"You're not little," she said to Ava. You're exactly the right size. Ava thought about that. Then she nodded and sat down the book. Good night, she said.
Good night, Ava. She went back to the living room and found Marcus standing in the kitchen doorway holding two mugs. Tea? He said, "She asleep reading about dinosaurs? " Victoria said, "I think she'll be out in 20 minutes. " He nodded. He moved to the couch and sat.
And she sat at the other end and the television was off and the house was settling into the particular sounds it made at night. She likes you, he said. She told me she tells everybody exactly what she thinks. He wrapped his hands around his mug. Gets that from her mother.
Is that a good thing? In a kit, it's extraordinary, he said. In an adult, it's either refreshing or exhausting depending on the day. He looked at her. You're pretty direct yourself.
I run a company. She said you can't afford to be indirect. It came out before she could stop it. She heard it the second it landed. Watched Marcus hear it too.
The word run. The word company. The context it implied that didn't fit with Victoria Wells vague tech worker from Atlanta. Marcus looked at her steadily. What kind of company?
He said I told you software business. How big? He said. The question was quiet, unhurried, but pointed. The silence between them stretched.
She could have kept it going. She was good at misdirection. She could have said something that was technically true and substantively misleading and steered the conversation somewhere else, and he probably would have let her because he was the kind of man who gave people the room they asked for. "She didn't do that. Bigger than I said," she said.
Marcus looked at her. Something was working behind his eyes assembling. Processing. How much bigger? He said.
She put her tea down on the coffee table. She looked at her hands for a moment. Then she looked up at him. My company is called Hail Technology Solutions. She said, "We're publicly traded.
I took us public four years ago. Last year's revenue was close to I know that company," Marcus said. She stopped. My accountant mentioned them. When I was looking at payroll software, he looked at her carefully.
I think the CEO's name is on their website. The weight of it settled over both of them. Victoria Hail, he said. Not a question, she held his gaze. Yes.
Marcus sat down his own mug. He leaned back. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment. 2 3 4 seconds. And when he brought his eyes back to her, they were different.
Not cold, not angry. Something more complicated. Victoria Wells, he said. My mother's maiden name and the car. The car runs fine, she said.
I know. He was quiet. She had learned in the past 12 hours that his quiet was not neutral. It was a space where things were happening. He was not the kind of man who went quiet because he had nothing to say.
He went quiet because he was determining what he actually wanted to say rather than saying the first available thing. Why? He said, "I needed to meet someone who didn't know who I was. " She said, "I needed to find out if she stopped. " Tried again. There are people in my life, lots of people. And I realized last night at a party with a hundred people in a room that not one of them would talk to me the way you talked to me this morning.
Not one of them would see the hood up and ask if I was all right before they asked if they could help. That's how everybody should be treated, he said. I know, she said. And I know what it says about my life that I had to fake a breakdown on a county road to experience it. Marcus looked at her and the quality of the look was the thing that undid her a little because it was not the look of a man who just discovered he was sitting with someone important and was recalibrating his behavior accordingly.
It was not the look of a man who felt flattered or exploited or entitled. It was the look of a man who was genuinely quietly trying to understand. I get it, he said finally. Marcus, I'm not saying it was right, he said. I'm saying I understand why you did it.
He picked up his mug again. I've spent four years raising Ava alone in this town and half the women I've met since Dana. He paused. They're not looking at me. They're looking at what they think I need or what they think they can fix.
Or they're looking at Ava and deciding what kind of mother they want to be. He looked out the window. Nobody just sits with me. Like right now, like it's enough. The words landed between them and neither of them moved to disturb them.
Outside, a car passed. Down the hall, the sound of a page turning. Ava still reading. I should have told you from the beginning, Victoria said. That part I'm sorry for.
Yeah, he said. That part I believe. But the rest of it, the rest of it was just a person wanting to be a person for a minute. He said, "I understand that more than you know. " He stood. He picked up her mug along with his.