Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1) (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

The First Goodbye

I wake up Sunday morning, feeling like Johnny Cash, with no way to hold my head up that doesn’t hurt. According to Reagan and Johnny, a beer for breakfast helps. Who am I to question them? I go to the fridge to get one of Reagan’s loyal Coronas. I sip it from the bottle at our kitchen table, mortified when I think about last night. Who knows what Mr. Hale thinks of me now? I have no doubt I disappointed him, slurring, barely vertical and with more moods than Sybil.

The real question is, why do I care so much? I have no business having such strong reactions to a man I barely know, in a land where I barely exist. I need to do something about this. Maybe break my femur so that the painting never happens. Femurs take thirty days to heal, for sure.

Reagan comes to the kitchen in her workout clothes—Union Jack shorts, a pink sweatshirt and sneakers, which she insists on calling
jumper
and
trainers
. “Hey, lushie. How are you feeling?” She laughs. The sound makes my head throb.

“Very sorry.”

She sits opposite me at the kitchen table with a mischievous look. “Your cell rang four times last night, so I picked up,” she says in a singsong voice.

“Oh God, was it Eric?” If he has ruined another protein batch, I will castrate him.

“Nope.” She takes a deep breath for dramatic effect. “Aiden Hale.”

A long moment of silence follows this announcement in my head. Slowly, I muster all my strength to form an articulate response.

“Huh?”

Reagan laughs again. “Yep. Five minutes after you passed out. He wanted to see if we made it home all right. He said your phone and address were in your presentation materials.”

My pulse starts a jagged rhythm. “Did he say anything else?”

“No. Just thank you and hung up.”

I can’t understand the dejection that grips me. What was I hoping he would say to Reagan? I am completely mental.

“Isa, I think he likes you. Granted, he has weird ways of showing it, but why would he give a damn otherwise?” Reagan says with certainty.

Every hungover brain cell wants to believe it. Except, there is one small problem. Reality. And I didn’t have a chance to tell Reagan yesterday about my new modeling job. The more I tell her, the more her eyebrows disappear into her red curls.

“Well, that may explain why he called to check if you made it safe and scratch-free, but it doesn’t explain why he was so pissed. It seemed out of proportion for whatever it was.”

“I don’t know. He’s a rather intense bloke. Every reaction seems magnified in his case but I have no idea why.” Take when he enters a place. We all look around, but he is hypervigilant. Personal space: we all need it, but not with his radius. Privacy: he seems to raise it to isolation.

“I wonder if he’s that intense with all the good things too.” Reagan snickers and wiggles her eyebrows.

I remember the heat of his gaze at Paradox and suppress a shiver. I’m not ready to tell Reagan about that. In fact, I shouldn’t be thinking about it at all. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. What can I do with thirty-one days?”

“I can think of
plenty
of things to do with a man like Hale for thirty-one days.” Reagan giggles again.

I press the cold Corona bottle to my cheek.

“Thinking about your period works too.” Reagan winks. “Or you can practice your speech with me.”

“My speech? What speech?”

Reagan’s mouth pops open. “Isa, when was the last time you checked your email?”

“Before my stereochem final. Why?”

She gasps. “Holy shit, you don’t know. You’re valedictorian. Number one in our class. I think it’s customary that you speak at graduation.”

I’m surprised by how unconcerned I am with this information. Yes, I have strong grades, but I have no intention of giving a speech in front of proud parents when mine are… Someone else should do it, with parents there who will glow and remember.

“I better check my email, then. I’ll figure something out.”

Reagan eyes me suspiciously. I put on what I hope to be a solid, albeit hungover, poker face. She pats my hand and pushes away from the table.

“Best of British luck, then. Pip-pip.” She laughs and heads out for a run.

I stumble to T. rex and open my inbox. Sure enough, there is the valedictorian announcement from President Campbell. I write back.

Dear President Campbell,

Thank you for the honor accorded to me by Reed College. Unfortunately, I will be unable to speak at graduation. If it is a requirement that I do so in order to obtain my accolade, I hereby relinquish it.

Sincerely,

Elisa Snow

I shut down my computer and grab my ancient camera. My mission today is simple: take as many pictures of my life here as possible.

Chapter Thirteen

Hale Storm

It finally gets dark, and I can’t take any more pictures. At least I’ve documented Powell’s City of Books even if I won’t be here to read its one million volumes. I head back home for Sunday RED night—Reagan and Elisa Dinner night. Reagan’s Rule Number One: break the streak for no bloke. Obviously, she’s the only one restrained by that rule.

As I turn the corner to our apartment building, the first thing I see is a black, presidential-looking Range Rover SUV parked
not
on the street but over the sidewalk and flush with the stairs. It’s practically a barricade. Calico, my neighbor’s rescue cat who is not actually a calico, is eyeing someone inside the car with wrathful eyes. I go to scratch his ears but the SUV door opens. I freeze. My knees lock, and my heart claws in my chest. Because out of the SUV, uncoiling gracefully, comes my Mr. Hale. But not my Mr. Hale.

He looks forbidding. His eyes are glacial blue, paler than usual. He stands taller, tenser, more angular—as though every cell in his body is straining to contain a force within. This is not the dragon. This is whatever dragons are afraid of.

“Elisa.” He does not give me his customary nod, and his voice is Kasia-cold. Thinking of Kasia, I realize why he is livid. Feign must have torpedoed the painting.

“Mr. Hale. This is a nice surprise. Have you been waiting long?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea you were coming. Is everything all right?”

“There are about seventeen answers to that question in a dichotomous key, Elisa.”

Heat burns my cheeks—nothing less than I deserve—so I start to babble. “That bad, huh? May I recommend hot chocolate instead of sangria? The theobromine—”

“Why is Brett Feign trying to convince me to use his protégé, Harvey Sellers, for your painting?” His voice cuts me off like an ice blade.

Bollocks!
Sweat gathers in my armpits and my stomach clenches violently. He must have offered Feign an enormous amount of money for Feign to take this risk. But I can’t take any chances with Javier’s life—even if my instincts tell me that Hale would not hurt him.

“What do you mean?” I hedge, wishing for nothing more than a Margaret Thatcher voice but sounding instead like Snow White by the wishing well.

He gazes at me until I reach potassium. Then something changes in his eyes. They lose their icy regard and zoom in on my face like a camera lens.

“What are you hiding, Elisa?” he asks. The change is there in his voice too. For the first time, it is not cold. It’s calculating, with a warm undercurrent.

In that moment, I want to tell him my secret. I want to tell him everything about me. But I can’t form the words, and I finally understand why. Because the moment Hale knows, it becomes real. He has become the fantasy, just like this land once was. And he will be one more thing I have to lose.

“I don’t know why Feign is asking you to use Harvey Sellers.” I can’t look at him and lie, so I start worrying my camera’s strap around my wrist.

“Maybe you know this then. Why is there no record of anyone named Harvey Sellers anywhere? No personnel files, no bank accounts, no driver’s licenses, no addresses, no credit reports, nothing. It’s almost…as if he does not exist.” He speaks in a steady, measured tone—the way a chess player moves the pawns before playing the queen.

“In fact, Elisa, the dearth of information on Harvey Sellers is even more absolute than information about you. Then I remembered you said that CIS keeps immigration records sealed. So I became suspicious, Elisa. Very suspicious.”

He lowers his head and his eyes come level with mine. Moth and flame. I can’t even blink. When I don’t say anything, he goes on.

“But then last night, I found my clue in the most unexpected place.” He pauses again, and I sense he just played his queen. My breathing grows shallow and I think wildly of a hummingbird with broken wings. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

I shake my head.

“Don’t you? Well, let me see if I can help you. I remembered what Kasia Moss told me the very first time I laid eyes on you. Do
you
remember?”

“I remember seeing you.” I say the only truthful thing I have spoken for a while.

If he heard the softness of my voice, he shows no sign. “Kasia Moss said that the artist uses only black, white and gray in his paintings. Is that ringing any bells?”

I nod.

“Imagine my surprise when I saw those very same colors staining the T-shirt of your tango partner,
Javier Solis
, last night.”

Checkmate!
Javier’s paint stains—I never thought they would be the telltale clues.

“Can you explain the coincidence, Elisa?”

“No, I cannot.” I speak the truth because I really can’t explain. It is not my secret to tell.

He nods as if he already anticipated my answer. “Why is it that a woman with a four-point-oh GPA, who has invented a highly complex protein, and who has an IQ score of one-sixty, is unable to connect these dots?”

“How do you know my IQ score?”

“Arthur Denton gushed about you. Impressive, indeed. It explains your invention, your GPA, your ability to calculate dichotomous keys on the spot and your contribution at age sixteen to a paper called ‘The Hunger Genome’ authored by Peter Andrew Snow for the Cambridge University Press.”

At the sound of my father’s name, I gain some strength. “You take a lot of liberties with other people’s privacy, Mr. Hale, yet you seem to guard yours so closely. I’m sure you have your reasons. I’m really curious about them but I won’t probe. Maybe you should afford the same courtesy to others?” My voice is strong but my stomach is churning. Beads of sweats tickle my spine.

The change in his face is drastic. It goes from cautious to impassive in a nanosecond. He regards me intently, but the tension in his eyes slackens a little.

“
His
privacy, I can allow. But not yours. I have every intention of learning everything about you, Elisa.” He says my name very softly.

Under his gaze, I change. It’s not just the flash of heat and the flexing thighs. It’s something warm that pulsates between my lungs, perhaps a new organ that comes to life only in response to the likes of Mr. Hale.

For the first time this evening, I allow myself to look below his neck at all his finery—cashmere navy sweater, expensive dark jeans—money and power screaming from every inch. Instinctively, my eyes flit to my sneakers. How many hours do they have left in them? I shiver when I think of what he would say if my toe finally broke through the worn fabric. Next to him, I look like Cinderella at midnight but with no glass slipper left behind for him to find me. As if we weren’t already two worlds and thirty-one days apart. I risk a peek at him and see that same tender face as he regards my sneakers too.

He looks like he is about to say something but right then, the door of my apartment building opens and Reagan barges toward us, scarlet fascinator askew.

“Isa!” she roars.
“Where the
hell
have you been?”

Before I can begin to explain, she’s off. “I’ve been worried sick. Your note said you’d be back forty-five minutes ago. No phone calls! No car! No money! What if they came—” She stops abruptly when she finally notices my Mr. Hale. I peek at him. He is watching her carefully, his eyebrows knitted. I try to act as if nothing happened.

“Reg, I know, I’m sorry. I’ll explain when we get in.” I beg her with my eyes to stop. She nods and smiles at him.

“What’s up, Hale?” she throws at him. He looks like he has never been greeted with the words
what’s up
before. He nods once, which apparently means “fine, how are you?” and turns to me.

“How soon are you available for your first session in my home?” His voice is warm but firm, as if he wants to leave no doubt that the painting is definitely happening.

“Tomorrow.”
Ugh
, I sound like I swallowed helium.

“You don’t have plans to celebrate your graduation?” His voice softens.

These
are my plans to celebrate. “I did that last night.”

He frowns as though recalling something unpleasant. “Are you sure? It’s a big achievement in life,” he persists.

“The Solises are throwing me a party next weekend,” I answer, hoping to get him off this subject. And also wondering if it would be weird to invite him.

He nods as if pleased with my answer. “Then, I’ll meet you in front of the Reed Library right after your graduation ceremony.”

Uh-oh.
That might throw a wrench in my plans. “Umm, Mr. Hale, could you give me about half an hour after that? And you don’t have to pick me up. I can come to you.”

He shakes his head. “I said I’m picking you up. But you can have your half hour. I will meet you here at one thirty.” He sounds like an army general. If I weren’t so depleted from our conversation, it would be funny.

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

Suddenly, I realize I’m out of things to say and he is about to leave. I’m not sure what we accomplished here today, but I have the feeling that we just got a little closer. And despite all my wishes to stop time, tomorrow can’t come fast enough.

“Well, now that that’s all sorted out, you, inside with me.” Reagan has had it. “Your Cornish clotted cream is waiting and Colin Firth is not getting any younger.”

Hale watches her with a raised eyebrow. She grips my hand and hauls me away.

“Good night, Mr. Hale.” I smile at him over my shoulder, wondering why Colin Firth no longer looks handsome to me.

“Oh, Elisa?” he calls as we reach the steps.

I turn, too eager, and my breath catches in my throat. His otherworldly face—now free of anger or tension or accusations—has gentled with a glow from his eyes.

“Yes?” I breathe. Or maybe I sigh.

“Next time, please don’t write down your address on materials you give to strangers. It’s not very safe.”

He wants me safe, like he said yesterday
. My heart picks up a frantic rhythm. As though he can hear it, his lips lift into my favorite dimpled smile. I barely nod; I’m staring at his face, trying to commit every pore to memory.