Twilight time, p.16
Twilight Time, page 16
“Are you miserable, Sophia?” The sudden shift in tone from argumentative to mournful in Earl had Maia focusing her camera on him.
“No, honey bunny. Never. But we got lucky. And I don’t want you or anyone else thinking that all couples have what we’ve had all these years. Sometimes, work and compromise aren’t enough. Sometimes, nothing will make two people compatible. And it’s never our place to judge others.”
“See why I love her so much?” Earl’s eyes grew misty with emotion. “Smartest thing I ever did was ask her to marry me.”
Sophia gave her husband’s hand a series of pats. “And the smartest thing I ever did was say yes.”
Their heads bent close together, and Maia felt torn between getting their sentimental kiss on video and not wanting to intrude on such a personal moment.
“Maia!”
Well, crap. Spencer’s shout spoiled the aura of sweetness like squeezing a fresh lemon. She’d forgotten all about him. With a stifled sigh of aggravation, she stopped the recording.
Woof! Woof!
And she knew exactly who’d led Spence to her hiding place.
Lily came bounding toward her first, a blur of white and multi-colored fur, startling the older couple.
“It’s okay,” she said as Lily collided with her in the camp chair. “They’re with me.”
As if to confirm the statement, her pooch licked her face in long, wet strokes. This type of greeting, she’d allow. From Lily.
But Spence better not try it, or she’d deck him.
Chapter 15
If pressed, Spence couldn’t say with a hundred percent certainty what reaction he’d expected from Maia when he caught up with her. What he never expected was what he got: a relaxed and carefree-looking Maia, sitting with an older couple who greeted him with warmth.
“Sophia, Earl,” she said, “this is my dog, Lily. And that’s Spence. He and I are traveling together.”
The man eyed him with open suspicion, but the woman beamed with a sunshiny welcome. “Hello, Spence. Nice to meet you. We’ve been having the most marvelous conversation with your girlfriend. Come, join us.”
“Actually,” Maia said, nudging Lily down and getting to her feet, “we should get back to our own campsite. I’ve taken up enough of your time. You can’t keep the fish waiting all day.”
“Hmmph! Or Earl, for that matter,” Sophia said with a cackle.
“Or Earl,” she repeated, and they both laughed as if they’d shared some hilarious joke no one else was privy to. “Thanks for talking with me.”
The woman named Sophia jerked her head in Spence’s direction. “Does he know how to change a diaper?”
Spence’s attention veered to the old lady. Say what?
“I have no idea.”
“Be sure to find out before you marry him, okay?”
Maia laughed, which should have put him at ease, but had the direct opposite effect. An icy ball formed in his stomach.
“I give you my solemn promise,” Maia replied.
The woman gave him a second, more cursory, visual assessment, then nodded. “Good. What happens next, dear?”
“I’ll spend some time editing the material today. Once that’s done, I’ll send you a copy for review. Do you have access to email?”
“You bet,” the man said. “Wi-Fi can be pretty spotty at a lot of campsites, so we had a hotspot installed in the RV.” He rattled off an email address while Maia noted it in her phone.
“Got it. I’ll be in touch later this afternoon.”
“And when will this air?”
“Once I have your approval, I can upload it within a few hours, depending upon our own Wi-Fi situation. I’ll be happy to send you a link to share with friends and family when it’s up.”
“That sounds wonderful.” The woman clapped and rose to hug Maia. “Thank you.”
“No. Thank you. It was a pleasure to talk to you both.” Maia finally addressed Spence directly. “Ready to go?”
“Sure,” he said, as if he hadn’t just been dragged through the woods by her dog to find her to begin with.
Maia patted her thigh. “Come on, Lily.”
With her loyal dog at her side, she waved to the couple and headed for the path back to their RV.
Spence paused only long enough to comment, “Nice meeting you,” to them before following along into the woods. As they trudged back, he waited until they were out of earshot of others before asking, “What was all that about?”
She stopped, turned toward him, and waited until he stood by her side before continuing. “When I left the RV earlier, I was fuming. For all the wrong reasons. Until I thought about what you said. Really thought about it. And I realized you were right. I don’t think I considered what I was doing with my videos in the same way you did, but you had a valid point.”
He nearly stumbled over a raised tree root and lurched to recover from both the forward pitch and her apology. “I was coming here to tell you the same thing.”
At first, her interpretation of his privileged upbringing got his back up. Remarks about his parents and siblings often had that effect on him, and his stubborn nature refused to put any weight behind her commentary. He couldn’t help being born into a specific family any more than she could. But the farther he had to walk to find her, the more time her words had to slip through his arrogance. A few sentences struck hard.
That little story you told about the guy who set you up? Do you have any idea what would have happened to someone like me if I’d wound up in that police station?
You know what talks louder than looks? Money. Money and power.
It’s not the same experience when you’re eating ramen because it’s all your mom can afford. Because your dad died somewhere you’ve never heard of in Indiana when his tractor-trailer jackknifed on an icy road.
That last statement hit him the hardest. Both his parents had died peacefully, at home, surrounded by family and the best care money could buy. He’d been a full-fledged adult living on his own when they passed. He couldn’t imagine the pain she’d endured as a child in that situation.
“You made some solid points, as well,” he murmured.
“Good. Then we both learned something this morning.”
“I guess so. Now, indulge my curiosity. What was that old lady saying about changing a diaper?”
Her laughter skittered down his spine. “I just spent the last half-hour interviewing them. You’ll have to watch the footage to understand the reference.”
“You interviewed them? What for?”
She glanced up at him and smirked. “You’d be surprised at what people will say when you ask to interview them. You’d think they would put up their guards, but they actually let down their defenses. Once, I was at this church festival. I was supposed to be doing a fluffy little advertisement for them. You know.” Her voice took on the tone of a carnival barker. “‘Got nothing to do with the kids this weekend? Come on down. Have a corn dog or a few zeppoles. There’s a petting zoo where the little ones can feed baby goats.’ Yadda, yadda, yadda. So, I’m wandering around, interviewing the volunteers at different stations set up on the church grounds, and I wind up talking to this lady at the entrance. She’s seated at a card table with a steel cash box and little rubber stamp and ink pad. After each person paid their admission, she’d stamp the back of their hands with a red smiley face. So, we’re chitchatting, talking about the cost per person and all of a sudden, she lets slip that she’s having an affair with the choir director.”
“Oh, come on. What’d she do? Say, ‘Tickets are five bucks apiece, and oh, by the way, I’m sleeping with Fred’?”
“Not exactly. Tickets were two dollars each to get in, kids under five for free. But while we were discussing admission prices, Choir Boy, I think his name was Matt or Mike, something with an M. Anyway, let’s call him Matt, comes strolling up to the table with his wife and three adorable daughters in pink frilly dresses, ready to pay their admission fees. And the ticket lady goes all goo-goo eyed and starts giggling and the tone of her voice gets super breathy. She waits ‘til he and his family are far inside the carnival grounds, and she turns to me, and I guess she’s totally forgotten the cameraman was recording, though honestly, he was right there!” She held her hand inches from her face. “And she says, ‘He’s such a wonderful man, as talented with his mouth in bed as he is with it on the altar.’ The minute she said it, she realized what she’d revealed and to whom. Started panicking and begging us to erase it, told us about her husband and kids and how hurt they’d be if they found out. We had to promise to edit out everything she said to get her calm again.”
“Did you? Edit it out, I mean?”
“Absolutely. We weren’t there to ruin two families. We were there to promote the festival. I worked for a local news station, not a gossip rag. The piece aired that night, and while she was shown collecting the admission fees and stamping each entrant’s hand, my voice was dubbed over hers, talking about the price of admission and all the fun that could be had inside those gates. We didn’t show Matt or his family at all, and to fill the extra gap of time, my cameraman had to add a short segment with me biting into a zeppole.” She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Excess carbs and sugar is sometimes the price I have to pay for being so good at my job. When I spotted Sophia and Earl getting ready to go fishing today, something about their easy chatter and quiet companionship reminded me of the incident. Until that moment, I’d forgotten how I could get people to talk about the most interesting parts of their lives with just a few innocuous questions.”
“Please don’t tell me those two old geezers are having some weird passionate extramarital affair.”
“Ha. No. They’re a happily married couple who sold their house and travel around the country in an RV. They’ve been together for more than fifty years. On the road the last eight.”
“Wow.”
“My sentiments exactly. When I realized I shouldn’t be using Lily to ‘get clicks,’ as you so artistically put it, I thought I’d try interviewing them. I got lucky. They had some insightful things to say about marriage, divorce, the dynamics surrounding relationships, and parenting. Will it go viral? Probably not. But I’ve always been in the human-interest business. And I found them and their conversation interesting.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” he admitted. He meant it, but probably not for the reason she thought. After all, she’d left him less than an hour ago, banishing him to hell, and now, after whatever had gone on between her and the older couple, she was good-natured and hopeful and more like her old self again.
He owed them for that switch in her mood alone.
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
They reached their campsite, and she stopped at the bottom step leading to the RV door, Lily practically plastered to her thigh. “You said I made valid points, too. Like what?”
“Is there a reason you need to know?”
“No. I don’t need to know anything. I’m glad something I said resonated with you. I just want to know. Call it curiosity.”
“Okay, well, in that case, I’ll start by saying I was wrong to try to compare my college experience with what you went through with your mom. You’re right. At any time, I could’ve changed my life with a phone call. You didn’t have that same kind of safety net. You had a rougher time than I did: less opportunities, less resources...”
Her lips twisted in a moue. “It’s not a competition, Spence.”
“I’m aware of that. But I spent a lot of the last few years patting myself on the back for ‘making it on my own’ when the truth is, I had tons of help someone like you didn’t have access to.”
She stared at him, head cocked to one side, her expression bemused, as if she studied a fascinating insect or watched a monkey solving a jigsaw puzzle.
“What?” He stifled the urge to stuff his hands in his pockets and shuffle his feet in the wet ground.
She shrugged. “I guess I’m glad you got something out of what I said.”
Her tone made it clear she’d expected more from him.
“I can’t change who I am or where I came from,” he argued.
“I know,” she replied with forced cheer before a frown crossed her features. He planned to continue the discussion, but her hands went to her belly, and he realized she was still getting cramps.
Of course she is, you idiot. That kind of condition doesn’t just disappear overnight with a cup of tea and a good night’s sleep.
Yet, she didn’t complain, didn’t say anything about it. He watched the pain flow and ebb over her face before she dropped her arms to her sides and presented a placid posture once again.
“Do we have plans for today, or can I jump into getting this video edited?”
He pretended to mull it over, but there was no way she was ready for anything strenuous, and he’d spent enough time with her to sense she’d never admit she was suffering. Why, he couldn’t say for sure, but he suspected the jackass she’d mentioned earlier had a lot to do with all the barriers she’d built around herself.
“Go for it,” he announced at last. “It’s too muddy for the lighthouse hike. Maybe we’ll hit one of those breweries for lunch. We can hire a ride, so we don’t have to go through the hookup again.”
“And we can both drink. Good plan.”
“Glad you approve. We’ll hit the lighthouse tomorrow on our way out of here, weather permitting.” And her condition permitting, but he didn’t add that particular criterion aloud.
“That. Was. Amazing. You should go back and interview them again.”
Maia looked up at Spence who’d just finished watching the edited version of her talk with Sophia and Earl. A frisson of pleasure rippled down her spine at his open admiration toward her work.
Beaming, she tossed her hair off one shoulder. “Nah. First rule of chasing a job in journalism. Always leave them wanting more. Only after you’re hired do you provide all the answers. It was a good piece though, wasn’t it?”
“It’s phenomenal. The things she said about the way her generation raised their kids...?” He shook his head with appreciation. “I bet a lot of women will see themselves on both sides of that argument.”
“Yeah, but do you think anyone will watch it? Will anyone appreciate what I’m doing with this?”
“Not with just one video, but over time, if you keep producing this kind of content, people are bound to take notice. You ready for lunch?”
As if answering his question, her stomach growled loudly. Thanks to their argument, they’d both skipped breakfast, settling for splitting a protein bar when they’d returned to the RV.
“Apparently I am,” she admitted with a rueful grin as she rolled a hand over her noisy belly. “Let me just send this to Earl and Sophia for their approval.”
She attached the video to an email and typed a quick message:
Thanks again for spending time with me this morning. Please take your time reviewing this video and when you’re ready, let me know it’s okay to upload it to my site.
With much appreciation,
Maia
“That’s it?” Spence asked. “You don’t have a legal release for them to sign?”
She gave him a disgruntled look. What did he expect from her? She wasn’t a network with a cadre of executives and staff doing the follow-up work. She was a one-woman corporation. “Cut me some slack here, okay? I’m kinda flying by the seat of my pants at the moment.”
“I know. I’m not critiquing you. I actually want to help. Are you in a rush to get this to them?”
Swiveling in the bench seat, she craned her neck to stare up at him, studying his expression for any mockery. Finding none, she replied, “I guess not. Why?”
“Privilege has its privileges,” he said with a half-shrug. “I could probably reach out to someone at my mom’s old firm, get you a legit copy of a release. Something that can fully protect you, so no one can come back to you at a later date, should your videos start taking off. Not just for these two but going forward, especially if you plan to interview strangers rather than focus on Lily.”
A wave of gratitude rolled over her. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course.” Her expression must have flashed neon on her face because he frowned. “Don’t look at me like I volunteered to slay a dragon. It’s a phone call. And there’s no guarantee anyone there will even talk to me. I’m hoping they’ll at least be able to point me in the direction of an accurate online template you could use.”
“Why wouldn’t they talk to you?” She stiffened. “Don’t tell me they’re as petty as your siblings and still holding a grudge against you about that drug deal in college.”
“That fake drug deal,” he clarified. “And no, that’s not why.”
“Okay, then. Why?”
His interest suddenly veered from her and her project to his feet. “It’s stupid,” he mumbled to the floor.
She bit back the reply, Of course it’s stupid, and opted for, “Let me be the judge of that,” instead.
His head shot up, brows knitted. “It doesn’t matter how you’d judge me, only how they do.”
“Touché.” More like touchy, the way he got his back up whenever the subject neared a possible flaw in his past, but she wouldn’t point it out right now—not when he was about to do her another favor.
“How about we grab lunch first?” he suggested, his tone veering to lighthearted and jovial. Honest to God, the man could go from zero to sixty faster than a cheetah racing after a herd of water buffalo. “I’m starving. And judging by the growls coming from your stomach, so are you.”
Leave it to him to place the focus on her shortcomings to avoid further scrutiny on his own. “Sure.” With a deep inhale for extra patience, she slid from the bench and closed her laptop. Her email would remain a draft for now. “Let’s go.”
