Fri December 11, 2074 1:45 am: Route A9 (eastbound)-- Downtown, Pleasantview
“Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible things! Do you have any idea what could have happened to you out there tonight?” Beau was slipping down low in his seat. He was three-years-old when his own mother died and the way Dustin told it, Brandi Broke had not been much of a disciplinarian anyway. On the rare occasions when Beau found himself on the receiving end of some else’s railing mother, the tirades rolled off of him like water upon wax. Not so tonight. Maybe it was the way the street lamps flooded her face with shadows or maybe her late night tussled hair made her seem slightly crazed, but Beau was terrified.
“When I was your age, folks found themselves at the bottom of a ditch for less. Just the two of you being seen together might have been enough!” Mrs. Bennett was glaring at her daughter through the rearview mirror. Felicity leaned back against the headrest with her elbow propped on the door. Her eyelids drooped. She appeared disinterested.
“Mom, when you were our age, Uriel Dottore was in office.” Here, Angelica whipped around in her seat to face her daughter.
“You think Lillith Pleasant’s administration has anymore use for you?” Felicity did not respond. She focused her attention out of the window, winding her long red hair between her fingers.
The turn signal of the car ahead of them blinked on and off, casting light into the interior of the minivan. Beau watched the light play against the wall, and thought that this was the way of the universe. He would probably never encounter the people in the car ahead of him but without their knowledge, something that they had done was changing the way he viewed his surroundings. The wall was red and then black, red and then black again.
Mrs. Bennett collapsed back into her seat with a huff. Beau felt guilty for this momentary rift between mother and daughter. He felt guilty for their arrest. He felt guilty for all of it, but he would not take the night back. He would not trade his actions for a better, more enjoyable time. What was right held more gravity than what would have been easy.
“It ain’t even the police that you should have been worried about no ways,” Mrs. Bennett continued. “It’s the people in that restaurant. And don’t try to tell me that times are different. All I would have to do is open up a newspaper and show you just how different times are.” Felicity began picking at the rubber seal along the window frame. Beau thought that he knew how she felt—That she had something to say but lacked the words to say it.
“And you,” Beau’s head shot up toward the rearview mirror. Mrs. Bennett was peering at him now or rather, as much of him as she could see from the passenger seat. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself getting my daughter mixed up in something like this. How old are you again?”
“Seventeen, Mrs. Bennett.”
“Well you should have known better.”
“I would have never let anything happen to—“
“Son, I don’t know what you think you could have done if someone got it in their head to harm you both.” Beau planted the heels of his hands on the cushion beneath him and pulled his entire body upright. It seemed too serious of a conversation to slouch through.
“I am sorry if we were in any danger but it didn’t feel that way,” he said. Mrs. Bennett snorted.
“’Course it didn’t. Boys your age are invincible. I’m guessing you got that memo.” Beau felt quite the opposite but he kept quiet. Mrs. Bennett was squinting at the mirror as though it would help her to see through him, to the heart. “Does your mother know you spent the night in a police station?” Beau shook his head.
“My mother is deceased.”
“Your father then? Legal guardian? Next of kin?”
“My brother and no.” He left it at that. Dustin would have beaten him within an inch of his life if he knew about Felicity. The thought of it made his insides squirm, even though he was big enough now to hit back and do damage.
When Beau thought about it, tonight was very much in keeping with the ebb and flow of his life. He would always be vulnerable to blows. His opponents would always be tougher, stronger and closed-fisted. The result of such a fight would be predictable but he would fight nonetheless. The battle was not a means, but the end in and of itself. It was the fact that he stood up at all that mattered.
Mrs. Bennett propped her weight against the door and said nothing. Beau looked out the window. Glittering buildings flashed by. The phase, skyscraper windows burn like urban stars occurred to him. He was sorry that he did not have anything to write with. He looked up at the rear view mirror. Mrs. Bennett was busying herself with the glove compartment when Mr. Bennett’s reflection caught his eye.
Mr. Bennett appeared to have been staring at him for quite some time. He did not flinch when Beau noticed him staring. He smiled broadly instead, alight with praise and support.
Thurs December 10, 2074 9:48 pm: Pleasantview 23rd Precinct-- New Alderton, Pleasantview
The rain was coming down in spates on the roof of the police station. Felicity thought that it sounded like an infernal marching band playing a thousand tin drums above her head.
She lost count of the number of times that Beau rolled up his sleeve to check his watch. He was doing it so compulsively that she knew he was just looking for an object to spend his scrutiny on. Felicity rubbed her blue-inked fingertips on the seat of the chair, hoping to leave a mark.
They had been detained for disorderly conduct and would be fined, pending trial. Felicity was certain that if they had not been Residents, they would have both been spending a few nights in jail. Part of her felt as though she had cheated the system somehow by getting off so easy. Still another part of her remembered that they should not have been arrested in the first place, and that the house always wins.
Beau was staring at her now as though he had something to say. Felicity did not turn. Doubtless, he wanted to talk about what happened that night but Felicity knew without discussion that this was not a shared experience. The two of them had been watching the same events unfold but from entirely opposite perspectives-- That of a Townie-born and that of someone who wasn't. A chasm existed between them now, one that she could not force herself to throw a rug over and pretend away.
"Is it too early to say that I don't regret this?" The sound of his voice forced her to look at him. "I mean, this isn't exactly how I imagined our first date would end but I'm glad. I'm glad that a whole restaurant full of people saw us get arrested for doing-- what exactly? For wanting to pay thirty-eight simoleons for a plate of scallops? It's about time someone took a stand in public like that. People in this country need to wake-up."
For a moment, Felicity was quiet. It was not that she did not agree with him but that he did not understand the problem with the same intimacy that she did. When the restaurant hostess told him that they did not serve Townsmen, he was offended and discouraged. He was angry. He could not have understood how calloused Felicity had become to injuries like that. How those hurts seeped beneath the skin and festered. How the only way to truly deal was just to walk away. She could not have made Beau understand this if she wanted to. But she could make him understand the stakes.
"You really don't get it, do you? Beau, I could lose my residency over this."
"Well, maybe it was never worth having in the first place. Think about it. I could fake an accent, buy my clothes second-hand and tell people my name was Abhijeet Carr. The only reason why I have rights that aren't afforded to the majority of people is because some pointy-eared bureaucrat in Veronaville signed off on it when I was born. It's meaningless. It's all meaningless." Felicity shook her head at him slowly, her lips parted.
Maybe things did seem that way for him but for Felicity, the stigma of being a Townie coursed much deeper than the way she talked or dressed. It was more than what her birth certificate assigned and it could not be over-written by the caste on her identification card.
Being a Townie was the lower school lunch period when Gillian Bosch, a mid-caste girl that Felicity had no prior or subsequent interactions with, poured hot soup down the back of her dress unprovoked, in front of three teachers who all looked the other way. Being a Townie was the time a complete stranger pushed her little brother into moving traffic. Being a Townie was the night that her grandfather died from multiple strokes in the emergency room while the doctors were busy treating Residents for sprains, flu, contact dermatitis. Being a Townie was watching her mother breakdown into tears when at age six, Felicity declared that she wanted to be a jet pilot when she grew up. If Beau were to cut her open just then, he would have found legible traces of her Townie birth right down to the marrow. Felicity met Beau’s stare.
"If you can say that, then you have no idea what my life is." Beau leaned back in his chair and faced forward.
"You're right. I don't."
"When I asked you to leave, we should have left. Period. I pick my own battles. I don't need you doing it for me." The words were heated. When Beau looked at her again, his eyes denied that the chain of events could have unfolded in any other way.
"Felicity, I couldn't have allowed them to treat you like that. I couldn't have allowed them to treat someone I don’t even know like that."
"You owe me an apology." Beau exhaled heavily through his nose.
"I'm sorry." Two police officers were chatting and joking just a few feet away. Their voices filled the silent pause between Beau and Felicity. When Beau spoke again, he was looking down at his shoes. "Did you mean what you said back there,” he muttered. “About me being your boyfriend?" Here, he caught her glance and tried not to grin.
"I said that?"
"When you told the manager not to threaten me and made some erectile remarks."
"Oh." The moment replayed for her. Calling Beau her boyfriend had been inconsequential, comparatively. Felicity leaned her head back against the glass. "I reckon it doesn't matter anyway. My mom is never going to let me see you again after this."
"That's a long time to hold a grudge."
"You don't know my mother." The edges of his mouth flattened to form a sober line across his face, and she felt culpable. "Look, Beau, I don't want you to think that I don't agree with you about all of this or that I don't admire you for doing it. Really I do but there are just so many reasons why that was not the time." 
Beau looked away. Felicity followed the contours of his face with her eyes. He was a good person. An earnest person. He daydreamed half of his life away but so did she. He was trying to do the right thing.
Felicity took him by the hands. Beau narrowed his eyes in questioning when she slid from her chair and into his lap.
Beau was breathing fast now, and she wondered if he would have had the same reaction to her closeness on a normal first date. She smoothed his feathered hair away from his face and pressed her lips against his cheek, laying the first stone to bridge the chasm.
Thurs December 10, 2074, 7:12 pm: Kafe Lonicera-- Doubling, PleasantviewBeau's romantic onslaught had been staged in phases. First were the phone calls, nightly, around 8:00 pm when Jack was not around to shout obscenities in background for Felicity to overhear. Then came Phase Two: the leaflet campaign-- dozens of handwritten notes wedged into her locker door, all signed "Captain Safety" (in fact, he was beginning to feel every bit like the psychopath that she accused him of being the first time they met). Then there were the emails that she dutifully responded to, always dancing around the subject of a potential date.
Two weeks passed and Beau was unsure about what he said or did but she approached him in the hall outside of his World History course and accepted his dinner invitation. It was a good thing too because his next maneuver would have involved chucking pebbles at her bedroom window, and he was not certain that he could vouch for his accuracy.
Beau was nervous when he tried to open the restaurant door and pulled the handle when he should have pushed. He was nervous when the warm air from inside washed over them both, luring them in with the scent of food. He was nervous when she linked her delicate arm with his and smiled.
"You're going to love this place," he said. A couple exiting the dining room brushed against his shoulder as they passed, forcing them closer together. "They have this duck in a red curry sauce that's so amazing. Or at least they used to. I haven't been here in a while."
"Duck?" Felicity wrinkled her nose.
"You don't like duck?" Beau stopped walking.
"I dunno. I never ate it before."
"Oh. Well, we could go someplace else if this isn't your thing." Felicity appeared to suppress a laugh and shook her head.
"No, this is nice, really." Beau relaxed his shoulders, previously unaware of how taut he had been holding them. Felicity was not uncomfortable here, with him. She had not accepted his invitation grudgingly. Beau saw now that any impression he needed to make was already made. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what he'd written in those locker notes, only that they had become increasingly desperate as the weeks went on. Felicity inclined her head toward the hostess.
"Should we go get seated?" Beau looked up at the tall, gaunt woman behind the podium. She was anxiously twirling a red pen on the open pages of the reservation log. Beau placed a hand on Felicity's waist and led her forward without a word.
"Good evening. Reservation for Broke party of two?" The hostess clapped her palm over the pen as if to crush a speeding insect. Beau's gaze lingered on the pen for an instant before returning to the hostess. Her behavior was puzzling and he told her so with a furrowed brow.
"I do apologize for the inconvenience but we do not serve Townsmen at this establishment." Her voice was cool and indifferent even as she pronounced what was probably the most dreadful sentence that Beau had ever heard from the mouth of a stranger. Why had the possibility of this never occurred to him? He swallowed against the rising knot in his throat.
"I can't say that I agree with your policy but seeing as how it doesn't apply to us--" The hostess shook her head at him. Her eyes landed on Felicity and widened, as though soaking her in.
"Nor do we serve first generation Residents," she said.
"Townie-borns, you mean." Beau's dread was giving way to fury. He was thinking not just about the circumstance at hand but every circumstance that arose for Felicity on a regular basis; every door closed to her, every sneer, every slander.
"Your words, sir." The hostess seemed dazed, apathetic even.
"Your sentiment," he spat. Felicity was tugging on his sleeve now. Her face was buried into his neck, as high as she could reach.
"It's alright. We can just go someplace else," she whispered. Beau did not take his eyes off of the hostess though his anger was changing its course. Felicity’s impulse to diffuse and avoid confrontation only irked Beau further. She expected to be humiliated. It was part of who she was and he hated that. Then there was the fact that she was so close to him that he could feel her breath on his skin. It was as good as a kiss and he couldn't even enjoy it. That place, that hostess, all of society had taken it away from him.
"No, Liss, it's the principle of the thing." Felicity gave him a penetrating look.
"Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do here but I really don't need you to be a hero." Beau gritted his teeth and flushed but he did not move. There was no force in the universe that could have pushed him away.
"Sir, you are making a scene in front of our guests." The hostess's fists were clamped at her sides. Beau thought she looked childish and silly.
"Good." Felicity's eyes were more urgent now. He could feel them boring holes into the fiber of his skull. Across the room, the diners were starting to take notice. The hostess shut her reservation book with the pen inside.
"I'm going to get the manager." Felicity closed her eyes in resignation. Beau reached into his pocket and handed her the keys to his car. For a time, she bounced them in her open palm as though testing them for weight.
"You know, a few minutes ago you were ready to give this place up because I never ate duck before."
"That was then, I guess." The restaurant quieted. Felicity must have known that they were being watched but she did not dare to turn around.
"Can we go? Please? I mean, what are we still doing here?"
"Making a point."
"But I don't want to make a point! I want to be out on a date like normal teenagers with normal lives. Can we do that?"
"No. Not anymore, we can't." Felicity's eyes glazed over with tears. He hated himself but his resolve was set, and she was still holding his keys. He told himself that she could leave if she wanted to. Felicity reached for his hand, as though she could read his mind, and returned the keys. Nothing more needed to be said.
The manager arrived with the hostess in tow. She was smiling in a wicked and self-satisfied way.
“Is there a problem here?” The manager was a man in his early thirties with a mechanical walk and an unfortunate grasp of what it meant to be in the hospitality business.
“We have a reservation and would like to be seated.” Beau’s tone surprised him. It was steady and measured in spite of his emotional state. Felicity took his wrist in an attempt to gently coax him backward. He responded by pulling her against his chest with both arms like a shield. The manager cleared his throat.
“If it is true that this young lady is a first generation Resident then I am afraid that restaurant policy stipulates—“
“This young lady is a customer who should be awarded the same rights and privileges—“
“Sir I am going to have to ask you to leave.”
“—as any other customer.”
“Sir, please leave before I telephone the police.” It was as though someone had thrown a switch. Felicity’s nostrils flared. She bared her teeth like an animal on the verge of an attack.
“Don’t you dare threaten my boyfriend, you limp-dick son of a bitch.” Beau’s jaw fell. Everything around them came to halt. He had no idea that Felicity even knew language like that.
“I’m calling the cops,” the hostess breathed. She cut through the crowd in the direction of where Beau imagined the kitchen was. The manager stood dumb-founded while Felicity glared at the diners.
“Why are you doing this? You know how things are.” The look in the manager’s eyes seemed to be appealing to Beau’s sense of self-preservation. Why are you causing unnecessary trouble for my business to your own personal detriment? That was what the manager really wanted to ask. Beau felt that his sympathy was misplaced.
“It’s a matter of principle,” Felicity said. “We have a reservation, and we can wait all night.”
Fri, November 27, 2074 4:04 pm- Blue Heron Dr. (eastbound) Arbormoor, Pleasantview
The sky was blessedly clearing. Beau rolled down his window and brushed away the snow collecting on his windshield. The wipers had stopped working six months ago but his childish sense of priority dictated that he purchase a new stereo instead of putting his money towards a few highly necessary repairs. He regretted that now. It was going to be an ugly winter. Heater was on the blink too. Beau retracted his freezing palm.
The windshield blossomed into a milky fog. Beau tried to look around it rather than through it, growing increasingly bitter with Mother Nature as time passed, his stare meeting the shimmering landscape with disdain. Pine trees capped with snow only brought to mind the fact that he would be sleeping on the sofa that night, away from the leaky windows in the boy's dormitory. He hated winter. Hated it.
Beau reached towards the glove compartment for the all but spent roll of paper towels that he kept nestled away for just such occasions. His hand groped along the passenger side dashboard searching in vain for the compartment door while the fog grew steadily denser. Peeling his eyes from the road, he glanced to the side and when he looked up, something rather unexpected was squatting in his path.
An older woman in a tattered dress glared defiantly at him, not six feet away from the grill of his car. Beau gripped the steering wheel and made a hard right, punching the breaks. His aging tires skid on the icy road, bringing him almost full circle from where he had started. The world was moving much more quickly than he would have anticipated and the tail end of his car was soon set on a collision course with yet another unexpected blockade.
He saw her only as a flash of blue against the undergrowth. By this point, there was no control left to be had. He heard a hard thump near the backseat and saw a bit of pastel colored taffeta hit the window before drifting away like a bank of snow. The car came to a screeching halt.
Beau clutched his chest and tried to slow his ragged breathing. He didn't know what to do. He shifted gears and slowly, carefully backed the car up, thinking that he could better assess the situation from a slight distance. It was irrational but it was the best that his adrenaline-addled brain had to offer. He sat for a moment, adjusting and readjusting his wheels until he was parallel with the road again. Shutting off the ignition, he unlocked the door.
Beau did not have much of an appreciation for aesthetics but the girl in the middle of the road was all Titian hair and fluid angles. He admired the pink of her hand against the powdered gray of the asphalt, the ellipse of negative space that formed between her parted lips, the tension in her eyelids squeezed shut. All one hundred eighteen pounds of her, more beautiful than anything that he could imagine. Shakily, he lifted his body out of the car.
The girl was stirring. She rubbed her head in confusion and looked back into the thicket. She had been thrown quite a ways from where she was walking. And suddenly, Beau realized that the woman in the white dress was missing. He twisted on his heels. He bent down and checked underneath his car. It was impossible. There was no where for her to have gone.
"Son of a monkey's butthole." Beau pulled himself up to his full height with the sound of the girl's voice.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"No thanks to you," she shouted back. Beau walked over to where she sat and helped her up from the ground. She yanked her arms from his grasp.
"Are you sure you're ok?" he repeated. The girl shot him a venomous look.
"I'm fine. What the hell is your deal, anyway?"
"I- There was someone else in the road. I swerved to keep from hitting her." Beau continued to glance around, incredulous of his own story. His piece of shit car was his only witness and it was, at that very moment, no friend of his.
"Really? That's the best you can do?" the girl seethed. Beau ran his fingers through his hair.
"I know it doesn't sound very likely but I swear there was someone. I could draw her face for you in the snow. That's how clear I am that I saw her."
"What the- What does that even mean? You're out of your mind! I could have been killed!"
"I'm sorry." The snow was starting to fall again. Beau nervously fiddled with the hem of his vest. "You shouldn't be walking around out here like this anyway."
"Well thank you for the warning, Captain Safety. I come home this way everyday and this is the first time some hallucinatory jackass has tried to plow me down with his car," she huffed. Beau studied the white clouds that passed through her lips when she spoke. Amid each billowing plume of steam, he breathed in the absence of her breath. When she exhaled, he inhaled. The rhythm was vaguely hypnotic. The girl snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. "Um, ground control to Major Tom! How's it going up there, space cadet?" Beau's vision refocused. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was losing his mind.
"Mother of God, you're a lunatic," the girl muttered, turning to walk away.
"Wait, I feel really bad about this. I'll drive you wherever you want to go," he offered desperately. The girl's eyes widened in amusement but the smile that stretched across her face was ripe with scorn.
"And you think I would jump in a car with you... Why exactly?" she asked.
"Because you need a ride and I need someone to grab the wheel in case I start seeing more stuff that isn't there," he said. The girl laughed dryly.
"Tempting but no thanks."
"Ok, how about this- You're probably better off riding in the car with me than walking around outside of it with me driving in your general vicinity."
"That's not logical."
"Yeah, well I'm starting to think that life isn't logical." She stared at him blankly for a moment and he leaned back on his heels. He couldn't let her go so soon. In all probability, he would not have these sorts of thoughts about another person for a very long time. Silently, she walked over to the passenger door.
When Beau got into the car and fastened the seatbelt at his waist, he found the girl adjusting the vents on her side. He didn't have the heart to tell her that the heater only blew cold.
"Where to?" he asked uncomfortably, tilting his rearview mirror.
"Home. Tellerman Farm," she replied.
"Oh." Beau did a double take. It hadn't consciously occurred to him before but her accent, her body language, the way she turned her gaze to the ground every time their eyes accidentally met-- He could have sworn that she was a Townie. "What's your name?"
"Felicity Bennett," she said quietly.
"Oh." She was a Townie. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.
"Yes, I am Townie-born," she said, reading his mind. "And if that makes you feel strange then you are free to dump me back where you found me, which you'll probably be doing anyway after you strangle me to death or whatever it is that psycho killers do these days." Beau felt the color draining from his face.
"I'm- No, my best friends are Townie-born. I'm not a- a bigot or anything I just-" He didn't have the means to finish that thought. She was staring right through him and he, by comparison felt extraordinarily small. "Let's start over. My name is Beau," he sputtered.
He couldn't have said what it was about her. She was pretty, that was true enough but there was more to it than mere prettiness. Beau tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and started the ignition, diminishing beneath her gaze like an ant frying under a magnifying glass. Felicity settled in her chair.
"I'm trusting you with my life, Captain," she announced. And there was nothing more to say.
Sat, October 31, 2074 12:30 pm: Tellerman Farm- Middlebourne, Pleasantview
"Mom, there's a really freak'n sweet car in the driveway," Felicity said, nearly pressing her face against the glass to get a better look.
"Well who is it? Is it Mr. Tellerman?" Angelica picked up a basket of fresh laundry and carted it into the master bedroom. Felicity squinted hard into the distance.
"No, it's someone else. Tall guy, blond hair, dark skin, late thirties. Oh crap, I think he just saw me," Felicity giggled, ducking below the windowsill.
"Serves you right for spying on people through windows," Angelica tisked. The visitor in question was rounding the corner when Angelica flung open the door. Her family had been living at Tellerman Farm for less than two weeks and in that time, there had been no shortage of straight-laced men coming by with unusual requests. Mr. Tellerman's business associates, as they called themselves. Angelica was smart enough not to ask about what sort of business.
The man that ascended Angelica's front porch was immaculately groomed and lightly misted with an imported after-shave. He seemed to be the sort of guy who spent more money on haircuts and manicures than she did. To top it off, he had a very shrewd look about him that Angelica did not like at all. She could just picture him sat up in some boardroom bribing police officers, ordering murders, organizing huge drug deals...
"Mrs. Bennett?"
"Yes?" Angelica raised her head to meet his eye level. She was determined not to appear intimidated. This guy probably ruled over the lot of them, every businessman that had ever passed through her door.
"Good afternoon. I'm Troy Tellerman-Caliente. We spoke over the phone yesterday," he said. Angelica allowed her shoulders to relax into a slump. She had completely forgotten. In her own defense, there was absolutely no family resemblance between him and her employer. But judging by the car, he was very likely who he claimed to be.
"Of course. Do come in, Mr. Caliente," Angelica said, making room for his entrance.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry to burst in on you like this. I tried to call beforehand but the line was busy."
"Oh it's no trouble at all. I was just putting away some laundry." Angelica softly closed the door while Mr. Caliente took a look around.
"It's... Wow, it looks exactly the same in here," he marveled, leaning over to peer into the kitchen. "My mother would have been very pleased with you. She loved this little house so."
"Well, we like it just fine too. Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?"
"No, thank you, that's quite alright." Angelica thought that he had a charming smile. She was happy to have somehow coaxed it out of him. And of course he didn't want anything to drink. He probably had some busty, 19-year-old personal assistant sitting in his car, prim as you please, mixing him a highball while she waited. Angelica was distracted from her inane imaginings when the alarm clock went off in her son's bedroom. It was shrill and deafening even from the hallway.
"Oh for the love of-" Angelica whined. She then took a deep breath before bellowing, "Seth!" There followed a series of frenzied thumping sounds from the second floor and the ultimate cessation of that hideous alarm. Angelica turned to Mr. Caliente.
"He's a late riser on the weekends," she apologized.
"No need to make excuses for him, I was a kid once." There was that smile again. Angelica wiped her detergent-soiled hands on her skirt.
"Well, I don't suppose you came out here to listen to me yammer on about when my son decides to start his day," Angelica twittered. Mr. Caliente drummed his fingers at his sides.
"You must think me dreadfully sentimental to be doing this," he said. Angelica did think so but she also thought that it was one of the most agreeable character flaws that a man could have.
"It don't matter what I think," she said with a shrug. "Is there anything you wanted to see in particular?"
"I would like to visit the pond, if you don't mind," he said quietly, searching her eyes. Maybe he expected her to ask him why.
"Whatever you like suits me well and good. I'll just escort you around back. I know you can find your own way but I don't suppose it would be polite for me to just send you off."
"That is very kind of you, Mrs. Bennett."
"Here we are," Angelica said cheerily. Her daughter was still in the den when they entered. Felicity's face paled at the sight of their guest. He extended his hand to her.
"I'm J. L.'s brother, Troy Roan Tellerman-Caliente." Felicity shook his hand, her expression oddly glazed.
"Felicity Stephanie Bennett," she croaked. The poor girl looked as though she was going to faint dead away. Angelica couldn't tell whether it was from the shame of having been caught watching him earlier or from the way that her voice broke when she introduced herself or if it was from something else altogether.
"Charmed," he said with a gentle and dignified nod of his head.
"Felicity is fifteen," Angelica said off-handedly. "She just started her sophomore year this term." Mr. Caliente turned to face Angelica.
"Is that so? I have a son the exact same age." Felicity was staring at their guest with rapt attention.
"Did you hear that, Lissy? This handsome man has a son your age," Angelica teased.
"Mom," Felicity squealed. She was completely mortified. It was priceless.
"Well I'm going to get back to the house work," Angelica declared. "It was real nice meeting you, Mr. Caliente."
"And you likewise," he replied. Before heading out of the back door, he turned to Felicity and winked. Her cheeks crimsoned. When he was safely out of earshot, Felicity turned on her mother.
"Just because we're residents now does not mean that you can go around suggesting stuff like that to people like him," Felicity huffed.
"Darling, I didn't suggest a thing to him. I was talking to you," Angelica said, merrily spinning on her heels to leave. Maybe it wasn't right to imply that her Townie-born daughter could potentially be interested in his blue-blooded son but Angelica never wasted an opportunity to embarrass her children.
In the bedroom, Angelica went back to folding her sheets. This was her favorite chore. She loved the smell and the caress of fresh laundry. She loved the meditative process of folding.
Her work finally completed, Angelica stared blankly at the blue gingham curtains dressing the window in front of her. She traced a path along the pattern with her fingers. What was he doing out there? She hadn't thought much of it when he had first called to ask if he could come say good-bye to the place but what did that really entail?
Angelica reached tentatively for the curtain. Could it hurt to look?
Outside, Mr. Caliente stood on the little wooden bridge at the center of the pond, leaning casually against the railing. He was gaping off into the distance, maybe at the mountains or the millet barn. He had probably spent much of his boyhood in that very spot, talking and laughing with his mother. Just then, he buried his head underneath his arms as though shielding himself from falling debris. He seemed to be more ghost than man. Feeling that she was intruding, Angelica let go of the curtain.
This was what good-bye entailed. Whatever it was that he longed to have back, he was trying to convince himself that he never needed anyway.
