I nod, because I know that could be true. Still, though, I feel sure that’s not the whole story.
Something else is going on in Jonah’s head. Something I haven’t even guessed at. And I want to know.
? ? ?
In the afternoon, I head onto campus. The undergrads have an essay due on Wednesday, which means my inbox is due to swell with requests for extensions, not to mention the reported deaths of a statistically unlikely number of grandmothers. As I walk in, Kip is on the phone, bartering what sounds like a deal to get our department a new copier. He gives me a wave—complete with blueberry-colored fingernails—which I return before going into my cramped little office. At least I’ve got it to myself for a while. I sign in to my university e-mail to see some of the expected excuses, a couple of campus announcements—
—and an e-mail from Jonah.
The subject line reads Re: Take Two.
He’s answering the e-mail I sent three weeks ago, like nothing ever happened.
His reply contains only two words: What changed?
Between my sending this e-mail and our encounter Saturday—that’s what he means. I know that much. But I don’t understand anything else.
I know what Doreen would tell me to do. What Carmen or Shay would tell me to do, if I’d confided in either of them about this. Any sane, rational person would say, Write back, tell him you’ve thought better of it, and leave it there.
Walk away.
My fingers tap out the message on the keyboard, and I hit send before I can think better of it. My reply: We need to talk.
I don’t know what happens next. But I’m going to see Jonah Marks again.
Ten
Three days later, just after sundown, I’m back in the same wine bar where Jonah and I first met for “negotiations.” I guess this is round two.
Tonight, however, the bar is less sultry, more rowdy. This is a home-game weekend, which means Longhorns football fans and UT alumni are already swarming into town. I didn’t put on anything special this time—I’m wearing the same fawn-colored cotton dress I put on this morning. Yet I feel overdressed anyway, because I’m surrounded by a sea of orange T-shirts and football jerseys. It’s like being trapped in a can of Fanta.
Somehow I know the moment Jonah walks in. I turn my head toward him even before he’s fully through the door. His shirt and jeans are black, his gaze sharp as he instantly focuses on me. He doesn’t smile as he comes closer, cutting through this raucous crowd like a knife.
“We can’t talk like this,” he says as he reaches me.
“Hello to you too.”
But Jonah’s right. Having an intimate conversation here is impossible. We’d have to shout to hear each other. Bad idea. “I think this place has a patio in back.”
It does. Of course, the patio is crowded too—but it’s not as awful, and at least here the talking and laughter around us isn’t deafening. I can even hear soft Spanish guitar music playing. The heat that lingers even after nightfall curls around me; my skin is already moist, and strands of hair that have escaped my ponytail stick to the nape of my neck.
Jonah reaches toward me, like he’s going to take me by the arm, but I don’t let him lead me. It’s not like I don’t see where we’re headed—the one empty corner. Strings of multicolored lights overhead sway in the breeze as we walk there together, to a small dark passage near the back door that leads into the alley. When I stop, Jonah does too, still a few steps between us.
“Let me repeat my question,” he says. “What changed?”
“You took off without a word! That’s what changed. How is that not obvious?”
I can see the muscles tense in his shoulders, his jaw. He’s so built, so aggressively masculine, that I first think he’s barely holding himself back from biting my head off. Yet his voice is steady, not angry. “I wasn’t aware we had to check in with each other about our daily schedule.”
“I didn’t ask for hourly reports. You left for weeks, and you never even told me you were going anywhere.”
“The point was to remain strangers. Wasn’t it? To keep it . . . raw.”
Something about the way he says that—raw—makes my breath catch in my chest. As angry as I am with Jonah, I can’t forget the way his touch makes me feel.
I can’t stop wanting him.
Jonah must sense my weakness. A slow smile begins to dawn on his face. Almost a smirk. “You can have neat, tidy, and safe. You can have tame. Or you can have what you really want. But you can’t have both, Vivienne. And I think we both know which one you’re going to choose.”
Somehow I still have a scrap of pride left. “Where were you, that you couldn’t send an e-mail or text or make a phone call even once in three weeks?”
“Antarctica.”
Smart-ass. I could slap him. Then I realize—he’s serious. Completely.
I repeat, “Antarctica?”