Did he want to impress Frida? Dave had been so rude when they’d arrived—the suspicious glances, the rough way he’d handled their things—but maybe by now he’d cooled off. And Frida was the new girl in town. The first and last, supposedly.
When Cal was a little boy, his mother had told him that someday his true love would seem different from everyone else in the world. “Like a bright red car in a sea of jalopies,” she’d said. It struck him that, although his mother had not been in love with his father, nor with her various long-term boyfriends, she’d been right. This was exactly how Cal felt, looking at his wife. His red car.
Dave saw Cal first. He waved, and Frida turned.
Though she smiled and called his name, Cal thought he detected a microsecond of disappointment on her face. It reminded him of how she used to act after spending the day with Micah. It was as if she’d gotten so used to her brother’s inflections and cynicism, and the way he could make her laugh, that returning to Cal jarred her. He wondered sometimes if Micah made fun of him to his sister, so that when Frida saw Cal again, she had the urge to laugh and had to force herself not to.
“Hi, babe,” he said now, and bent down to kiss her on the mouth.
“Hi,” she said.
What was it that had fled so suddenly from her face? Was it that she’d been sitting with two attentive men she didn’t know very well, their lives mysteries she could mine for years, and Cal had barged in to interrupt the moment? She’d been so happy just seconds ago, as giddy as she’d been when she first met Sandy Miller by the creek. But now that Cal was here, breaking up playtime, she looked, if not unhappy, then concerned. Perhaps she was worried about what he’d say.
“Nice face,” Cal said to Dave, and Frida giggled.
“He’s a looker, isn’t he?” she said, her hands clasped under her chin like a cartoon animal in love. “Sailor’s jealous.”
“Am not,” he said, pouting.
“Poor baby,” Frida said. She was laughing again.
“I heard about your fancy pancake,” Cal said.
“It was amazing!” Sailor said, and Frida fake-protested.
“It was,” Dave said. “Did you try it?”
Cal shook his head. “Everyone else got a taste but me.”
This time, Frida didn’t laugh.
“How come you didn’t get any?” she asked. “What were you doing?”
He told her about helping Rachel in the garden. “She told me the Vote is public,” he said. “Did you know that?”
Frida seemed to think about this. “I guess so. I assumed it would be.”
“Really?” Cal raised an eyebrow at Sailor. “Even at Plank, the controversial topics were voted by secret ballot.”
Dave looked stunned, and Sailor gave him an appeasing look.
“We wouldn’t know,” Sailor said. “During our tenure, there was never a controversy we had a say in.” He paused. “The school closing was never up for debate.”
“I didn’t know you guys went to Plank,” Frida said. She turned to Cal, as if to say, Why didn’t you tell me? She didn’t look angry, just surprised.
“You’re such a fucking big mouth,” Dave said to Sailor, who grinned.
“Keep thinking that, my friend,” he said.
“Is it a secret?” Cal asked.
Sailor frowned. “The recruiter said no one would care where we came from. And that’s turned out to be sort of true.”
“Until now,” Frida said, and reached out to push a lock of hair out of Cal’s eyes.
Cal turned to Dave. “So if a bunch of you are Plankers, why not do things the Plank way and allow everyone to cast their decision privately?”
“Why?” Dave asked, eyebrows raised. “Are you assuming it’s a controversial topic?”
“Yeah,” Frida said, turning to Cal. “You think too highly of us, babe.”
When they were alone on their walk back to the Hotel, far from anyone who might hear them, Cal told her to keep her pregnancy a secret. “Micah asked us to,” he said.
He was surprised that Frida didn’t protest, though he didn’t say so. Instead, he began to tell her about his trip to the tree house. He waited for her to say that she’d been there, too, but she didn’t. She didn’t speak at all. It seemed so easy for her, to not tell him things.
He asked her if she felt different, now that she was pregnant. She just shook her head.
“Peter and Micah are looking for confirmation, I guess.”
“So you want me to start barfing?”
He shook his head, and then nodded. She laughed, and relief moved like sunlight across his body. “You seem really happy today,” he said finally. “Just now, when I saw you there, with Sailor.”
“Anika knew Jane,” she said.
“What?”
“Sandy had Jane on the Land.”
“Are you sure?”
Frida nodded. “It’s happened before, Cal. There’s been a baby here.”
She took Cal’s hand and squeezed it three times, as if she were sending him a message.