She left a note to Cassie and walked past restaurants and knickknack shops to the beach. She walked along the tide line, interrupted only by the cries of the seagulls and one lone jogger who was too fixated on the tunes coming out of his Walkman to notice her. Betsy was comforted by the shore, and she had a moment of peace. She breathed deeply out of the very bottom of her lungs. She thought of nothing at all. Cassie had been right. She needed this.
She wanted to swim, but the air was still a bit chilly. She walked back to the house. Wildwood was slowly coming to life. Cassie was still zonked, curled up on her left side, her hair becoming entwined with her eyelashes. She, too, was breathing deeply and peacefully. She, too, was healing.
They made a morning beach visit, Betsy in her big straw cowboy hat and Cassie in her Atlanta Falcons cap. They went back to the house to fix some lunch, and Cassie’s friends finally drove up in a BMW, beeping its horn excitedly.
Cassie leaned out the kitchen window and heckled them for being late. “You people don’t know how to have fun. Betsy and me, we can have fun. We’ve been here a whole damn day!”
Betsy felt shyness coming over her—a familiar feeling. She had felt completely content with just Cassie there and wouldn’t have minded if these people had canceled.
There were four of them. As Cassie had promised, they were all in the national-security game, too. Cassie had already provided Betsy with capsule descriptions, so she knew who was who: Jeff Lippincott, an Agency man detailed to the USIA Visas Division, whose uncle owned the house. His girlfriend, Christine O’Connell, an Annapolis graduate who worked as an analyst at DIA. And two guys: Marcus Berry from the Bureau, and Paul Moses—an NSA cryptography specialist.
“How did you get to know these people?” Betsy had asked last night.
“They all go to my church,” Cassie shot back. “Marcus is mine, by the way. Paul’s for you—he’s a hunk.”
Betsy had been so embarrassed by this that she had practically melted into a puddle. Now, as the four came into the house, full of energy and good cheer, she blushed just to remember it.
Just the same, she had to admit that Paul Moses was a hunk—though not in a conventional movie-star way. He was a huge guy, with hands that showed he had worked. Round-shouldered, shy, good-natured. Straw-blond hair and blue eyes.
Cassie had already supplied her with an opening line and forced her to rehearse it.
“You’re a farm boy, aren’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“I’m an old potato farmer from Idaho.”
“And I’m a wheat farmer from the Palouse country.”
“Probably a Cougar, too.”
“Guilty. I went to WSU because it was twenty miles away from home. Did you ever see Kamiaken Butte?”
Indeed Betsy had. She’d gone to a model UN in Pullman and had admired the views of the Moscow Mountains and Kamiaken and Steptoe Buttes from the windows of the student union building.
“My folks farm right up the north slope of Kamiaken. Gotta tell you I miss the Inland Empire.”
“So you’re at No Such Agency.”
“Yeah, they keep me in a cage and hook my umbilicus up to a Cray and we crunch numbers all day.”
“I have about as interesting a life.”
“Not true. You’re kind of infamous. I got warned about you.” And then in a taunting, teasing voice, “You go outside your compartment, you go outside your compartment.”
Betsy blushed rarely, but when she did, it was a beaut. Her pale skin turned the intensity of her hair. Nobody had teased her in years.
“Better be careful. I’m a career killer.”
“Oh, yeah,” Moses said, “I can see you’re bad to the bone.” Both of them laughed. “Seriously, I don’t give a shit. I’ve had my go at D.C. I’ve been on the inside of the inside long enough. It’s time to go back to Whitman County and grow that hard red wheat.”
“You’re really leaving?”
“After another year. I promised my dad I’d stick with it for four years. He wanted to make sure that when I came home, I’d come home because I wanted to. And I want to. This life is absolute bullshit. Want a beer?”
Betsy wanted a beer. She could feel herself tumbling for this guy.
“I brought some Grant’s Ale—from Yakima. If I have to hear about the superiority of Sam Adams one more time, I’m going to puke. You’re the first northwesterner I’ve met out here, so I’m going to monopolize you. Hey, guys,” he shouted to the other four, “leave us alone.”