Chapter 22
Neither of us says a word as we abandon our hideout like escaping fugitives.
Beau deals with the tow truck driver while I throw the food in a cooler and drag our bags to the porch.
I offer to drive—reminding us both of his headache and the reason I demanded his nudity—but he shrugs me off.
We drive in silence for fifteen miles, too uncomfortable to even look at each other.
Beau drops the radio volume abruptly and mumbles, “I’m sorry about before.”
“No, I’m sorry. You know, about getting you half naked.”
He winces, flashing that same tortured look from yesterday.
And that’s the end of it—the discussion, not the awkwardness. The awkwardness has staying power.
We have a long couple of days ahead of us. We’re heading north to Oregon for tonight’s interview in Klamath Falls before tomorrow’s in Bend.
Our phones startle alive at mile sixteen, dinging relentlessly with alerts, reminding us that we’ve been off the grid.
My heart rate spikes as I pick up my phone, noticing a string of texts.
I bypass messages from Cherry and Simone—a group thread that could include anything from memes to requests for fashion advice to information about sleep training and nursing that I have no use for.
I haven’t confronted Cherry about the little trick she pulled on Beau all those years ago.
I’m not looking forward to her making light of something that irrevocably tore Beau and me apart.
I also see messages from Ronald, my real estate agent, and Lowell, with an all-caps update: Juniper is a Nut Job .
“Shit,” I say.
“What?” Beau finally looks at me, and I forget to feel self-conscious that I’d asked him to perform a striptease for me an hour ago.
“The Chihuly transport.”
I call Lowell, and he starts ranting before saying hello.
“I don’t know how you put up with that woman.
We got the thing installed to her exact specs—all six hundred pounds of it.
It isn’t going anywhere—even if the next big one is epicentered below her McMansion.
And the crackpot showed up hours late and demanded we move it.
Three feet! I centered the fucking thing, excuse my French, but she wanted it off-center because the center was too ‘expected.’ What the actual fuck?
I refused. My guys had already worked a ten-hour day. ”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Oh, Lowell. I’m so sorry.”
He grumbles something, says it’s not my fault—but it’s the last time he’ll do a job for her.
I try Juniper, but she doesn’t answer. I check my email and find twenty messages from her, demanding updates on the list she’d sent me last night, adding another slew of assignments, complaining about Lowell, asking me to find another contractor to move the Chihuly—again.
In the last one—four hours ago—she demanded a response if I wanted to continue to work with her.
She fires me, over email, in the final message.
I hang my head.
“What is it?”
“I lost Juniper as a client.”
“Oh, Phe.”
I straighten my shoulders. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.
I’ll be fine.” Maybe it’s for the best. Juniper is inflexible and incapable of pleasing.
But she’s my largest client. I’ll have to do some hustling as soon as I get home.
At least I’ll have the money from the sale of the house to tide me over for a while.
Beau reaches over. I think he’s going to grab my hand, but he pats my thigh like a grandparent might console a frustrated child. It makes me feel worse.
I suck in a lungful of air and call Ronald next. I had filled out all the paperwork and sent it back before we left Fort Bragg. I’m not sure what he could need.
“Ms. Dahl, bad news.”
“Okay ... what’s wrong, and how much will it cost?”
“Well, the inspection revealed faulty wiring in the kitchen and mold in the garage. There’s some .
..” I tune him out, my focus blurring as the yellow lane lines stretch ahead to a vanishing point.
Ronald finishes with an explanation of possible asbestos and a crack in the foundation that could be structural.
“What now?” I mutter.
“The buyer could pull out. It’s enough to scare anyone off. But I’ll keep you posted.”
When I hang up, Beau doesn’t even ask me what’s wrong—Ronald was so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear—so he must know the score.
Beau does the hang-in-there-chap knee pat again, and I want to cry.
At least my pathetic financial state is a douse of cold water on our ill-advised sexual flame.
Beau pulls off at the next exit, turning into a gas station and jumping out.
He scrolls through his phone as he waits for the gas tank to fill, his expression pained when he brings his phone to his ear.
I can’t help but overhear. The windows are cracked, and his voice is a deep octave that carries even when he whispers.
“What do you mean you want to renegotiate the terms? What was the purpose of mediation if you were going to change your mind again?” There’s a pause. “You and I both know you don’t want the house—you work in San Francisco and hate the commute. Stop playing games.”
He paces back and forth along the driver’s side. “Tell me what it is you want, Bianca.”
Beau catches my gaze through the dash, and I freeze as he hangs up and slides his phone into his pocket.
The world we kept at bay is cresting, about to crash over us. Suddenly our almost-kiss seems like a quaint little distraction.
“Hungry?” he asks when he pulls out of the station, as if we didn’t just overhear our separate lives imploding.
I’m not. But I nod anyway because it’s been hours since I cooked us breakfast, and I know what happens when he skips meals.
Beau pulls into a Wendy’s drive-through. I haven’t eaten at Wendy’s since Dad would take me for a frosty and fries as a kid. But the alternative is enduring Beau’s empty stomach.
“I got this one,” I say, and reach across Beau to slip the cashier my debit card after we order. He pulls back in his seat as if I have cooties.
“Thanks,” Beau says, even though springing for drive-through burgers is the least I can do. He’s been footing too many bills.
But his appreciation is premature, because the guy at the microphone says, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Do you have another card? This one was declined.” Double whammy: “ma’am” and financial shame. I hand over a wad of cash, but not before Beau gives him his card.
“I’m sorry. That makes no sense,” I say as Beau gathers our food.
“Don’t worry about it.”
But I am worried about it. The only people not worried about money are the people who have money not to worry about.
I should have at least $2,000 in the account.
I log in to my online banking and wait as the spinning wheel of Wi-Fi inadequacy increases my suspense.
I gasp when it loads to show I have a negative balance.
I knew this month would be tight, but not this tight—I had to pay my rent, Dad’s mortgage, and cover the renovations on the house.
I scroll through the transactions before I see the culprit.
Shit buckets.
A $1,500 check was withdrawn. I click on the image and whimper. It’s a check to my mechanic I wrote ages ago. In all the chaos and trauma over the last month, I forgot about it.
I note a series of overdraft charges. One after another after another— twenty charges.
“What the fuck?” I mutter. Even with the zombie check to the mechanic, I should only have one charge, not twenty.
But the bank cleared the check before processing my monthly bill pay transactions, which were scheduled to go out days ago. The bastards.
Beau looks alarmed as he pulls out of the drive-through and into the intersection, but he’s wise and doesn’t ask.
I click “Contact Us” and hit the phone number for customer service. Beau merges onto the freeway as I listen to the automated message telling me the wait time is over two hours.
Three hours later, I’ve advanced from the fifty-third caller to the second when Opus No. 1 cuts off mid-melody. I pull the phone away from my ear to see the call has dropped. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“What’s going on?” Beau pauses his tedious history podcast, which is the only positive to emerge from my turmoil.
So far, I’ve learned about the history of the American bison, the creation of superstitions, and the biography of Walt Whitman.
There is no end to Beau’s appetite for useless information.
“I forgot about a check I wrote months ago, and it just cleared.” I could lie, but what’s the point? If I don’t get this issue resolved, I’m not going to be able to hide that I’m broke.
“You don’t balance your checkbook?”
I laugh. “Only people who lived through the Great Depression balance their checkbook. That’s what online banking is for.”
“Online banking can’t tell you someone is holding on to a check for months.”
I ignore this. “But my bank reordered my transactions to take advantage of the situation and charged me six hundred dollars.”
Beau sucks in a breath. “Six hundred dollars?”
“It is expensive to be poor, Professor. I don’t recommend it. Why can’t we report banks for stealing?” I mentally calculate how much money I have in my savings account and the payments I’m expecting from clients. I can limp along—barely.
“What, like call the police?” Beau scoffs. “You cannot be that person.”
“I’m not suggesting we call in the SWAT team. But why do we pardon white-collar criminals and condemn the petty thief? I mean, if you got mugged, you could report it. Just because the perpetrators are bank bureaucrats,” I say, and Beau chuckles, “doesn’t mean they aren’t criminals.”
He casts a skeptical glance my way, his mouth pursed in that irritating mask of superiority.
“Do you think you can keep your corporate vigilantism under control for this next interview? What if she’s a bank bureaucrat who swindled people through excessive fees?
Or a teller who pocketed a penny from each customer and amassed a fortune? ”
I swallow my panic as he pulls into the parking lot of a dilapidated, windowless building.
We’ve had no luck finding my mom. My career is in jeopardy.
The house sale may fall through. My bank account is empty.
And calling the authorities, apparently, is out of the question.
But I don’t have the luxury of giving in to my simmering meltdown, because our next interviewee awaits.
“Don’t worry about me, Beauregard. I am always objective and professional.”