Page 20 of Rhodes

"Take a left up here," I say. "And no. I have a refined palate now."

He snorts, signals, and turns. Doesn't ask where the left is taking us. Just does it.

The sky's gone that thick blue you only get in New Orleans right before dark, and the oaks throw long shadows across the windshield.

"Turn right here, at the Iglesia de Dios sign."

The printout slides off the console where he tossed it when he got in, a fat stapled thing gone red with a professor's ink, and lands on my foot. I pick it up.

He eases to the curb and puts it in park. The engine drops to a patient idle.

"You don't have to wait," I tell him, hand already on the latch. I hand him the papers as I open the door. "I can catch a ride back with someone. Don't sit out here for an hour."

He takes the stack from me, his two pens in his other hand. "Got to get through this either way. Might as well do it with the AC on."

"Rhodes."

"It's more comfortable than the library." He settles back, uncaps the pen with his teeth, and spits the cap into the cup holder. "Go on. You don't want to be late."

I climb down and close the door behind me without another word. The side door glows, and Ms. Dot's already there in her cardigan, her whole face opening up when she sees me.

"Tilly, baby." She catches my arm and squeezes. "We saved you a chair."

Something in my chest eases under her hand.

I glance back at the truck once. Rhodes is already bent over the paper, pen moving, not watching me go at all.

The truck's right where he left it, not idling at the curb watching the door for me, just parked with the interior light off, him leaning back against the headrest.

I pull the door open and climb up. The AC's cold on my arms. Goodbye Earl, by The Chicks, is blaring on the radio.

"Hey." I get the seatbelt across.

"Hey," he says, clearly startled for a moment. He turns the radio down all the way.

"Nice choice of song. Turn it back up," I tell him.

He smiles. "You a Chicks fan?"

"Obviously." I don't give him my whole ranking, but they are definitely top ten for me.

He turns it back up, drops the truck into drive, and pulls off the curb.

That's it. No how'd it go, no good crowd tonight, no nudge to find out who was inside or what got said in that room. He just drives, one wrist over the wheel, eyes on the road.

The streets slide by dark and wet-looking under the lamps. Behind my seat, the marked-up paper shifts when we take a corner, a soft slide against the vinyl.

My shoulders come down off my ears, even though I don't tell them to.

When the song ends, I tuck a foot up under me, reach over, and click the right arrow to the next song.

He doesn't look over or say a word about me taking over the radio. The Chicks' cover of "Landslide" fills the speakers. I pull my hand back into my lap.

"That's a good one," he says, and nothing else.

We ride the rest of the way like that, quiet, but not the braced kind. The kind where nobody's holding on to anything.

He pulls into the driveway as the last chord fades, and neither of us says a thing about the timing. We don't have to.