Chapter 7
Baby lurched back into residential Monterey along Surf Way, her gears grinding with a grisly combination of sand and age.
Wes grimaced when the shift stick shuddered under his fist as he rolled her to a stop in front of the bungalow; a trio of gulls perched on the hedge took alarmed and indignant flight at a final cough from the engine.
“Maybe I should’ve waited for Erin to fix you? But it doesn’t matter. We got back in one piece.” He craned past the headrest to check the Grocery Outlet bags behind his seat. Nothing seemed to be leaking. “If we’re lucky, maybe our eggs are all right, too. Let’s get the produce inside.”
“Yes.” Isabel slung paper handles over her forearms. “And. . . after that?”
“Lunch.” He lugged his own share of groceries up to the porch. “I had a pretty light breakfast.”
The driftwood gate thwacked closed behind his new fiancée with a mute, sarcastic exclamation point—infinitely better than her silence at the beach—as he kicked off his sandals, shouldered open the door, then shuffled into the kitchen.
He grinned. Whistling some Bobby Darin tunes, he unpacked their market haul onto the bungalow’s speckled Formica counters.
He stuck his head into the refrigerator to shunt aside Erin’s champagne, and replaced the bottle with leafy greens, discounted cantaloupes and bell peppers, frozen strawberries (cheaper than fresh and almost as good, after they’d defrosted), plus a few perishable condiments, the eggs, and a packet of pre-sliced provolone at its sell-by date.
Cans of beans and chickpeas disappeared into the cupboards, along with the cereal, pasta, and herbal tea.
Day-old seed bread went onto a cutting board.
“Are the onions, pickles, and dried cranberries in your bags?” he called over his shoulder to Isabel.
She’d paused in the living room with her own grocery load to evaluate the coral-and-oyster aquarium.
He couldn’t see her doing it. But he knew she was.
“If so, that’s the last of the lunch ingredients.
Can you grab a mixing bowl and a couple plates?
I saw some utensils in a drawer by the stove.
There’s probably a frying pan in another drawer under the oven. Also, how’s the tank?”
Paper rustled. A pickle jar clicked onto the counter. “How did you know I’d—”
“There’s no way you didn’t check it.” He drained and rinsed a can of chickpeas. “Bowl?”
It appeared at his elbow.
“The oyster has already reduced the reef tank’s particulate matter by over sixty percent,” she told him while he whisked a fork through his chickpeas, mixing them with chopped celery, sweet pickles and red onions, parsley, a few teaspoons of dried cranberries, mustard, plus a dash of salt and pepper.
“It’s an efficient little sucker.” He layered provolone onto the bread, then topped it with the chickpeas. A frying pan was ready on the burner when he turned, olive oil shimmering. “Thanks.”
Maybe she nodded. Regardless, either her watchful quiet or the heat radiating from the burner warmed his neck as he flopped their sandwiches into the pan. He set a timer so he wouldn’t fidget.
Her weight shifted on the creaky linoleum tiles. “How did you know there was a pan in the stove drawer?”
“Where else would it be?” His urge to check that she’d remained nearby relaxed into another smile.
She was still by the stove—and even engaging with him.
Engaged. He explained, “Most kitchens have similar spots where the basics get stored, once people cook in them long enough. Things congregate where they’re used most. Water glasses by the sink, pans by the burners. Like that.”
“Oh.”
“But,” he scraped up some leaking cheese with a spatula, “I might need to use wall hooks for my pans on the Nauti Lass, instead of storing them under the stove. Even inside the bulkhead, it’s not a great idea to put anything near the floor that you wouldn’t want to get dirty and wet.”
“The Nauti Lass?”
He flipped the sandwiches to brown their reverse sides. Provolone bubbled at the crusty edges. Nodding appreciation for the plates that Isabel set out, he said, “My live-aboard boat. Hypothetical boat. Or—hypothetical for now.”
“For now,” she repeated.
“Yeah, and you should know about her. Baby’s my best girl, but the Nauti Lass?
She’s probably an older, stripped-down Grand Banks model.
Caterpillar eight-hundred-horsepower engines, a stateroom, plus a salon and a cockpit.
Maybe even hydronic heating for cold climates?
I would’ve already bored you with these fascinating details, if this,” he shrugged between them while he ferried their lunch out to the coffee table, “was real. Like you’ve said, we need to make it seem like it is. ”
“We have to convince an immigration officer.” She perched at the edge of the couch to fold their paper napkins into triangles.
Wes took the basket chair and a bite of his sandwich. “We have to get to know each other. Habits, likes, dislikes. Facts. Plans. Stories. We’ll need to get all that straight, if we’re going to pass the test.”
“Yes.”
Another silence elapsed while he chewed (but he didn’t panic, because it would be an oral exam, so he’d be fine, he would) and Isabel frowned while folding more napkins.
Her sandwich was untouched. One bite, two.
. . but then she extracted a pen from the bungalow’s binder of local restaurants and activities.
Nodding to herself, she creased a new napkin into halves and started a numbered list on each side.
“What’s that?”
“Questions for us to answer. Birthplaces. Brands of toothpaste. Music tastes.” The duplicate lists rendered at speed. The items were ready on her lips, reeling off faster than he could parse her precise handwriting, and definitely faster than he could read the letters upside down.
Had she made notes like these before?
Maybe she’d made them for Chase.
A burst of pickle juice was aggressively sour on his tongue. “Uh, could we do this out loud?”
“Why? With this method, we can study our answers for the interview.”
She was right.
He admitted as much with a hitch of a shoulder and another massive bite of chickpeas, to defer explaining the truth. Crunch, crunch. Eventually, though, he finished his bite. He surmised wryly, “You were smart in school, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” Her pen hesitated. “Except for days when. . .”
“. . . when you were sick? Yeah. Have you always had migraines? Sorry—if that’s not too personal to ask.”
“Yes. But no, it’s not too personal. Nothing is. Not if we’re going to successfully—”
“—get through that bullshit interview?”
“—commit immigration fraud.”
He snorted; onion burned in his nose. “According to about a million dating profiles, being partners-in-crime is a prerequisite for a good relationship. We’re on the right track.”
Isabel didn’t laugh. She did put down her pen to prod a loose chickpea, however, shaking her head even while her fingers inched closer to her own sandwich.
“Most dating app users won’t be selecting for chronic illnesses.
Genetic ones. Unpredictable ones. My migraines, they.
. . they have the usual triggers. Loud noises, bright lights, dehydration.
But sometimes there’s no external trigger.
They just happen because of something in my body chemistry.
There’s nothing I can do. Or there wasn’t, until I started the Ceretobicin trial.
It’s not perfect. I still have bad days. But it’s better.”
“Did your parents also have migraines? Only—since we should talk about our families, right? And I have to warn you: mine never stops talking.”
“I don’t know.” She nibbled at her sandwich.
The reef tank burbled while she chewed through an inch of crust, frowning.
Then, from behind a napkin, erasing the evidence of crumbs on her lips, pushing away her plate, “Um, I—I don’t know who they were.
Are. I was put in a safe haven box at a local hospital.
They’re secure places to leave infants whose parents can’t care for them, or who don’t.
. . I grew up in British Columbia’s government homes.
What you’d term the foster system. I wasn’t ever.
. . I aged out. Most adoptive parents want a young child.
But one with a chronic illness? I wasn’t easy.
The migraines and allodynia—the nerve pain—started when I was six.
Years before I was taking Ceretobicin. It was horrible.
For me. For everyone. So I—I don’t blame them.
I don’t blame the family that tried. During my episodes I was. . . unmanageable.”
Unmanageable: Isabel, her voice devoid of almost all inflection, of emotion. Simple facts. Grief, trauma, pain—calm and flat, just like answering interview questions.
Deep under his ribs, something twinged.
Unmanageable?
She thought she’d been difficult as a child, because she’d been suffering?
But if she’d barely stomached his sandwich, she sure as hell wouldn’t want Wes’s sympathy. What he could offer was this:
“I was a terror as a kid.”
She needed to know. With the avalanche of legal forms for her visa and his boat registration?
“I’m dyslexic,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He forced a laugh. He didn’t want her pity, either, and didn’t want her to worry that he might become a problem for her instead of a solution.
With all that paperwork and the interview, though?
She really had to know. “Even when I wasn’t taking baseball bats or soccer balls to the skull during recess, I was bad at school.
Erin jokes that her physics PhD caused permanent head damage, but I don’t have a fancy degree, just the—”
“Were you teased, too?” Her eyes rose to his.