Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [109]
“Yes, but you had to, because of the election and everything.” Because you were married to him.
She was eagle-mouthed again. “But look,” she said, “you’re in on that too, okay? Thanks to me. I’m sorry about that, but it’s true, and you can’t just ignore it. That would be like I was being, when you showed up and I didn’t want to leave camp.” She sipped at her drink, thinking things over. At last she shook her head unhappily. “I’m afraid of what he might do.”
“Well, but to you too,” Frank said. “Maybe you should go back up to Mount Desert Island. I was thinking if you stayed away from your friend’s place, it would be a good place to hide.”
She shook her head more vehemently. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got stuff I’ve gotta do here.” She glanced at him, hesitated, took another drink. She frowned, thinking things over again. Their knees were pressed together, and their hands had found each other on their own and were clutched together, as if to protest any plan their owners might make that would separate them.
“I really think you should come with me,” she said. “Get off the grid entirely.”
Frank struggled for thought.
“I can’t,” he said at last.
She grimaced. She seemed to be getting irritated with him, the pressure of her hand’s grip almost painful.
Worse yet, she let go of him, straightened up. She was somehow becoming estranged, withdrawing from him. Even angry at him. An invitation to be with her, all the time—“Listen,” Frank said anxiously, “don’t be mad at me. Tell me how we’re going to keep in touch now. We have to have a way. I have to.”
“Okay, yeah, sure.”
But she was upset by his refusal to go with her, and distracted. “We can always do a dead drop,” she said as she continued to frown over other things. “It’s simple. Pick a hidden spot where we leave notes, and only check the spot when you’re positive you’re clean, say once a week.”
“Twice a week.”
“If I can.” Her mouth was still pursed unhappily. She shook her head. “It’s better to have a regular time that you’re sure you can meet, and keep to that schedule.”
“Okay, once a week. And where?”
“I don’t know.” She seemed to be getting more frustrated the more she thought about things.
“How about where we were making out, back there in the trees?” Frank suggested, trying to press past her mood. “Do you know where that was, can you find it again?”
She gave him a very sharp look, it reminded him of Marta. Women weak at geography—he hadn’t meant it that way. Although there were women who didn’t have a clue.
“Of course,” she said. “Down there by the mouth of the creek. But—it should be a place where we can tuck notes out of the rain, and be sure we can find them and all.”
“Okay, well, we can go back out there and bury a plastic bag in the leaves under a tree.”
She nodded unenthusiastically. She was still distracted.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back up to Mount Desert Island?” Frank asked.
“Of course I do!” she snapped. “But I can’t, okay? I’ve got stuff I’ve got to do around here.”
“What? Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help! Especially not if you stay exposed in your job and all!”
“But I have to do that.”
“Well. There you are then.”
He nodded, hesitantly. He didn’t understand, and wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Shall we go back out there and pick a spot?”
“No. There’s a pair of roots there with a hole between them. I felt it under me, it was under my head. You can put something in that gap, and I’ll find it. I need to get going.” She checked her watch, looked around, stood abruptly; her metal chair screeched over the concrete.
“Caroline—”
“Be careful,” she said, leaning down to stare him right in the face. She brought her hand up between their faces to point a finger at his nose, and he saw it was quivering. “I mean it. You’re going to have to be really careful. I can see why you want to keep going to work, but this is no game we’re caught in.”
“I know that! But we’re stuck with it. Don’t be mad at me. Please. There’s just things we both still have to do.”
“I know.” Her mouth was still a tight line, but now at least she was