“Sorry, what now?”
“I’ve been wondering since we got here what it feels like inside its mouth. Like is that its real teeth, do you think? And are the insides of his cheeks squishy, or like plastic, or is there fabric in there? Would it be silk? Felt? I have a lot of questions and I think a good feel around would answer most of them.”
Hollis shakes his head and sighs. “Well, go ahead. I’m not going to stop you. Just make it quick so we don’t get stuck explaining to José why we’re molesting his stuffed bear.”
“I can’t, though,” I say, and demonstrate my inability to reach the bear’s mouth. “I’m too short. Like so many things in life, I’ll just have to be okay with never knowing, I guess.”
“For god’s sake.”
Hollis’s body is suddenly pressed against mine. Except the parts are all misaligned—my pelvis is against his chest, his arms are tight around the backs of my thighs. And oh, my feet aren’t on the ground.
“Now,” he says, “hurry it up.”
“Are you... Did you just pick me up so I can literally poke a bear?”
“No, I’m training for a petite-woman-lifting competition. Nationals are in Albuquerque this year.” I can’t tell if he’s moreannoyed with me than usual or if his eyebrows just look extra stern from this elevated angle. “Any more stupid questions or are you going to put your damn fingers in that bear’s mouth so we can go?”
Hoisted up like this, the bear and I are practically the same height. I have to admit, it’s a little uncomfortable looking into its vacant glass eyes. “Sorry for the intrusion, sir. I’ll only be a minute,” I say as I extend my hand toward it, gently press my fingers against the varnished teeth, run them over the hard plastic tongue and reach deep inside to where the throat would be in the usual circumstances, encountering only a smooth, cool dead end. Equal parts satisfied and skeeved out, I mumble a quick “Thanks for your cooperation,” then remove my hand and place it on Hollis’s shoulder.
“Okay, I’m done.”
Nothing happens. “Hey, I’m done.” I look down, expecting to find him staring back up at me. Instead, I find his gaze focused straight ahead, which is exactly where my chest is.
“I hope you’re not expecting more desserts for this,” I say.
“Huh?”
“I think being in close quarters with my tits for the last thirty seconds straight is payment enough for this good deed.”
Hollis’s head tilts up and his eyes meet mine at last. He blinks twice. “Fair enough,” he says. “Come on, let’s get a move on. My friend’s expecting me tomorrow, and you have an elderly lady in Key West to bother.”
My feet are on the ground again before I can respond. A small part of me was hoping for a long, delicious slide down the front of his body. But an uneventful descent was probably for the best. Hollis is right: I’m on a mission, and I can’t let myself forget that time is of the essence.
6
•••••
It takes me almost twenty minutes to talk Hollis into letting me play more of my road-trip playlist, then I almost immediately fall asleep to the soothing, repetitive melody of Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat.” My eyes flutter open sometime later in response to a steady reduction in our speed. Looks like we’re pulling into a rest-stop parking lot. When we left José Napoleoni’s, it was still overcast, but now pink and orange streak the sky.
I arch my back in my seat to stretch out my spine. “Where are we?”
“Virginia,” Hollis says.
“Still?” I whine. “I was asleep for like six hours!”
“You were asleep for likeonehour.”
“Ugh. When did Virginia get so big?”
“I don’t know. The eighteenth century? You’re the historian, you tell me.” Hollis shifts the car into park. “Are you getting out?”
I’m still a little drowsy, which makes the idea of movement seem like a major hassle. But then my bladder reminds me that Ihad three Shirley Temples back at the restaurant, plus the one José kindly handed me in a to-go cup on our way out the door. “Yeah.” I disconnect my phone from the aux, then grab my little leather backpack and swing it over my shoulder as I get out of the car. “Just a pit stop, Mrs. Nash,” I say. “Then we’ll be back on our way to Elsie.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised you talk to her,” Hollis mutters as we walk toward the brick building’s glass double doors.
“I don’t know why you are either.”
You might assume she talks back; she doesn’t. I hoped when she died that she might continue to exist inside my head, and she sort of does. I can see her vividly, but she never speaks unless it’s a replay of a memory. Because I am the one who would have to generate what she says now, and I know that any words I put into her mouth wouldn’t be hers. Just mine in disguise. Somehow that’s more depressing than her not talking at all.
