Do I Know You?(2)

“Hey,” I say, latching on to a conversational handhold. “I wonder if this hotel has milkshakes.”

Every sliver of my focus is on Graham’s reaction to this subject change. When he smiles, despite the sun shining through the windows since we left our hometown’s morning fog behind, I feel warmth for the first time in the hours we’ve been on the road.

Until he replies. “Milkshakes?” he repeats, cool confusion in his voice. “Why would we want milkshakes?”

My heart plunges. Right off the cliff outside. Right into the endless ocean. I wonder if Graham knows what he’s done. His straightforward stare says nothing of my dashed hopes.

“I don’t want milkshakes,” Graham goes on. “I want banana milkshakes.”

I hear myself laugh. The sound is quick, echoing joyously in our car. Now Graham grins fully, half Cheshire cat, half high school boy pleased to have earned his crush’s laughter. I’m the crush, I remember delightedly. I’m not just the person he goes to bed with—I’m the person he still plays games with.

On the first night of our honeymoon, we lost track of time exploring the streets of Santorini, returning to our hotel famished with only five minutes until room service ended. The understandably perturbed kitchen staff explained they’d cleaned up for the night except for the ice cream supplies, and the other guests had polished off everything but, inexplicably, the banana ice cream. If we wanted, they offered, they could make us banana milkshakes.

We did. We spent the first night of our honeymoon watching midnight descend over the water, drinking banana milkshakes.

“What will we do if they don’t have them?” I reply, pitching my voice breathily, putting on the register I used for the wonderful new historical romance novel I’d just finished recording. Today, I’m a damsel in milkshakeless distress.

When Graham replies, I recognize the gravitas of his client-phone-call voice. “I think we have clear claims for tortious vacation interference or negligence of frozen treats,” he informs me. “Wrongful death if my wife perishes from banana milkshake deprivation is harder, but there’s precedent. Depends on the inclinations of judges in this circuit.”

“Better hit the books then, Mr. Cutler.”

“Will do, Mrs. Cutler.”

“Is this pro bono work?”

“Out of the goodness of my heart, Mrs. Cutler,” he promises.

I smile, relaxing into the passenger seat, the stress releasing from my shoulders. I shouldn’t feel so relieved. It’s just—so many of my conversations with Graham lately, while pleasant, have felt insubstantial. Missing something. Like the filler dialogue I sometimes record for video game parts instead of the main story. Banana-milkshake banter felt real. It felt like us.

Emboldened, I pivot in my seat, crossing one white sneaker under me. The canopy of trees unexpectedly soaring over this stretch of road filters the sunlight in patterns while we drive, speckling the dashboard in ever-changing leopard spots. “For real,” I prompt my husband. “What do you want to do when we get there?”

I watch the moment it happens. Graham’s expression doesn’t change—the relaxed hint of his smile, the fixture of his eyes on the road—except, something does change. Some secret spark shuts off in him. Photographs of sunlight look like day, but they offer no warmth. Nothing grows in the sort of false light now glinting in Graham’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he replies with forced casualness. His hesitancy is its own flashback, reminding me of his studious reserve when we first met, when courtroom experience hadn’t yet put confidence into him.

I press on, patiently struggling. We were just having fun, weren’t we? “Well, I’m just looking forward to having the gorgeous room to ourselves. The ocean view, the trees, the hot tub . . .”

Graham just nods.

“This is going to be good for us,” I say, then immediately regret my choice of words. I can’t ignore the implication in them. Saying this trip will be good for us is prescriptive. It’s vitamins served on a silver platter. I sound desperate, chasing the nameless shadows creeping into the corners of our marriage lately.

“It will,” Graham says. It’s the end of the conversation.

When the road swerves, my thoughts do the same. I retreat into sudden insecurity, ignoring the spectacular path our car is now winding into the sagebrush mountains. Are our memories the only things we have left? If so, why even go on this trip? Why drive these six hours into the green hills of Northern California if we’re only going to cloak ourselves in reminiscence when we get there?

No. I refuse to give up. We haven’t even gotten to the hotel. I know retreating would be easier, occupying myself with the sample I need to record—

Right then, I get the perfect idea.

The sample my producer sent me is not video-game dialogue. It’s not nonfiction essays. It’s not commercial voiceover. It’s . . . sexy. Very sexy.

Maybe it could reset the tone for this trip. Loosen Graham up.

It could be, dare I say, fun.

Glancing up, I find my husband still focused on the road. “Hey,” I say innocently. “Would you mind if I record something?”





2


    Graham


“WOULD YOU MIND if I record something?”