She sucked on her teeth and watched his head nod, as though he might coax her into nodding along with him. She finished her whiskey and rubbed her head. She closed her eyes and exhaled and let a string of Okay okay okays trail from her lips as they both drifted into silence.
The buzzer woke her. It didn’t make sense. She sat up on the couch and it spun her and it made her nauseated. It was still bright out, certainly not evening yet, but was it today or tomorrow? White sunlight and crisp shadows shone on the walls opposite the windows. She hadn’t seen crisp shadows in days. She hadn’t remembered dozing off. She sensed Will moving from the bedroom to the door.
There was no intercom but he buzzed the buzzee up anyway. They heard the heavy tread on the stairs and Will peered through the eyehole.
“Who is it?” Whitney said.
“It’s Jack,” Will said.
Will put his hand on the dead bolt and turned to Whitney. There was a new starvation in his eyes. “Tell me now, once and for all: Did you or didn’t you? Just tell me before I open this door.”
“No! For the last time: No.”
Will held on her, and licked his lower lip, and then turned the bolt and swung the door wide.
“Hey…Will…” Jack said, stopping short of the threshold, a look on his face that suggested he was counting on it being Whitney. He had a stuffed travel duffel over his shoulder, striped in the green and black of his team colors.
Will scoured Jack’s face, searching for confirmation of Whitney’s assertion. But it was blank and blameless as ever.
“Hey,” Whitney said, emerging within sight of the doorway. “I thought you had to catch a flight?”
Will moved aside and Jack stepped tentatively into the apartment. He reached for his back pocket and pulled out Whitney’s passport and credit card.
“Jesus,” she said. “I hadn’t even noticed. What would I have…”
She took them from him and he explained, “They were on the floor of the bathroom. Must’ve fallen out when you took a shower.”
As the words were coming out of his mouth, Jack seemed to be comprehending them, and he looked at her, panicked, with the question all over his face: Had he said too much? He kept his body pointed in Whitney’s direction, relying on her to lead.
“Thank you, thank you, seriously. What a pain in the ass you’ve saved me. Imagine us getting to the airport after all this time only to…I really hope this didn’t delay you too much. You said your flight’s at—”
“Nah, plenty of time. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t have another problem, since it’d be hard to get it back once…Anyway, at least I knew where to find you.”
He looked as unrested as they did. It had only been the final night of the first part of his life.
“That’s not all you’re taking with you, is it?” she said.
“I have a car downstairs. Couple bags. But the team’s shipping the rest. Shouldn’t be too—”
“Well, thanks,” she said.
“Hey, before I go,” Jack said, turning to Will but only glancing at him, not holding him in his eyes, “you haven’t heard from Jenna this morning, have you?”
Jack’s face was cautious, but Will could tell he wasn’t capable of concealing whatever it was he wanted to say, whatever he was getting at. Will could see that more than concern, there was even a little disdain creeping into Jack’s face.
“Not this morning,” Will said. “Just for a few hours after the festival yesterday. I was back here by eight. Why?”
“I got this crazy email this morning. Right as I was packing up. It was from that guy Gram. He had my email from when I made the reservation for Sunday dinner. He said he knew that I knew where she was, and that he needed to get in touch with her. I have no idea what he was getting at, if it was some trick or something—I didn’t respond. But he said the police were looking for her. They’d been in touch with him, they’d somehow got his address because she’d written it down at some point coming into the country. I don’t know if she told you, but he kinda came at her after she stayed at my place the other night. Called her names, really made her feel uncomfortable. That’s why she wound up crashing with me. I guess you never know, with the stuff she says, how much of it is…But if any part of it was true, it sounded bad. Anyway, this note from Gram, I didn’t know if it was some kind of trap or what. She didn’t mention anything about police when you were together, did she?”
Will’s eyes were still, his mind rolling through the half-true stories and the half-fake ones, but all he did was jut out his lower lip and say, “She didn’t mention anything, no.”
Jack nodded slowly. “Well, all right, then. I sent her an email saying Gram had been in touch, and then I got a second email from him in the car on the way over here, but no response from her. Not even a call from the hotel to say Nice knowin’ ya or whatever. I guess you can’t expect…Anyway, maybe she’s already at the airport. Maybe she’s even already in the air.”
Jack was watching Whitney for a cue and Whitney was watching Will. Her face was still humming from her nap, her head wasn’t screwed on straight. What did Will know about it, really? Will shrugged again: innocent of knowledge, unhelpful.
“All right, well,” Jack said, “I guess I’ll see you guys. Sorry to barge in like this, I know you’re getting ready to go too, and have stuff to…I just wanted to make sure you got—”
“No, no, thank you,” Whitney said, looking back and forth between the two boys, trying to key
