebled murmur. “I’ll fetch Annie.”
Merritt watched him go, enjoying the way even his gait seemed deflated and embarrassed.
“I’m so sorry,” Whit said behind her, his voice entirely different now.
She turned to look at him, unable to keep from grinning. “Are you joking? That was . . . masterful. And it serves him right.
The Great Beyond? Are you kidding me?”
“I know!” He leaned forward and gave Merritt’s arm a single squeeze, clearly compelled by the relief of someone whose disdain is
suddenly justified. The warmth of his touch was momentary and entirely chaste, but Merritt felt as if it traveled down her
arm, through her shoulder, and straight into her chest.
She smiled, then masked the crackling feeling in her body with the words, “What a creep.”
“Indeed,” Whit said, as the back door opened to reveal a little girl with reddish hair in pigtails, wearing dark green corduroy
overalls beneath a puffy lavender jacket.
Annie. Her pigtails were twisted imperfectly but thoroughly into endearing braids, and Merritt wondered whether Whit had done
them.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, as Annie climbed into the car, obviously tentative and confused. “This is my friend Merritt. She’s
the one who’s helping me do some writing, and she needed a ride.”
Annie closed the door, and Merritt turned around to face her, hyper-aware that the feeling in her body had shifted into a
different kind of nervousness at meeting this girl—but she tamped it down, as she’d done with her desire to explain things
to Noel. There was nothing untoward here, either.
“Hi, Annie,” Merritt said, hoping her voice sounded kind but not condescending. “Do you mind if your dad takes me home on the way to your house?”
Annie shook her head no, her lips forming a weak smile that was undoubtedly powered by good manners. Merritt felt a surge
of affection for this girl, and for her father, and for her mother, and then for Annie again, who had lost that mother so
young but shared her hair and, Merritt suspected, still acted in accordance with what Helen had taught her about politeness
to others.
“Thanks,” she said, and she sent the word out like a hug.
Whit watched Annie in the rearview mirror as they drove.
“How was school?”
She was looking out the window. What was she thinking about all this? Annie was eight years old and smart. The mother of her
closest friend, Liza, had remarried after a divorce, so Annie knew about stepfathers and stepmothers and parents with girlfriends
and boyfriends, and God, why was Whit thinking about that now? That’s not what this was, and he hoped Annie knew that.
“It was good,” she told the window. “It was library day.”
Merritt and Whit looked at each other, as if Annie were a comedian onstage who’d just said something that resonated with them
both. Whit chuckled as Merritt turned around in her seat again—she was going to pull a muscle—to talk to Annie.
“You know, Mrs. Pryor is my mom.”
Annie’s eyes lit up in the mirror.
“She is?”
“She is. Did she read to your class today?”
Annie nodded. “She’s been reading a chapter book to us about Gooney, um . . .”
“Gooney Bird Greene?” Merritt offered, and Annie’s already gleaming eyes gleamed more.
“Yes.”
“I love those books. She used to read them to me, too. Lois Lowry, the author, is one of my favorites.”
“Mine too,” Annie said, and Whit bit his lip, positive that Annie had never read another book by Lois Lowry.
The remainder of the drive was filled with the two of them talking books and Merritt generously answering a series of questions
about her mother (“Does she knit? I feel like she knits.” “Does she have a TV?” “How many sweaters does she have?”).
Whit felt what he often felt when he saw Annie just being okay. Warmth, like a candle in his ribs. Annie was okay. She was smiling. She was laughing. And Merritt was the one making her
do it.
She really was a wonder.