18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“ O kay, here’s a question for you, Clarky.”

“Clarky? Hard pass.”

“You’re passing on a question I haven’t even asked yet?”

“No, I’m passing on you using that nickname for me. I’m not two.”

“Oh fine,” Cleo said with an eyeroll. “Okay, I want to know who this mystery person is that I’m taking you to visit.”

“What do you mean, mystery person?”

“You said it’s your grandma, but you haven’t said one thing about her since. And you get shifty and avoid answering every time I ask about it. I don’t think it’s your grandma. I’m going to find out when I drop you off in a few hours, but I’m curious who it really is and why you’ve refused to tell me.”

Clark rubbed his face and put two hands back on the wheel. “Okay, fine, I’m not visiting my grandma. In fact, I’m not going to see anyone in Austin. I’m also going to San Antonio.”

Cleo gaped. “Well, why didn’t you just say that? Why all the secrecy?”

Clark rubbed his palm on his jeans. “You had just accused me of following you, and I figured if I told you I was going the same place as you that you’d think I was stalking you or something.”

“Are you stalking me?” Cleo asked.

“Of course not,” Clark said too emphatically. Cleo wasn’t sure what was going on, but she was pretty certain Clark was still feeding her lies. The problem was, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. She hadn’t known him before a few days ago, so why would he have an agenda where she was concerned? Something wasn’t adding up, Cleo felt it in her gut.

“What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“B.S. You just earned a pass for not answering my question.”

“I answered your question.”

“Not truthfully.”

Clark was quiet. Cleo wanted him to tell her she was crazy and imagining things, but his silence told her she was right to suspect him. She just wished she knew what to suspect him of.

Finally he said, “I could go with you to your mom’s.” Once again her stomach dropped when she thought about the potential that she could’ve come all this way and her mom might not live there anymore or, worse, might be there and refuse to see her. She’d avoided thinking about it all day, but they were only a handful of hours from San Antonio now; she’d be facing the music before nightfall and felt all twisty about that.

“That’s a kind offer. I’ll think about it. Either way, that’s two passes for you and two passes for me,” Cleo said.

“That reminds me, what do you want for your prize from our first game, Madam?”

Cleo had thought about it but hadn’t settled on anything good. “Surprise me,” she finally said.

Clark’s eyebrows rose but then he nodded. “Okay then.”

Cleo sipped from her water bottle and shifted in her seat. Who knew driving for hours on end made your butt numb? She needed a good, distracting question. “Who have you been texting that makes you get that guilty look on your face?”

Those four deep grooves appeared on Clark’s brow again. “What are you talking about?”

“Three or four times I’ve caught you texting someone with the guiltiest look on your face.”

“I’m not texting anyone secretly. If I look a certain way it’s only because one of my sisters is probably giving me crap about something and I’m exasperated with her.” Clark’s looks had definitely been more furtive than exasperated.

“Show me the last five texts you’ve sent,” she said.

“I’m not going to show you my texts.”

“Spoken like a guilty man.”

“I’m not refusing because I’m guilty; I’m just incredibly private.”

“I’d say that’s a pass right there for evading the question.”

“I answered your stupid question; I’m just not giving in to ridiculous demands that accompanied the question.”

“This is exactly what you did with me and my doodling. You made me prove myself in order to avoid a pass. You’re refusing to show proof, so you should earn a pass.”

“Fine, I’ll read aloud the last text from each of the people I’ve communicated with most recently.” Clark pulled his phone out and opened his texts, his eyes scanning over them. “This one’s to my mom. I said, ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be back. It all depends on her.’”

Who was her ? Was it Cleo, or was it whoever Clark was going to see? Definitely not grandma. Was there a woman? A knot formed in her gut. Clark had told her he wasn’t involved with anyone, but maybe he was about to be?

“This is from my sister Vivien. She said, ‘That hurts, bro. I thought you had better taste than that. Persuasion is the best of the bunch.'”

“Ooh, she’s so right. Persuasion is the best Austen book.”

“Agree to disagree. It’s Northanger Abbey.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“Next, my buddy O’Reilly asked, ‘Where did you go, man? At least tell me you caught the game last night.’ I did not.”

Okay, that was three down, and so far none had seemed suspicious enough to make him look like he had something to hide, not like the texts he sent or received last night before bed had made him look.

“We’re to the fourth one now. My friend Farrah said, ‘Call me.’”

Had he called her? Not when Cleo had been with him. Was Farrah the her from Clark’s mom’s text? Ugh, enough! That train of thought was going off the rails and Cleo was jumping before it got there.

“And the fifth person is a guy I…work with named Roscoe. I wrote,” Clark cleared his throat before continuing. “I wrote, ‘I need more time, just a couple more days; then I promise you’ll have it.’”

Cleo bit her lip, considering what it might be that Clark needed more time to give this Roscoe. A manuscript? Cleo hadn’t seen any evidence of Clark working on anything, so she doubted that was it.

They drove in silence for several minutes. Cleo hardly noticed the greenery flashing past, so caught up was she in the questions she and Clark were asking each other. What had he promised this Roscoe he’d have?

They hadn’t passed into Texas yet, but there were signs for a place called Texarkana that must be a city on the Arkansas/Texas border. They pulled off there thirty minutes later for a bathroom/snack break. Cleo decided to find snacks this time that she’d never tried before.

“I’ll drive,” Clark offered when Cleo got back to the car.

She ducked into the seat. “I had no idea gas stations in the south were–”

“Amazing?”

“Right? I got us a bunch of stuff to try. Boiled peanuts, fried moonpies, jalapeno jerky, and fried chicken on a stick.”

“For a girl who’s only eaten salads so far, this is a little out of character, doncha think?”

“Oh, you’re going to eat them. I just want a nibble of each.”

Texarkana was apparently two cities, one in Arkansas and one in Texas. They were on the Arkansas side now. Cleo’s lips turned up as she started thinking about all the other names you could make by blending states together.

“What are you grinning at?” Clark asked.

“At the name Texarkana.”

“Yeah, I’d love to meet the guy who came up with that.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a guy. It was a whole committee,” Cleo guessed. “Half the members were from Arkansas, the other half from Texas. The city was smack dab on the border between the two states, and even though they’d measured the entire area, they’d discovered that they had the same amount of city in each state, down to the millimeter. So they flipped a coin to determine which state got to start the city’s name and which got to end it. To this day, Arkansas has never quite gotten over being the butt of the word.”

“You made that up,” Clark asserted. Cleo allowed a small smile, neither confirming nor denying that. Of course she’d made it up.

She said, “Every state should have that. Illimissouri . Pennselaware .”

Clark chimed in. “ Georgorida .” Cleo guffawed. That was a good one.

“ Utaho .”

Clark chuckled. “ Iowota .”

“ Louisissippi .”

He belly laughed, and the sound made chills race up Cleo’s spine. “‘Hi, I’m from Louisissippi, Mississippi.’”

They each shared a couple more until Cleo was laughing so much that her stomach hurt and she had to massage her cheek muscles. She hadn’t laughed that hard in a really long time. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that. Jameson would never have been silly like this with her. Just another reason why she was glad to be rid of him. She needed more laughter in her life, and she’d never have gotten it married to him.

Clark said, “You know, my Mom grew up not far from here.”

“Really? Where?”

“A little town called Chandler.”

“So many boy names. Jackson, Chandler.”

“Yeah, and it’s right outside of Tyler.”

“That’s awesome. Someday, I’ll have three sons and name them Jackson, Chandler, and Tyler,” Cleo joked.

Clark didn’t reply, and when Cleo glanced at him he was studying her with an expression that made her squirm. He didn’t look for long because he was driving, but his eyes glanced back at her several more times with that intense expression. Her mind flashed back to the conversation she’d had yesterday with Dottie in the kitchen about how Clark looked at her. Is this what Dottie had been talking about? The twisty sensation was back, but for a completely different reason. She liked this twisty feeling, even if it did discomfit her. She was just about to say something when he said, “That sounds perfect.”

The mood had changed from companionable to potent, tilting her world upside down for a minute. She tried to right it by saying, “I want some solid Texmex for dinner tonight.”

“I’m sure that won’t be hard to find,” Clark agreed.

Needing something to occupy her hands, Cleo pulled out her notebook and began working without needing to put much thought into what she was creating. She’d drawn the Black-Eyed Susan almost before she’d realized she was doing it. The ivy trellises crept up the sides of the house, window boxes bursting with brightly colored flowers. Cleo even drew the chickens in the yard, against her better judgment. Would it feel good to make the one who attacked her fall over dead on the page? Nah. Instead, there was Dottie, feeding and talking to them like they were her babies. The verdant, green hills rose up behind the house, and the sky was peppered with soft, white clouds. Take away the fowl and that view was pretty much perfect.

“You have real talent,” Clark commented. Cleo hadn’t been trying to hide the drawing from him, but she still blushed, knowing he’d seen it. She didn’t share her work with many. “You won’t need to work in the Met someday; your art will just hang there.”

“Ha! Hardly. I used to think I’d be satisfied with a small art show somewhere inconspicuous, but now I don’t even know about that.”

“Why don’t you submit to an art show? Have you even entered your drawings anywhere?”

“No way. I was kidding. My art isn’t good enough to enter it.”

“Don’t sell yourself short; it’s definitely good enough. I have a friend who I could–”

“No,” she cut him off. “Thank you, but no.” Clark didn’t reply but she could tell he had a lot more he wanted to say. She just wasn’t in a place right now where she could entertain any thoughts past what she’d come here to Texas to do, so she was grateful that he let the subject drop.

For the next few hours Cleo lost herself in Mulhoney, Wisconsin and Hope Was Here , trying to forget her own troubles in the face of Hope’s more difficult ones. She couldn’t help but notice the parallels with her own life, though, and wondered if that was just a coincidence.