7. Jensen

CHAPTER 7

JENSEN

Y esterday with Billie was great. We stayed inside all day, and she entertained me, and I read a whole book — which is more than I’ve read in years and years. I haven’t had time for that since I was a kid.

To my relief, I felt like I was kind of getting through to her, which is good if I’m going to be stuck here with her for two weeks. Not only that, but I surprised myself by genuinely being quite interested in her work.

I’ve never really thought about photography as a profession before. I think I always thought it was a job limited to people who take pictures of models or people like me, or a faction of journalists who want to bother you at all times.

But these photos, these are for articles. Not trashy newspaper articles or paparazzi-magazine-type articles, but real journals with scientists saying things that matter. The idea of it sends a thrill right through me, like this is the proof I’ve been looking for that life is more than smiling placidly and waving.

It looks like I was right after all. Almost every single other person on earth does a more exciting, interesting, and important job than me.

But that was yesterday.

Today isn’t going quite as well.

Billie’s gone off into the forest to hunt down some birds and left me with the task of preparing our food and lighting a fire. I had wanted to go with her, but she told me to stay in the cabin because she was going into the thickest part of the forest and didn’t want me crashing through the undergrowth.

“Are you sure you know how to do this?” she asked as she left me with the job.

I shrugged. “Oh, sure. I can figure it out.”

She gave me an odd look but must have decided to trust me, because she bade me goodbye and vanished.

And when she gets back, she’s going to realize she’s made a horrible mistake. I can’t light a fire. I can’t cook. I can barely make the bed.

What’s worse is I can’t even look up how to do it on the internet, because there is no internet and I have no phone.

I was pretty sure that wood was meant to burn, but I piled a bunch of sticks into the pit, threw a match in, and nothing happened. I’m not totally stupid — I made sure the sticks were dry first. But I’m half a box of matches down now, and I still have no fire to show for it.

I had no idea it was this complicated.

There’s a stove in the cabin, anyway. I don’t know why we can’t just use that to cook. It must be easier than all this messing around with fire. How did they even invent fire, anyway? Was it lightning? A lightning bolt striking a tree and setting it ablaze? That seems like a scary way to make an invention, but I guess someone must have looked at it and thought to themselves, huh, imagine if we could harness that and throw bacon in it.

The fact is, Billie asked me for lunch and a fire. At this rate, it looks like she’s not going to get a fire. But at least I can deliver on lunch.

I give up playing with sticks and decide to cut my losses and use the stove instead. Surely that’s what it’s there for.

The downside to using a stove is that I don’t do that very often either. Fortunately, I’ve had a little practice at George’s lately, so I’m not completely incompetent when it comes to the concept of turning it on.

All of the ready meals in his freezer were fancy and expensive, though, with easy-open plastic lids and explicit microwaving instructions. Cans are a little more complicated. I actually have to wrestle with a can opener and figure out how much is appropriate for two people to eat.

In the end, I throw the whole can in, to be safe. It doesn’t help that the instructions are in Spanish too. I can’t read them, and I can’t use my phone to translate either. This rustic lifestyle sucks.

When Billie gets back, she finds a handful of logs abandoned by the fire pit, and comes inside to see me standing grumpily in the kitchen, chunks of soup slopped everywhere.

I hear the door open and I turn to her, clutching a wooden spoon and grinning sheepishly.

Her eyes widen in horror as she takes in the scene, and I think for a second that she’s going to yell at me, but then her face twists and she bursts out laughing. “What the hell is all this!”

“Lunch?”

Still laughing, she shakes her head. “Where on earth did you come from?”

“Sólveigr,” I say, even though I know full well that’s not what she’s asking.

She covers her mouth to pretend she’s not amused, but doesn’t stop laughing. “When was the last time you cooked?”

“About three days ago. Give or take.”

“Really?” Her eyes widen in disbelief again. “Because this looks like the work of someone who’s never cooked a day in his life.”

“Okay, so I don’t cook often,” I say defensively. “But I can more or less manage to make something edible.”

“Edible, huh?” She raises an eyebrow, surveying the damage again. “I sure hope you’re not expecting me to clean all this up.”

“No,” I huff. “I was just waiting for you to show me where the cleaning stuff was.”

I don’t know why getting her approval is so important to me, but the truth is that I had barely considered the future consequences beyond cook lunch . Tidy up was far, far in the future, and the fact that she doesn’t believe that I would do it without being asked does sting a little.

“Over here,” Billie says, marching over to and opening a cupboard. “All the cleaning supplies you could possibly need.”

“Thanks.”

“I assume you know how to clean up?”

Again, the insinuation that I’m useless makes me bristle. “I’m not a complete incompetent,” I scoff.

She raises both eyebrows without comment, then says, “Tell you what, why don’t I take over dinner, and you can start cleaning?”

Much as I want to protest that I could do it myself, I have pretty much categorically proven that I can’t. “Okay, fine.”

I snatch up the cleaning products and starting to tidy up some of my mess. I keep noticing her glance at me and bite her lip as if to stifle a giggle, which does nothing to improve my mood.

I guess this is better than her being angry with me. But I’d like her to see me as someone who’s capable of looking after himself, because despite the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m used to a lavish lifestyle, I can more or less manage to fend for myself on an island.

Sort of, anyway.

It would help if there was a restaurant.

When we finally sit down to eat, there’s a weird feeling in the air, and I kind of get the sense that she wants to avoid me. But she’s doing me the honor of sitting down at the table with me, so I should at least make an effort to be nice to her.

I don’t try to be an asshole on purpose. I just come across that way sometimes because I forget that not everyone’s been given everything they ever wanted. That sounds so snobbish, I know — that I forget that other people live normal lives and worry about normal things.

But I do.

I try my best to be kind and polite — when I’m not out partying, anyway. And even then, I mostly embarrass myself with the dumb stuff I do.

Unfortunately for me, you get a lot of attention when you do dumb stuff, and I like attention.

“Let me guess,” says Billie.

We had been sitting in total silence, so her speaking startles me. I blink in confusion. “Guess what?”

“Yacht, charity work, can’t cook. Son of a CEO?”

I shrug, not sure I’m liking where this is going. “Something like that.”

“Heir to a fortune? Lottery winner? No, can’t be that — this is lifetime-of-privilege stuff.”

“Why do you need to know, anyway?” I snap, and immediately feel bad seeing the way her face falls.

“Sorry. I was just curious. I don’t know anything about you.”

I sigh. She’s not going to rest until I give her an answer, so I might as well go along with the narrative she’s constructing inside her head. “Yes, okay? My father and mother are both rich, and important in the places they work. Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I did grow up with a chef and a cleaner. That doesn’t mean I’m an imbecile.”

“No,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” I say. But I’m not sure how much I mean it.

We don’t talk much more after that, and when dinner is done, Billie excuses herself to her room, leaving me all alone in the kitchen to finish washing up.

Looks like living here might be harder than I expected after all.