“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Mandy had been pensive since returning to Durham, her mind constantly churning with what had happened back in Edenton. She’d called her grandmother for counsel, and all Abi could offer for reassurance was, “I’ll kill them.” That had made Mandy laugh, but it hadn’t lifted her spirits for long. She felt like some sort of outcast of her own making — one who could potentially ruin the life of the man she thought she loved. What does one do in that sort of bind?
She plucked a French fry from the basket they shared at Elmo’s Diner and shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking about those interviews from this morning.”
Aaron watched her for a moment wordlessly then took a bite of his bean cake sandwich. “Screenings didn’t go well?” He’d been out of the office for the past couple of days and had just gotten back into town. He’d been talking with potential major donors, looking for funding sources to make up for the deficit he expected Cars to Work to face in the coming year.
“They were okay. I’m just worried their personalities won’t jibe with the rest of the crew.”
He shrugged. “It’s an important concern, for sure, but as the charity gets bigger, we may not have the luxury of ensuring everyone on each team is simpatico.”
“That’s true.” She swirled the French fry again without even having taken a bite from the first time she dipped it.
“Miranda?”
“Hmm?”
“Is there anything else upsetting you?” He put his sandwich down and reached across the tabletop to grab her hands.
She drew back. “Aaron, I … ” She took a deep breath and let the words come out in one mumbled stream. “I guess I’m putting in my notice. I can’t do this.”
He shook his head. “What are you talking about? I’m about to promote everyone including you.”
“Aaron, I … I just don’t feel I can keep up with you. We’re on completely different levels?” She didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but she hadn’t rehearsed the lie enough times for it to come out the way she wanted.
He stood. “Woman, what are you talking about?”
She slipped out of her side of the bench and walked briskly to the door. There was a bus coming. She intended to be on it. He tried to follow but the waitress caught up. “Sir, your bill?”
He stopped. “Miranda!”
She rushed outside the restaurant and onto the city bus when it stopped at the corner. As she dropped coins into the receptacle, she looked through the door’s glass panels to see him standing by their table, his jaw slack as if he’d just been slapped.
• • •
Ten days later, Mandy was sitting in her apartment on the sofa, feet on the coffee table and her CTW laptop propped on her lap. It was the last time she’d have to enter payroll figures or schedule screening appointments. It’d be someone else’s chore in a few days, she figured.
Other than to buy groceries and walk the quarter mile to her mailbox, she hadn’t left the apartment. Mike had been trying to coax her out, insisting it was safe to work out of the office because Aaron wasn’t there, but she didn’t believe him.
She closed the laptop lid and flicked on the television. Mike had left it on some news station and there on the screen was the governor bloviating about fiscal something-or-other. She rolled her eyes and flipped through the channels, finally settling on a Mexican soap opera. She understood about every other word.
She had actually been giving some thought to moving to Spain after she tidied up her loose ends with CTW. It’d been Abi’s idea. “What else you gonna do, huh? Sit around and sulk? You’re young. Live your life. Come live with me. I’ll make sure you have fun,” Abi had said. “Don’t worry about the money. You want money? I’ll give you some. Why you don’t ask?”
“Mom said to never ask.”
Abi had mumbled something in Spanish Mandy hadn’t quite caught, but the gist didn’t cast Mom in a good light.
Keys jangled just outside the door and Mike and Eleanor fell into the apartment, laughing.
“Hey, Mandy!” Eleanor straightened up, tucking her mussed shirt into her jeans.
“Hey.” Mandy looked at the clock on the cable box. Lunchtime. She stood up and padded to the refrigerator in her sheepy pajamas and fuzzy socks.
“What are you doing here?” Mike asked, closing the door. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with that vendor about employee badges?”
She stuck her head into the fridge, scanning the shelves for the baggie full of bacon she’d put away. “Nope. Not my job.”
“Uh, yeah it’s your job. At least until Monday.”
She shrugged. She gave up on finding the bacon after remembering she’d eaten it as a 3 A.M. snack the second time she’d woken up from dreaming about Aaron. The first time she’d pounded her head against the pillow until she’d fallen back asleep.
“Come on, Mandy, you can’t be seriously quitting just like that.” Eleanor climbed up onto one of the tall barstools at the kitchen counter and leaned her elbows onto the countertop.
Mandy pulled out a block of cheddar and closed the door. She nodded. “Yes, I can. It’s too awkward.”
“How?” Mike took the cheese, which Mandy was unsuccessfully trying to unwrap with her thumbnails, and found the easy-open tab. He peeled the plastic off and handed it back to her. “You work mostly from home. You’d see Aaron once per month for staff meetings or whenever you’d have to go in to conduct interviews.”
Mandy cut her gaze toward Eleanor.
“She knows,” Mike said. “It’s not a secret. Everyone in the office knows.”
“Yeah,” Eleanor agreed. She pulled a cheese knife out of the block and handed it to Mandy. “And everyone in the office thinks you’re an idiot.”
Mandy chopped off a giant hunk of cheese, ate it, and followed it immediately with a bite of rustic bread she’d torn right off the loaf. “Okay, so maybe awkward’s not the right word to use. Maybe devastating is a better word. Fuck, is that better for y’all?”
Mike drew her into a hug. “Aw, honey. I know what it’s like to love someone you can’t have.”
“You do?”
“Sure, I do. I’ve been there. But that’s not what you’re dealing with. You can have him. This is a matter of choice. Your choice. He’s been clear the ball’s in your court, hasn’t he?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. I don’t listen to his voicemails.”
He gave her a little shake. “Ugh. You’re hopeless.”
She took another bite of cheese and sidled away to grab a green apple out of the basket. “Exactly. I’m doing what’s best for him.” She shuffled toward her bedroom.
“Oh, I see,” Mike called after her. “Well, don’t forget you have a job fair you’re supposed to represent CTW at tomorrow.”
She froze. She had forgotten. “Shit.”
“Yeah, that. Oh, package came for you.” He tapped it on the counter. “Hey, Eleanor. You want a cheese sandwich?”
• • •
Mandy yawned and picked up the last of the boxes of pamphlets and swag. She nestled it into her tight car trunk and slammed the lid shut. She wiped her hands off on her black slacks and rooted in her hipster purse for her keys. The purse was new. The funky gray and black bag had been in the mail Mike had brought up the day before. She knew a bribe when she saw one, but she couldn’t fault Mrs. Owen for her chutzpah. It wasn’t like she was going to send it back. It was special edition.
“Damn it.” She opened her purse wider but couldn’t see the glint of metal inside. “Maybe I left them on the seat.”
She opened the passenger door and found her keys there on the floorboard. “Ah.”
Aaron slipped into the driver’s side with some effort and pushed the seat back.
She startled. Where the Hell had he come from so quietly?
He shut the door and pulled the seatbelt across his chest, offering her that winning smile that she had found so charming the day they met at Archie’s lot.
“How about we take a little test drive and check out the struts on this thing?”
“Aaron, I have somewhere to be. Can you move?”
“Oh, I know. Job fair. I shuffled my schedule a bit. I can go.”
“Oh. Well, have fun.” She shut the door.
He rolled down the window. “Get in the car, Miranda. We’re going together.”
She snorted. “The Hell we are. I quit, remember? We broke up? Or, whatever people who aren’t really together do.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “We were together, and you know it. Get in the car.”
She stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, unmoving.
He sighed, put the parking brake on, and got out. He walked around to her, grabbed her by the arms without a word, and stared into her eyes for a few moments. Then he folded her into the passenger seat. “I wish you had back doors. I’d put the child safety lock on,” he mumbled while pulling her seatbelt across her body.
She crossed her arms over her chest again and briefly considered jumping out while he made his way back to the driver’s side, but figured it’d be pointless. It was her car after all. She’d be stuck either way.
He got in and set the car on the road. They rode in silence for a while, and then he rested a hand atop her left knee. She looked down at it, but didn’t push it away. “I missed you, sweetheart.”
“Oh?”
“Of course. I love you, Miranda. I really do.”
Her face burned and pulse pounded in her ears.
Oh my God. Fuck. What now?
She shifted her lips to the right side of her face and chewed the inside of her mouth. She stopped suddenly, remembering she’d all but given up that habit in recent weeks. Her stress level had gone way down after leaving AA1A. After meeting Aaron. Hell, her life had improved in a lot of ways, and not just carnal ones.
They rode in silence a while longer, but when he missed the exit he was supposed to take, she tapped his hand. “Uh, Aaron.”
“Shh. I know where I’m going.”
“Do you? The next exit is three miles past the road we need to get on.”
He didn’t answer. He missed the next exit, and the one after it, too. When he did turn off, they were somewhere in the middle of Bumfuck and Podunk and behind schedule. He parked the car on a quiet street in a small, quaint Piedmont town and seemed to be looking around for something. He unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Aaron?”
“Don’t worry. Never worry with me.”
• • •
Aaron looked around the lot for evidence of the silver sedan and found it parked in a primo space right in front of the office. Typical. “Ah. Come on, sweetheart. Get your purse.”
“Why?”
“You need your I.D.”
He reached under the driver’s seat, pulled out a manila envelope, and grabbed Mandy by the arm.
She put the brakes on their egress and swatted him. “For what? Tell me now or I’m not moving from this spot.”
He laughed. God, he loved that prickly little woman.
“You really think I couldn’t just pick your little ass up and carry you?”
She tapped the toe of her pump against the concrete walkway. “Could and should do not equate.”
“Mom’s waiting on us.” He crooked his thumb toward the squat municipal building. “She’s inside.”
She raised a brow and clutched her new purse protectively. “Your mother? Why?”
“Just trust me. Please?” He clamped the envelope under his arm and pressed his hands together as if to pray.
She narrowed her eyes but finally shrugged her shoulders.
He looped his free arm around her waist and escorted her up the walkway.
“I kind of feel like I’m being marched to the gallows.”
Something like that.
Mom met them in the small lobby and he watched Mandy’s gaze immediately land on his mother’s purse. It was from the new line. He gave Mandy’s arm a nudge with his elbow to wake her up.
“Hello, Miranda,” Mom said, pressing Mandy into a hug. She blotted at her eyes with a crumbled up tissue.
“What’s wrong?” Mandy cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow. “What happened? Did someone die?”
Mom’s voice went high and keening. “No, I always cry at weddings.”
“Do what now?”
He gave Mandy a nudge toward the counter. “Heh. Don’t mind Mom, sweetheart.”
He pressed a mostly completed form and a couple of supporting documents onto the counter and handed her a pen. “Sign right there.” He turned his attention to the clerk. “Magistrate on the way?”
“Yep. She was trying to find her stamp.”
“Aaron, how’d you get a copy of my birth certificate?”
He chuckled. “Mike got it for me. Remind me to thank your mother for storing yours with his.”
“Mike?”
“Yeah, I’m here!” Mike hobbled in through the door leaning heavily on his cane, Eleanor in his wake.
“What are you doing here?”
“You needed one more witness.” He winked then collapsed onto a hard orange plastic chair.
Mandy put her hands on her hips again. “Aaron?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“You have something you want to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“We’re getting married.”
She shook her head. “No. We’re not.”
He was nonplussed. “I know I didn’t read you wrong, Miranda. You’re not a big wedding kind of girl. You’re the secret elopement type. I figured I’d do you a solid and just skip the asking step.”
“Oh, you figured, huh?”
Mom stepped in between them, still dabbing her eyes. “Don’t you love him?”
Mandy looked from Mom to Aaron. He tried to wipe the smirk off his face and failed. Who was he kidding?
“Do ya, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” she answered, voice so small as to be almost inaudible.
He pulled the pen closer to the edge. “Sign it. This is me taking a stand, sweetheart. No one but me is going to decide what makes me happy, and you’re it.”
She picked up the pen, tentatively. “But … married? What about — ”
He gave her a squeeze. “Honeymoon in Spain, perhaps?”
The tightness in her jaw softened, but she still wasn’t signing. “What about your dad’s campaign? And CTW’s funding?”
“Oh, screw the campaign. I’m sick of hiding my light under a bushel. And I’ll fund CTW myself if I have to,” Mom said. She started digging around in her giant purse.
“Sweetheart, don’t worry about that. I’ve got a bunch of pokers in the fire. The organization isn’t going bust anytime soon. Even if it means we have to sell chilidogs to raise funds.” He made a blech face.
Mandy laughed. “Well, then, if you put it like that! Where do I sign?”