“Why not?”
For a moment Charles considered confiding in Jake. But they’d never had anything close to a personal relationship. Charles fiddled with his shirt collar. “I just … I think it’s weird, that’s all. I think a different kind of person should write this. Someone who hunts, maybe. Someone who’s more … eco.”
Jake laughed. “You said you wanted to write more.” He shifted his weight. “What—do you know that girl or something?” He pointed at the picture of Bronwyn.
Charles sucked in his stomach, horrified that Jake had guessed. “No. Of course not.”
“Then what is it? Because I don’t think they care about whether you’re eco or not. All that matters is that you make Back to the Land look good.”
Charles shrugged.
“You said you wanted to write a piece. This is your chance. We’ll pay you, of course, and you’ll get a byline, for what it’s worth.” Jake pressed his palm against the glass wall that separated the conference room from the reception area. “But if you don’t want to do it, there are plenty of other people who would jump at the money.”
Charles bristled and looked away. “No, it’s all right. I’m sorry; I’ll do it.”
Jake rubbed his hands together. “Okay then.”
The door swished shut, and Charles put his head in his hands. Why had he said anything? He could handle Bronwyn, couldn’t he? He was older, married, his life had changed. He would go and it would mean nothing. He would watch her garden and chop wood. He would be professional and polite, interviewing her about what life is like without real toilets. Bronwyn who could do complicated math problems in her head, the girl whom everyone envied because she was beautiful and smart and had amazing parents who gave her every opportunity imaginable, now stomping on her good genes and upbringing, traipsing off to live at Walden Pond.
Good Lord, what did her parents think about this? Mr. and Mrs. Pembroke had given their children, Bronwyn and her older brother, Roman, every opportunity in the world, encouraging them all the time that it was their duty to become something great. So why had she become a farmer? Was there something wrong with having chances? Wasn’t she supposed to use the gifts she’d been lucky enough to receive instead of wasting them? Or did something from her previous life leave a sour taste in her mouth? A certain someone she’d dated, perhaps, a boy who was similarly privileged, who had said certain scathing things she wanted absolutely no ties to?
But no, that was projecting. It was both naive and arrogant for him to think he had something to do with the person she’d become. Still. It felt as though the rules of the universe were suddenly thrown into doubt.
Charles stood up and walked to the conference-room window, rapidly blinking over and over again. A bunch of guys in yellow hard hats were jackhammering a hole in the ground. Eleven flights up, behind all this glass, it was only a muffled groan.
Chapter Seven
Just as she didn’t yet have her bearings in her new house, Joanna had no sense of direction in her new community. Even though she’d grown up fifteen miles from here, it might as well have been Egypt, things seemed so alien. Every bright, massive shopping center looked the same. The Revolutionary-era stone house on one corner was identical to the Revolutionary-era stone house a half-mile down. It seemed as though there was a one-lane bridge on every side street, treacherously narrow and seemingly not spanning any water, as far as she could see.
Even before Joanna and Charles had moved here, Sylvie told them that their town was getting a La Marquette grocery store. Although Joanna had no idea what this really meant—for the last ten years, she’d been shopping at either cramped Philadelphia groceries or outdoor farmers’ markets—her curiosity was piqued. So on Thursday afternoon, she printed out directions to the new store and got in the car. Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten were talking in the yard as usual, but she didn’t look over. She’d started calling both of them Mrs. in her head—if she couldn’t know them intimately, then she would think of them as formal schoolmarms or as strict, scary piano teachers.