Page 28 of Tributary

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Asa

THIS EQUINOX FESTIVAL turns out to be delightful. It reminds me of a Purim festival my nanny took me to when I was a kid—everyone in costumes, running around with cotton candy and cookies.

I can tell half the town is staring as I situate myself protectively close to Diana Crawford, which means I’m succeeding in signaling that I’m laying claim to her. I saw hints and glimpses of her breaking down her defenses last night, and I’m more determined than ever to convince her to give me a proper chance. If she’s got trust issues, well then I’m going to prove my trustworthiness one inch at a time until she at least gives me her phone number. Then maybe we can progress to spending the night together. The entire night, next time.

The countdown clock on the library starts beeping, and everyone swarms to the amphitheater. Rose Mitchell grabs the microphone and starts shouting excitedly. “Ok, everyone! They’re a block away. I told Abigail to just drive right up to the barricade and they can just leap out of—oh my god! They’re here!”

A roar goes up as Abigail’s little car comes to a stop at the sawhorses blocking off the town center. Rose drops the microphone on the ground and races across the street as townspeople jump and clap. Even Daniel Crawford picks up the pace as he approaches the car, where Rose is extracting her adult son from the passenger seat. Hunter seems uncharacteristically joyful, lifting up his mother and spinning her around. I squeeze Diana’s knee. She seems in no hurry to rush over to her brother, so I’m in no hurry to leave her side.

“What’s Abigail doing now?” Diana squints over to the circle of hugging Crawfords, whose dark heads all blend together in a tight circle as the townspeople start to swarm.

I see Abigail jump up and down and lift her left hand. A glint from a gemstone catches my eye. “Hm,” I say. “Looks like she picked up some frosting along with Hunter at the airport.”

“Hunter proposed? Get out!” She stands from her seat. Thinking she will head over to her family, I’m surprised when she veers right and cracks open a beer from in the food tent.

“Aren’t you going to go say hello?”

“Psh. I’ll give him a hug in awhile after everyone else is done checking him for alien probes.”

I lean past her and grab a beer and a necklace of circular pretzels from a wooden rack on the table. “What’s the deal with the pretzel jewelry?”

“So you don’t get too wasted too quickly,” she says, plucking a snack from my neck. I love the familiarity of the gesture and smile when she reaches across my chest for another pretzel. “I just can’t believe Hunter is going to marry Abigail.”

“Don’t you like her?”

“What? No! I mean, yes. I love her. But Hunter is…or he’s always just been such a douche.”

I look across the crowd, to where Hunter is reluctantly accepting hugs from people and stiffly receiving cheek kisses. Diana’s not entirely wrong—her brother is sort of a cyborg unless he’s talking about cell behaviors. But his arm around Abigail’s shoulder is relaxed, and his body seems to shimmer whenever he looks her way. “They seem good for each other,” I tell her.

Diana’s response is lost to feedback from the microphone as the band starts back up again. I hear the slow, bluesy refrain of “Fly Me to the Moon.” I finish my beer and chuck it in the nearby recycling bin and extend my hand toward Diana. “Dance with me,” I tell her.

For some reason, she agrees, and I lead her closer to the stage. Not many people are dancing—most are still ogling Abigail’s ring or helping themselves to plates of potato salad. But it doesn’t matter. Nobody else exists for me when Diana’s around, anyway. I tug her close against me, inhaling the scent of witch hazel and other herbs in her hair. She smells like her passion, like her magnificent ability to coax life from tiny seeds. I can smell the faint remnants of the soil she was working with, and I let her scent settle into my shirt.

We spin slowly around in a circle, my hand rubbing her lower back slowly and her fingers lightly toying with the seam of my shirt at my shoulders. I love the firm feel of her pressed against me, and I can almost feel our hearts synchronized to the strong pulse of the music.

“Let me invest in your business,” I tell her. “Or just let me lend you the money you need.”

She doesn’t look up, but presses her cheek against my shirt. “Why would I do that?”

“Because the world needs what you’re doing, Diana. And because I want your face to always look as happy as it does when you talk about your research.”

We spin in silence a bit more. She doesn’t answer me. “I can’t be beholden to you, Asa. I’ve been certain before, sure that I was making the right choices. And I lost everything.”

“Diana,” I stop, putting my hands on her shoulders so I can look her in the eye. “You have not lost anything. Not anything that matters. Do you even know how amazing you are?”

“Do you know how fucking amazing I was?? You know nothing, Wexler.”

“Well why don’t you tell me, then, Dr. Crawford. Because I definitely do know business, and you’re sitting on a gold mine over there. You and Moorely could be solving world hunger with that setup. Surely you know that.”

She sinks into a hay bale as the band stops and a group of girls in ballet tights prances out into the street. As Aneke drags Hunter to the seat of honor in the center, the little girls begin to act out the Big Bang, with red and orange streamers and buckets of water they seem to be throwing at Hunter, who laughs. Somewhere between a kid dressed like an amoeba and a kid dressed like a dinosaur, Diana wanders away.

I only realize this when her brother Archer plunks down next to me on the hay bale. “Wexler,” he says tilting his beer bottle my direction. We watch the dancers in silence for a bit until he says, “You know you get under my sister’s skin, right?”

“I’ve noticed, yes.”

“You should know that everyone’s rooting for you, man.” I turn to look at him, and he’s staring at me, hopefully. “She’s been holed up in her plant store pretending to be busy for years,” he continues. “I don’t know what the hell some guy did to her in grad school, but she hasn’t been properly grouchy since, and she’s been mean as a snake since the blizzard.”

“Diana grouchy is a…good thing?” In my family, visible irritation is acceptable only when reservations have been cancelled. I have a lot to learn about Crawford family interpersonal dynamics.

“Diana grouchy is a very good thing,” he says, slapping me on the back. “It means her wheels are churning. And I know you’re trying to help her make sound business choices. Financial stability will really piss her off, which means she’ll channel that anger into brewing beer for me…and possibly clean my house. So you let me know how I can help.”

“I’ll do that, Archer.”

He tosses his empty bottle into the recycling. “Hook shot!” He yells. “I’m off. Do not tell her we talked.” With a salute, he crosses the room to harass a group of young women trying to balance eggs on their tip. I sit for a bit, warmed by the idea that Diana’s family has noticed I’m into her and wants to help her get out of her own way.

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