Page 29 of Script Swap
“I thought you told me you were almost done.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.”
“Why not?”
Dear reader, you might be wondering: did I scream?
Almost.
I didn’t, though, because this was Bobby we were talking about, and since this was Bobby, this was a real question.Hemeantit.Like there was one answer, and like I could justsayit.
So, I drew a deep breath and said, “I don’t know.It’s complicated.You revise one part, and that means you have to go back and change another part, and that changes something else, so then you have to fix that.It’s like a horrible Rube Goldberg machine that never actually catches the mouse at the end.”
I thought that was a pretty neat piece of bait, but Bobby didn’t take it.“But these new revisions, the ones you discovered as you were fixing other stuff, they’re going well?”
“Yes, yeah, I guess.”
“That’s good.”
“Uh huh.”
(Life hack:uh huhis a fantastic way of signaling the end of a conversation, particularly with a significant other.)
Unless, apparently, that significant other is Bobby Mai, because he said, “When do you think you’ll be done?”
“I don’t know, Bobby.”
“Is it going to take long?”
“I.Don’t.Know.”
“Do you want me to help you make a list of everything you want to change?”
“No!”The word was practically a shout.“I don’t need a list, Bobby.I don’t need help.I’m fine.It’s a complicated process.It’s—it’s delicate.It’s not linear, and it’s not something you can check off like you’re shopping for groceries.”
(Although, a treacherous part of me said, a list was exactly what Hugo had advised.)
We drove a quarter mile.The ferns lifted and fell in the air displaced by Bobby’s cruiser.Out in the woods, the trees wilted in the heat, branches drooping, needles dull and waxy.
I thought I’d reined myself in, but when I spoke again, my voice had a rather surly attempt at appeasement that I couldn’t quite file down.“I appreciate you checking in.I know you care, and it means a lot to me.”
“I feel like I upset you.”
“You didn’t upset me.I mean, I got upset, but that’s about me, not about you.I’m…frustrated.And I didn’t handle it well.I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“No, you don’t have to be sorry, Bobby.”
He turned, smiled at me, and put his hand on my knee.
Which, let me tell you, only made me feel more miserable for the rest of the drive.
TheEstatesin Mossfern Estates, it turned out, was a bit optimistic.The apartments had a scenic enough location, built among old-growth trees, with plenty of shade and—very important for this guy—parking.The building’s cinderblock foundation had been painted brown.The shingle siding was brown too.A porch jutted off the side of the structure, and it consisted of a piece of sheet metal supported by a two-by-four and a retaining wall.Next to the door, a disintegrating blue tarp only partially covered a stack of bricks.Someone, at some point, had planted a lone hosta under one of the front windows, and the leaves were practically white.
I followed Bobby to the door, which opened onto a hallway that smelled like cat pee and, well, less desirable things.(One of those less desirable things was a hot, metallic smell I associated with roasting beets, and while Indira could make anything delicious and she was a mage in the kitchen—it’s even nerdier if you saymageinstead ofmagician—I have strong feelings about eating something that tastes like a mouthful of dirt.)
(Unless it’s that dessert you make with crushed-up Oreos and gummy worms—nowthere’sa dessert.)
