Chapter 16: A Hundred

I ran out of the garage and stood in front of his car in the middle of the drive.

The engine was running. He had his seat belt on.

He rolled the window down two inches. "Leonie, move."

"No."

"You are standing in a driveway."

"I know where I'm standing," I said. "I'm standing first."

Behind me the front door opened, and I did not turn around.

I heard my mother come out, then Helen, then the housekeeper with a dish towel, and then the wheels of a wheelchair on the stone.

The gardener stopped his hedge trimmer.

Up in the second-floor window, a ring light came on.

Bree had her phone out. I did not care.

"You said you don't think that man exists," I said.

"I said I think you invented him."

"Then listen to the real one."

I took the pink pen from behind my ear, and I held it up in front of my mouth, because I had nothing else.

"Anders Carrow," I said. "He alphabetizes the spice rack, and the spice rack has a legend."

"That's for efficiency," said Anders, through the gap.

"He has never won an argument with a printer."

From the porch, Helen said, "That's true."

"He says 'indeed' at least once a dinner. Tobin's note told him not to, and he did it at the wedding anyway, in his head."

"I did not."

"You moved your lips. I graded it."

He shut his mouth.

"He keeps a spare umbrella in every coat, including the tuxedo," I said. "He sings in the car, and he's flat, and he doesn't know it."

"I don't sing in the car."

"You sing in the car," said Helen, and the gardener nodded.

I stepped closer to the glass.

"He folded his shirts in thirds to go to Chicago, and not one of them was ironed, because he was in a hurry to leave me."

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