“Of course you are.”
The playlist I made this morning for driving from Miami to Key West is on shuffle, but as the next song starts, I decide I’m quite pleased with the music app’s choices.
“God, I love Steely Dan,” I say, adjusting my swaying to the more subdued tempo of “Dirty Work.” “I actually just found this album on vinyl at a record store in Silver Spring last week.” I bought it even though I don’t currently own a record player; Geoffrey’s daughter wound up with Mrs. Nash’s.
Hollis groans. “When I agreed to let you come with me, I didn’t realize you were secretly my uncle Jim in a tiny woman costume.”
“I bet your uncle Jim doesn’t have my moves.” I gyrate in my seat in time to the saxophone solo.
Hollis watches me out of the corner of his eye—the blue-gray one. “That he does not.”
Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” comes on next, but before the end of the first line, Hollis says, “Ugh. Can we please listen to something else?”
“Excuse me, do you have something against Stevie Nicks?”
“Her voice sort of gets on my nerves.”
I sit in stunned silence, attempting to find a suitable reaction to this blasphemy. I finally land on a simple, “How dare you. Howdareyou.”
Hollis reaches over and turns off the stereo.
“Hey!” I go up an octave in my outrage.
I think I see the slightest tilt of his mouth into a smile again, which only annoys me further. How dare he disrespect Stevie Nicks and sort of almost smirk about it! Theimpudence.
“Tell me more about this mission of yours,” he says.
I fold my arms over my chest, pouting. “What about it?”
“Like... why? Clearly, it wasn’t a priority for your friend to get back to this old lover.”
“It was, though,” I say. “She wanted to find her, more than anything. But I’d only just started looking when Mrs. Nash died.”
“Her?” The eyebrow over the blue-gray eye raises.
“Yes. Elsie. They met during the war.”
“The war?” he asks. “Vietnam?”
“World War Two.”
Hollis lets out a whistle through his teeth. “Man. That’s a long time ago.”
“Yeah. Well,” I say. “So are a lot of things.”
“I guess I wonder why any business left unfinished after so many years shouldn’t remain unfinished.”
“Because she didn’t mean to leave it unfinished in the first place. Mrs. Nash and Elsie kept in touch at first, after the war ended. They wrote tons of letters. But then... it’s complicated.”
“Millicent. We’re going to be stuck in this car together for hours. I’d much rather hear a long and complicated story than listen to middle-aged-man music the entire time. Go ahead.”
“All of it?” I know this story by heart. In fact, I have thought about it every day since Mrs. Nash told me how she and Elsie met. But I’ve never had to tell it to someone else before. It’s intimidating. What if I can’t do it justice? And something tells me HollisHollenbeck isn’t exactly a romantic. I swear, if he disrespects Mrs. Nash and Elsie like he disrespected Stevie Nicks—
“Well, why don’t we start with the beginning and see where we wind up.”
“Okay, fine,” I say. “So...”
Key West, Florida
