Chapter 324: Flowers

[65 dollars spent — all three maximum bonds in proximity]

[Balance: $69,375,964]

[650 dollars received — 10x multi-bond rate active]

[New Balance: $69,376,614]

When she turned around and found him holding the flowers she looked at him for a moment.

"You went back," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"You saw me put them back," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She took the flowers and held them and looked at him with the full settled real smile, the one that arrived before she managed it.

"Thank you," she said.

"They’re flowers," he said.

"Sean," she said.

"Yes."

"Stop saying the small version of things," she said. "Just let me say thank you."

"Okay," he said.

"Thank you," she said.

"You’re welcome," he said.

—----

They went to a restaurant in the town for lunch.

Not the market food. A proper restaurant, the kind of place that a valley town of this vintage had been running for decades and had no intention of changing. The menu on a chalkboard. The wine from the region. The food taking its time because it understood that was the correct approach.

He paid for all of it.

[780 dollars spent — all three maximum bonds in proximity]

[Balance: $69,375,834]

[7,800 dollars received — 10x multi-bond rate active]

[New Balance: $69,383,634]

The lunch had the specific quality of somewhere settled enough to let four people be exactly who they were without the space requiring anything specific from them.

Makima ordered with the precision she always ordered. Vanessa asked one question about the preparation of something before deciding, which the waiter answered properly and which confirmed her decision. Olivia looked at the menu for a genuine amount of time and then chose the thing that had been her first instinct, which she acknowledged to no one but which was visible on her face.

"Can I ask something," said Olivia, to the table generally.

"Yes," said Makima.

"When did each of you know," said Olivia. "That Sean was. That he was what he is."

"What is he," said Vanessa.

"That’s the question," said Olivia. "But I think you each have a moment."

She said it with genuine curiosity rather than as a trap, which was the Olivia version of a real question. Sean understood she was going to include herself in the answer.

Vanessa held her wine glass. "The fitting room," she said. "He was wearing something I made and I described what I was trying to say with it and he told me back in different words that were more accurate than mine." She paused. "That doesn’t happen."

"For me it was earlier," said Makima. "He stood in my office and told me something about the building that he shouldn’t have been able to know. Not from looking. From understanding." She held her cup. "I knew before he left."

"For me," said Olivia. "He was in the front row at my showcase. He didn’t have to be. Nobody asked him. He just was." She looked at her food. "The people who show up without being asked are the real version."

The table was quiet for a moment.

"Sean," said Vanessa.

He looked at her.

"When did you know about each of us," she said.

He thought about it honestly.

"Makima," he said. "Before I moved in. The way she talked about the building. Not the structure. What it meant." He looked at Olivia. "You, at the showcase. Before the performance. The way you stood in the wings." He looked at Vanessa. "You, when you didn’t apologize for disagreeing with me. In the first fitting."

Three women sat with three different answers.

"That’s very specific," said Vanessa.

"I’m a specific person," said Sean.

"He really is," said Olivia.

"Yes," said Makima.

=====

His phone buzzed on the walk back to the car.

Sophie.

I have four questions. I’m going to ask three and hold the fourth.

He almost smiled.

Go ahead, he typed.

Are you having a good weekend. Is it true you once paid for an attorney to prosecute someone you didn’t know personally just because it was the right thing. Does dad know you have three.

He stopped walking.

"Sean," said Olivia, from a few steps ahead.

"One second," he said.

He looked at the third question.

Sophie had found more than the Sarah Coleman piece apparently.

He thought about what to do with question three.

Then he typed.

Yes to one. Yes to two. And question three is filed under none of your business for now.

A pause. Then Sophie: That’s fair. That means yes though.

It means none of your business, he said.

Those mean the same thing, she said.

They really don’t, he said.

Okay. I’m holding question four. A pause. It’s the biggest one.

I assumed, he said.

How did you know, she said.

Load-bearing, he said.

Exactly, she said. And then: Have a good weekend. You sound like you’re having a good one.

I am, he said.

Good, she said. You should.

He put his phone in his pocket and caught up with the others at the car.

"Sophie," said Makima. Not a question.

"Yes," he said.

"What did she say," said Olivia.

"She asked if I was having a good weekend," he said.

"Are you," said Olivia.

He looked at the three of them.

Makima with her bags. Olivia with the flowers. Vanessa with the bowl.

The valley around them going its Saturday afternoon in the specific unhurried way valleys went their Saturday afternoons.

"Yes," he said.

"Good," said Olivia. "That was the right answer."

=======

The afternoon at the house.

No structure. No plan.

Olivia found a record player in one of the side rooms, which delighted her specifically, and spent forty minutes going through the records the property had left behind with the focused appreciation of someone who genuinely liked music rather than liked the idea of liking music.

Vanessa sat in the sitting room with the bowl from the market on the side table beside her and read something on her phone with the composed efficiency she brought to reading, which was faster than most people and more absorbed.