Page 99 of The Wild Beneath

“How was work?” Evan tries again. Annie will usually talk about work.

“I fucking love heated floors,” Faux-fur says.

“Drinks?” The server pours water for both women. The ice clinks against the glass.

“Do you have those grapefruit margaritas?” Dangly asks. “The ones from the summer. I’m addicted.”

“Coming right up.”

Faux-fur says: “I’ll have a gin and tonic.” She pets her vest like an animal.

Annie puts both hands over her ears and closes her eyes. “Yeah. Let’s move to the other side of the restaurant, maybe?” A strand of hair falls over her face.

“We can go home.”

She opens her eyes. “It’ll be quieter on the other side.”

He tucks the strand behind her ear. “How about we get this to go?”

At home, they eat the mussels and salads from compostable take-out containers at the kitchen counter.

Evan loads his fork with arugula and a ribbon of fennel bulb while Annie stares blankly at the refrigerator, an uneaten mussel on her fork, the empty shell in her other hand.

He points with his fork toward the mussel. “You gonna eat that?”

She blinks and turns to him. “Apparently not.”

“What are you thinking about?”

She does not tell him. “I don’t mean to be so scattered.”

Evan can’t help but come out with it: “Was it the wrong thing to take you up north again?”

“No.” She drops her fork into the container and closes the lid. “Of course not.”

Evan’s not convinced. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s just...” She slouches against the backrest of her stool. “We both go to work and come home and do it all again and again and again, you know?”

“I agree. We should work less.”

She pauses. “We decided on this. We did it on purpose.”

“But?”

She leans forward again, puts her elbows on the counter and rubs her face. He waits. It takes her a few beats before she speaks again: “Being up there... it messed with my hearing or something.”

“Like the barometric pressure?”

“No.”

“Helicopters can do that,” he ventures.

She shakes her head. He’s clearly not getting it. “It made me remember so many things.”

“Well... Port Alice feels like Hale’s.”

She massages her forehead. “I’m thinking about everything again.”