Warren called the next day, and she told him she couldn’t go out. She wasn’t feeling well. He called again, and she didn’t answer. The machine clicked on and off, on and off.
Finally she picked up.
“Jess?” a voice said. A man’s voice, but not Warren’s. “It’s Adam.”
“Oh.” Her heart thudded hard, and her stomach dropped. “Hey.”
“I just want to talk a minute. To check in.”
“Okay.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
She bit her lip, covered the receiver with her palm.
“Jess? Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t have anything to say.”
He paused for a long moment. She almost said hello, wondering if he’d hung up.
“Done with the old man, are we? You had your fun?”
She blinked at his low voice, the anger in it. She frowned. “It never got started,” she said. “Remember? And it wasn’t fun. None of this has been fun.”
“Like with your little boyfriend?” He laughed. “I saw you at the house.”
Jess frowned. “Are you following me?”
“Stay out of there.”
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” she said. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“What’s that? Breaking into houses and fucking boys on the carpet?”
“Yes. Fucking.” She spat the word, one she never used for sex, but it felt good to say it, angry herself now. Angry at herself, at him, at all of it.
He breathed into the receiver, and she plucked a loose thread on her shirt, breaking it off. “It wasn’t real,” she said. “Between us.”
“It’s real to me,” he said.
“They’re real,” she said. “Your daughter and wife.”
“Jess,” he said. “I—”
“Don’t say it,” she said. She hung up, staring at the receiver as if it might speak.
After the Halloween festival, around midnight, Jess, Dani, and the boys piled out of the car in Dani’s driveway, two rumpled flappers with wilting feathers in their headbands and two gangsters with crooked mustaches. Giddy from sipping the beer Warren brought, Jess kissed him, happy to be young again, to find herself a teenager out on a Halloween night. A festival, a six-pack tucked in the wheel well, jokes and music hovering in the air with their pluming white breaths. A boy her age with beery kisses and a gentle smile, pressing his hips against her on the front fender outside her best friend’s house. She had handfuls of mini candy bars in her bag to share with her mom tomorrow after dinner—chili and cornbread, their favorite fall meal. She had Dani, waiting on the porch, and they’d go inside and talk late into the night.
Normal.
She kissed Warren hard on the mouth and looked up at the dark attic window. She was sure she saw the blind twitch.
In November, the week before Thanksgiving, in the heart of the harvest, Sundown at the Orchard began. Jess helped Iris blast the town and region with flyers and coupons to get the word out. She and Iris wrapped the shop and outlying posts with hundreds of twinkle lights, lined the gravel driveway with brown paper luminarias, decorated and organized the bags of pecans and pies and pecan sandies Iris baked with the help of Ms. G and other women in town. Tourists flocked in from Sedona and on their way down from Jerome, bundled in their coats and hats except the ones from back east in their shirtsleeves, who scoffed, “Cold, ha! It’s three degrees at home right now!” They loaded up on gifts and mingled with the locals, who made jokes about their accents and cowboy boots after they left, who gossiped in the corners and drank cider and coffee from little Styrofoam cups.
After nine on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when they’d almost sold out of pecans, Jess helped Paul and Iris clean up and around ten bundled herself in her puffy coat and a wool cap and gloves. Since she’d had to work late, she had her mom’s car. The engine churned twice and then kicked, and she goosed the gas, tucking her knit skirt around her calves for warmth. She turned on the headlights, and that’s when she noticed a piece of paper tucked under the driver’s-side wiper.
A note: Meet me? Last time, I promise. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll be in the orchard.
She looked around for him, but Iris had turned off the shop lights. She and Paul were in their house, headed to bed.
She turned off the car and got out. She peered down the dark rows of trees and walked into them. The moon was almost full, bright enough she could see her shadow. The shells they’d missed in the sweep crunched under her shoes. She thrust her hands into her coat pockets, moving farther into the trees, checking behind her when she heard a muffled crack. Just the wind in the branches.
He leaned against a tree at the end of the row. He stood up straight when she reached him.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“I’m not staying,” she said. “What do you want?”
“To talk a minute. To say a few things.”
“Okay,” she said. “Talk.”
“I know I handled this terribly.” His voice rose, and she understood he was angry. Angry with her. “I understand why you have to shut me out. I get it. But don’t act like you didn’t feel it. You felt everything.”
She folded her arms. “What is your problem? Nothing happened. It’s over. I’m not going to tell, if that’s what you’re worried about. Dani’s my best friend. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
He raised his voice. “I have to watch you kissing that boy in my driveway. You’re bringing sweet potatoes to my goddamn house for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Jesus Christ.” His voice broke. He bent at the waist and covered his face. His eyes gleamed. That got to her. That, and the desperate choke in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She slumped against the tree, the bark scratching her jacket.
“No, I’m sorry.” He grabbed handfuls of his hair and pulled. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never done anything like this before. Everything’s a mess. I’m trying to deal with my mother’s house, and I swear, I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Thanksgiving,” she said.
He laughed a little and stepped closer to her. She didn’t move away.
He reached out and cupped her cheek. “God, Jess. Look at you. I can’t stop looking at you. It’s like I’m seeing for the first time.”
She didn’t push his hand away. She lifted her head and stared up through the bare branches, unblinking. For a brief moment, she pressed her face into his palm, and then something moved in the periphery of her vision.
“Did you see that?” She scanned the trees but could see nothing, could hear only a faint rustle, the low hoot of an owl in the distance.
“No. What?” He glanced behind him. “Nothing’s there. Jess, listen.”
“But what if someone comes?”
“I love you,” he said. He traced her eyebrow with his thumb. “That’s what I wanted to say.”
“No,” she said. “I love Warren.”
He laughed. “No. You don’t.”