“Let’s just keep going,” Lise said hopefully. “We’ve got gas.”
She wanted Ken to laugh but he was waiting for the person in front of him to turn. His mind was so far away sometimes—probably on the gas station, or the Putt-Putt, the heroic moment of his childhood. She knew that sometime this week he’d end up there, leaving her to deal with everything.
“What about the kids?” he asked.
“They’ll be fine. Your mother thinks she can raise them better than we can anyway.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere. Where do you want to go?”
“Iceland,” Ken said.
“Iceland.”
“Very stark, lots of light.”
“So you could work even more. How romantic.”
“They’ve got hot tubs.”
“Forget it,” she said. “We’ll go back. Your mother’s dying to discuss the Mystery of the Gas Station with you.”
“She is a little too excited about it,” he admitted.
“A little bit,” she said, pinching her thumb and one finger together.
The problem with Emily, Lise thought, was that she didn’t have anything going on in her life. Lise could never figure out what she did in that big house all day. Having spent much of her childhood alone, Lise knew how slowly the hours could go, and the pain of waiting for someone to rescue you from your own harsh thoughts. That someone had been—still was—her mother, which only made Emily’s coldness seem more foreign.
“I wonder if they found that other guy,” Ken said.
“You said yourself, he wouldn’t have seen anything different.” She said it dully, nearly mumbling, so he’d know she was tired of the subject.
“How’d you like Ella tubing? I didn’t think she’d get back on that last time.”
“She’s trying to impress Sarah.”
“You think?”
“This is nothing. Wait till she has a real crush on some boy. I remember one that was so bad I couldn’t eat.”
“And who was this on?”
“Josh Marcowitz was his name. He was a swimmer, and I couldn’t eat for three days. Finally my mother sat down and made me eat a bowl of oatmeal.”
“What happened?”
“I ate it.”
“I meant with him.”
“Nothing. He had a girlfriend. I remember waiting for him to come out of math class just so I could walk by him. I must have lost five pounds.”
“Did he even know your name?”
“It wasn’t that big of a school.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
“He’s probably a lawyer or something. You jealous?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Good,” she said, and that one he laughed at, shaking his head as if she was crazy.
The drive was too short to pretend they were really getting away. It was enough to be together and alone, their own little vacation, and she let her hand rest on his leg as he drove. He reciprocated between shifts. They passed the abandoned stand of Red Brick Farm and the busy one of Haff Acres (CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, their banner claimed), where they would get the corn on their way back. She was tired from the sun and her nose felt tender. They had barely been here a whole day.
“Will you make love to me tonight?” she asked.
“Where?”
“I don’t care where.”
“How about on the dock?” he said.
“That would be fine. Even here in the car would be fine.”
“I wonder if there’s a drive-in around here.”
“See?” she said. “Now you’re thinking.”