“I literally have no fucking idea,” Aria said.
“Seriously? Hm. Maybe Luke put them there,” Taylor said, throwing the paper down to go ask him.
Aria watched him walk over to Luke’s tent and crouch down to pet Palin, while he asked Luke about the items. The confused look on his face did not dissipate. He came back to the car. “Nope. He’s got no idea either. But he saw ’em there before I did and was about to tell us how dumb it was to keep our stuff there out in the open for everyone to see.”
Aria thought about telling Taylor about the first items that she had found in the exact same place, but decided against it. “I’m totally keeping this, then,” Taylor said, lifting the sunscreen into the air. “I’d like to avoid looking like a tomato, thank you. I’m so white I’m practically see-through.” He stashed it in his backpack. “Oh, and this. I have to keep this because you never know when that shit’s gonna start,” he said, framing the feminine hygiene pads between his hands as a joke. Aria started laughing and so did he. “Come on, I know what we’re gonna do today!” he said, displaying the Subway gift card between his fingers.
Taylor began to open the door of the car, taken by the wave of the impulse to walk with Aria straight to the store. “OK, wait just a minute. I’ve got to go ask Mike about something. Give me ten minutes,” Aria said.
“OK, hurry up ’cause I’m hungry.” Taylor said, lifting the newspaper back up in front of his face.
Mike was cleaning the dirt off of a pair of Carhartt working boots. He stopped what he was doing when Aria approached him. “Hey, did you see anyone put stuff on the hood of our car?” she asked.
Mike peered around her in the direction of the Land Cruiser. “Nah, I can’t say that I did. Course I’s gone most o’ the day.” He went back to his work on the boots as if their conversation were over.
“Do you know if anyone was here today?” Aria asked. Given the proximity of his tent to the Land Cruiser, Mike was her best chance at finding out who was leaving things on the hood of the car, so she was grasping at straws.
“Ya might try Bob. I don’t think he went no place today.”
“OK, thanks anyway,” Aria said, running over to Robert’s tent instead. True to form, he was there, whittling away on a little wooden statue of a bluebird. “Hey, did you see anyone put stuff on the hood of our car?” she said, startling him out of the asylum of his artistry.
Robert stopped to think. “As a matter of fact I might’ve. There was a willowy fella here earlier today. I figured he was one a’ Luke’s friends or somethin’ ’cause he ran over toward his place.”
“Well, can you remember what he looked like or anything?” Aria pleaded.
“Well, lemme think. He was a tall, skinny fella. He was dressed proper. And he might’a had dark skin. But it could’a just been cause the light was shinin’ in my eyes. Ya think it might’a been a friend o’ yours?”
“I don’t know,” Aria said. “If you see him again, can you stop him and ask him who he is?”
“Sure thing,” Robert said, smiling at Aria with his toothless smile, pleased to be included in the sudden intrigue of the mystery afoot.
Aria ran back toward the car, knocking on the passenger window to indicate her readiness to go.
The Subway store smelled like Elysium. The yeasty smell of freshly baked bread turning from white to golden brown made both Taylor and Aria feel buttoned up in warmth. The gift card had $10 on it. They ordered a foot-long veggie sandwich and deliberated over what makings to add to it while the man behind the counter slid it down the bar. They took it, with a bag of salt and vinegar chips, to one of the tables and each took half of it.
They indulged in silence until Taylor decided to throw in casually, “I met a guy. I mean, it’s prob’ly nothing, but whatever.”
“You’re just now telling me this?” Aria asked, amused.
“He came into the studio a couple of times this week. And when I was on my break, he took me to go get a coffee. He looked at me all weird ’cause I ordered an orange juice. He took me home after my shift was done and I fucked him.” Taylor lifted his eyebrow and opened his mouth wide; impersonating the look of self-congratulatory shock that he imagined Aria would feel hearing the news.
Aria smacked his arm affectionately. “Well … what’s his name?” she asked.
“His name’s Dan,” Taylor said, his mouth full of food.
“Do you like him?” Aria asked.
“Yeah, I mean I guess. He’s good so far,” Taylor said, sorting through the way he really felt about the sizeable gap in their age difference and life circumstances.
Taylor had been working at the front desk the day that Dan came into the studio. Dan was in his fifties, a retail real estate executive with an affinity for buying houses at auction and flipping them. Except for the impeccable fit of his black turtleneck sweater and perhaps the tightness of the way he strung his words together, nothing about him would lead someone to guess that he was gay. His penchant for real estate was surpassed only by his penchant for stage acting and for younger men. In the first two minutes of their meeting, Dan had told Taylor that he looked like a Roman statue come to life. The hunt had already begun.
They had coffee at a café a block away from the studio. Instead of asking Taylor about his life, Dan had lamented how many men in the past had broken his heart.
