My attention is drawn to two squares of light tucked into nearby trees. Windows. And attached to them, a triangular cabin. It used to be Uncle Victor’s work shed, but when I went exploring as a kid all I found inside was a hot, dark mess of rusted farm equipment and spiderwebs. Now the lights are on and somebody’s pickup truck is parked outside.
I make my way over cautiously, the path rough and uneven where tree roots have ripped up asphalt, nature reclaiming its territory. I mentally skim through everything I know about squatter’s rights as I approach, car keys poking from my balled fist like Wolverine’s claws. The pickup truck isn’t the only unexpected company here: on its other side sits a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, just like the one Ruth Campos climbed into as we said our goodbyes.
The same Ruth who’s swinging the front door open to greet me.
“Maybell! Wonderful, you’re right on time.”
“Right on time for what?”
She answers my question with a question. “How was the trip?”
Is it me, or does she seem nervous? “I just saw the house. It’s bad. It’s real bad. I didn’t expect to see you here . . .”
I peer around her, grabbing a fleeting glimpse of a rosy, low-lit living room that contains no rusted farm equipment or spiderwebs. Instead, I find a plaid couch and a table lamp with mustangs galloping around the shade. Split-log walls. Bluish light flickers at random intervals, a television glowing somewhere within.
“Who’s out there?” a different, deeper voice inquires. I straighten.
A man abruptly fills the frame, blocking my view. I stumble and his hand shoots out on reflex, as though to help me, but I’m already backing up.
A man, and not just any man. The man. In my deepest, darkest dreams, still the only man.
He is tall, broad shouldered, strong jawed. Dark blond hair falls in short, tousled waves that make me think of a fallen angel who almost drowned, thrust out of the sea by Poseidon and made alive again with a lightning strike. His eyes are brown topaz, a glass of root beer held up to the light, widening as he fixates on my face. Every thought that’s ever swept into my head in the thirty years I’ve been alive blows away. There is dust in my throat, my eyes, my ears.
The windstorm inside me shrieks and pulls and shakes its head no. Impossible.
Impossibilities are all coming true today. It’s Jack McBride.
Chapter 3
WHO’S THIS?”
The impossible Jack McBride is irritated by my sudden presence as Ruth beckons me inside and, in my haze, I actually obey. No, the impossible Jack McBride is angered by my presence. I’m not exactly on an even keel, either. I can’t stop gaping at him. If I don’t pass out at his feet it’ll be a miracle.
“You exist,” I croak, too quietly to be overheard. Or at least, I think so—my grasp of volume is rolling down a hill along with my vision, good sense, self-control, everything I thought I knew about life, etc., etc.
“This is Maybell Parrish, Violet’s great-niece,” Ruth tells him. “Julie’s girl.” Her voice is sugary, like I’m a used car she’s trying to sell. “And she’s a sweetheart, so be nice.” She picks up my limp hand, waving it hello at him. “And this is Wesley Koehler, Violet’s groundskeeper.”
Wesley Koehler.
Wesley Koehler, Wesley Koehler, Wesley Koehler. It’s a foreign language. It’s inconceivable. He doesn’t look like a Wesley Koehler at all—he looks like a Jack McBride: deeply romantic, musically inclined, with a keen interest in real estate. Charismatic, charming. Avid traveler, surfer, and environmental activist. Has a real way with the ladies.
There’s no such thing as a Jack McBride, I remind myself.
But!
I open my mouth, a bag of wind popping inside it to let out a deflated Eeeeeeeeeeeeehhh. He frowns, which I can’t blame him for. The expression on my face right now must be a trip. I want to do a thing people only do in movies and wipe off my glasses on my shirt, then put them back on to see if I’ve been looking at an illusion.
“My goodness, you’re shocked,” Ruth remarks. “I know you weren’t expecting anyone. I’m sorry to spring this on both of you.”
Jack—no, Wesley—turns sharply to face her. “Spring what?”
Ruth casts around the room for something to distract her. She centers a teacup on a coaster with life-and-death precision. “Hm?”
“Spring what?” he repeats, now with an edge. He’s even taller than I imagined, so solid and intimidating. I’m struck by the shadow he throws upon the wall, spanning from floor to ceiling, hard jaw in black profile. I’m struck by gentle modifications to the image that appears in my head whenever I pull up his name: His hair’s a couple inches longer than it was in his pictures, and messier. There are four tiny acne scars scattered along the right side of his face, and the lamplight traces his features in a way that changes the shape of his mouth, the line of his nose. It’s wrong. And lovely. And strange. There’s a freckle an inch to the left of his Adam’s apple. The fact that I am now privy to this knowledge, that he is a real man and I am in a room with him and I know about a freckle I could not have previously fathomed . . .
My brain is so thrown by these deviations from that memorized image that I keep shutting down every other second. It’s not him, but it’s him, but it isn’t, and yet it is. The image is crumbling, being replaced with real-time observations. The Matrix glitches, vertical strands of green code raining down on either side of him. I’m dying, maybe?
“Ruth.”
I flinch. His voice is lower, the rumble of gravel crunching under a heavy boot, prickling all the microscopic hairs in my inner ear. I am dying, definitely.
Ruth presses her lips together. Fiddles with her watch until it displays Pacific Standard Time.
“What is going on?” I finally cry. “How are you here?” I’m losing it. That face. My god, that face, I’ve visualized it a thousand times. At one point I thought I was maybe falling in love with that face. Now I have a voice to match it. Throughout our brief relationship, we never spoke over the phone. We messaged back and forth on a dating app until I hinted that I was ready to delete it and take the next step with him, at which point we started emailing. Service was spotty in Costa Rica, where he was supposedly volunteering to help rebuild after a hurricane. He said phone calls were impossible right then but that he couldn’t wait to get back to the States and meet me in person.
I ate it all up. I thought the emails were so romantic, like old-fashioned love letters with a modern twist, but then I grew frustrated because the emails weren’t long enough, frequent enough. Not enough in general. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted physical touch. Every night when I climb in bed I thank the gods my fake relationship with Jack never advanced to a sexual stage. Whenever I came close to skirting suggestive topics, Jack shied away, which at the time made me worry about a lack of chemistry. In retrospect, I’m glad Gemma couldn’t cross that line. I don’t know how I would have survived it if I’d unknowingly sent my colleague nudes.