Tilly
TWENTY-EIGHT
The False Wall: A wall built later and finished to look original, standing in front of the part of the house nobody wanted assessed. Inspectors open those last, and what waits behind one is always worse for having waited.
The library doors sigh shut behind me, and the heat wraps around me all at once. My laptop's still warm against my hip through the bag. I've got a determination request half-drafted in my head and three district names to look up when I get home.
Then I see him at the bottom of the steps. Rhodes is standing there with his hands in his pockets, wearing a white button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his strong forearms peeking out. He watches me come out, but he doesn't smile when he sees me.
I come down fast, grinning.
"Okay, you are the last person I expected to see standing here. Did you get lost on your way to Loyola, or did you want to come check out the real university in New Orleans?"
I'm already reaching for him, my hand going toward his forearm the way it does now without asking him first.
He doesn't catch it or turn his arm into my hand the way he always does. He stands there and lets my fingers land and slide off.
"I tried calling you and texting."
"Oh, yeah. My phone died. I forgot to plug it in last night."
"We need to talk. Do you have class right now, or can we sit down?"
His voice is wrong. It comes out level and careful, not the warm, playful way we normally talk to each other.
"Sure." I shrug the bag higher. "You're scaring me. Is something wrong?”
"Maybe we should go home for privacy."
I stop walking. My feet just quit.
"Is somebody hurt?" It comes out faster than I mean it to, sharp. "Is it Coop? Rhodes. Tell me what's going on."
"Nobody's hurt." He says it right away, and I believe him. "But this is important. That's why I came here to find you."
"I don't want to go home. I want you to tell me right now whatever it is you want to talk to me about."
"Where can we go? I don't want to stand here."
There's a bench under a live oak, maybe twenty feet off the main path and half in the shade. My arm's already pointing at it before he finishes.
"There," I say. "Let's just. There."
Students keep flowing past us, backpacks and earbuds and somebody laughing about a professor. My heart climbs higher with every step toward the bench.
I sit. He sits, but doesn't drop down beside me shoulder to shoulder the way he would on his couch. He turns instead, one knee coming up onto the slats, his body angled so he's facing me straight on, close, the noise of everybody else moving past behind him.
He reaches out and takes both my hands. He folds them into his big, calloused hands and settles them in his lap over his knee.
Some part of me is still hoping to be told this is nothing, that he drove out here to say something sweet and stupid, and if I hold still long enough, that version comes true.
His thumb moves once across my knuckles.
"I'm the reason Oak Moss is frozen," he says.
I take my hands back. I don't yank them, but I need them back in my own lap. I understand every word separately. Together, they make no sense.
"I'm going to need you to tell me what you mean by that."
He doesn't flinch. He sits there facing me and gives it to me in order.
"I thought if development came off the table, the rest of it got easier." He looks at me straight on. "You could do the shoreline work and get the conservation piece in place. And then you could expand the oyster operation. That's all I was trying to do."
I stare at him.
"I thought I was taking the threat away."
"The threat?"
"The development."
"No." My voice comes out so calm it almost surprises me. "You thought you were solving my problem for me, instead of trusting me to handle it."
His jaw tightens. "Tallulah, I didn't think I knew more than you."
"You didn't have to think it. You did it."
He goes quiet.
I set my bag on the bench between us, wanting as much space between us as possible. I’m not ready to walk away, yet.
"Do you know what happened eleven minutes before my father called me accusing me of sabotaging Oak Moss?"
His face changes. He looks down and then back up at me, his eyes locked on mine.
"I'll tell you. He called to tell me he read my work. All of it. Twice." I keep my eyes on his. "He said the numbers changed things. He said he was going to talk to Grandbank, and he wanted me in the room because it was my work and I should be the one presenting it."
Rhodes doesn't move.
"I was sitting in my truck, beaming with excitement, looking at flights to Charleston because I thought I had finally gotten them to listen to me."
"Tallulah."
"Don't worry, though. That only lasted eleven minutes."
He takes a deep breath in but doesn't say a word.
"Eleven minutes, Rhodes. I got eleven minutes of knowing that I had handled it myself before everything crashed because you decided I needed your help."
"I didn't know it would freeze everything."
"That doesn't make it better."
"I know."
"I'm so mad right now I could spit. You know? What the absolute fuck, Rhodes?"
A group of students passes behind him, laughing too loudly, and I wait until they're gone.
"I told you what they did to me. Coop deciding where I should live, my father and Grandbank deciding what I could handle hearing about Oak Moss. I'm sick and goddamned tired of everybody making choices around me because they love me and they're scared I'm not capable. And you knew all of it."
"I know."
"Stop saying that. It makes it worse."
He nods once.
"I thought you were different."
That one lands. I see it, and I keep going.
"You stood in your kitchen and told me I didn't need watching. You told Granger that and got angry at Coop for keeping things from me in the name of protecting me."
His eyes close for an exaggerated moment.
"And then you did exactly the same fucking thing. God, you're worse than they are, because you knew."
"I was trying to help you."
"I know. That's always the excuse."
The words are flat.
"That's what makes you the worst one."
His head comes up.
"Because they never fooled me. I knew what Coop was doing and I knew what Daddy was doing. Grandbank didn't trust me with this, and he didn't make any attempt to sugar coat it."
I swallow once.
"You made me believe you did."
"Tallulah, I do trust you."
"No. You trust me as long as I'm doing something you agree with. The minute you decided you could make this easier for me, you stepped over me and did it yourself. That isn't trust. That's management."
"That's not what I meant to do."
"I don't care what you meant. It's what you did."
He takes that without moving.
"Friday, my father called me manipulative. He dragged me straight back to the worst version of myself because of something you did."
His throat works.
"I stood in your arms that night and told you every word, and you held me. You knew you were the reason, but you didn't say a thing. You made love to me that night, knowing all of it and not saying a word."
"I'm sorry."
The words sit between us, meaningless. I don't have a single tear in me, only red hot anger.
"That is the part I can't get around. You watched me break apart over something you did, and you let me believe you were the one safe person in my life. You're a fox in the hen house. You fooled us all, most of all me."
"I wanted to tell you."
"But you didn't."
"I was going to fix it first."
I laugh once, but there is nothing funny in it.
"Of course you were."
His face hardens at himself.
"I called first thing Monday. I could barely function all weekend, not knowing how to fix it, desperate because I couldn't reach anyone over the weekend. I know how to fix it now."
"I'm sure you do. You're Rhodes Stone. Please, enlighten me."
"Your grandfather holds title, so he's the one who has to request the determination once the new delineation is filed.
" He leans forward, careful not to touch me.
"I've already scheduled the jet for tomorrow morning.
I'm going to Charleston to tell Banksie in person exactly what I did, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it right. "
"No," I say and stand.
He gets up with me.
"You are not getting on that plane."
"I can fix this."
"You've done plenty. Stay out of it."
"Please let me make it right."
"You'll never be able to do anything to make this right. The damage is done."
That shuts him up. I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder.
"You're not going to Charleston or calling my father or my grandfather. If you call anybody who has anything to do with Oak Moss, I swear to God, Rhodes, I will seriously lose my shit."
His face goes still.
"This is mine, now, and I will fix it."
"Tallulah, Banksie has to be the one to file."
"Then I will talk to him."
"He'll ask how you know."
"Then I'll tell him when I'm ready."
"I don't want you taking the fall for me."
I pause to find the words, and an evil laugh escapes me.
"You still don't get it."
He rubs his hand over his jaw and breathes in through his nose.
"This has never been about you. Whatever I decide to do is my choice, and you don't get a say. Whatever I tell my grandfather is my business. I can guarantee you I won't do anything to protect you."
That shuts him up.
"You wanted to help me so badly that you never bothered to ask whether I wanted your help. Then when it blew up, you decided you could protect me from knowing that too."
My hand tightens around the strap of my bag.
"Stay away from my family, Rhodes."
He nods once.
"And stay away from Oak Moss."
Another nod.
I start toward the parking garage.
"Tallulah," he calls behind me.
I don't turn around.
"I'm sorry."
I look back at him then. "Fuck you, Rhodes."
His face breaks just enough that I almost hate him for making me see it.
I turn back around and keep walking to my truck, leaving him standing there.
Level three is empty and dim, the concrete sweating in the heat that never leaves this garage. The Cruiser sits where I left it this morning, back when the biggest thing on my mind was a district office phone number.