Page 88 of Caught in a Storm

“Can I ask you something, love?” says Lawson.

“Okay.”

“You know you’re quite lovely, right?”

Robyn hears herself laugh. It doesn’t sound like her normal laugh. “Thanks.”

“Just a statement of fact, that,” he says. “You’re beautiful. I reckon you’re about my age. Quite fit, still. Well done. I assume you were a sight when you were younger as well, don’t mind me saying.”

Robyn doesn’t know what he’s getting at, but she’s smiling so hard that her face muscles are on the verge of seizing. “Can I maybe record you saying that?”

Lawson laughs, touches, finally, Robyn’s thigh. “Well, we’ll see. But back to my point. You’re beautiful. And Margie—you know, Margot? She’s lovely, too. Bit shorter than you, sure. Less conventional looking. However, she’s got the distinction of being a proper rock-and-roll star. Bit off the map lately, but she’s known around the world. Presumably she could have any number of blokes, no?”

“Ohhhkay?” Robyn says.

Lawson twists the volume knob, silencing the radio. “My question is, am I missing something about this Billy Perkins, then?”

“Billy? What do you mean?”

“Yeah. In two decades’ time, he managed to shag both of you. Is this what women are settling for? Him? Are things really quite that bleak out there?”

Robyn laughs. And she keeps laughing as she moves left along a bending road. Then, for no reason that she could ever explain, she thinks of sharing a pretzel with Billy a month ago beside the Charm City Rocks van in the parking lot of Caleb’s school. She didn’t ask him to bring her a pretzel. He just did, because he knows she likes them, and now her eyes are filling rapidly with tears.

“Oh no,” says Lawson. “I’m sorry. What’ve I done?”

“I never cry,” she says, crying. “Honestly. It’s something I’m proud of.”

“You’re doing it now, though. I can see it.”

“My second time today, goddammit.”

“Well, it’s been a tough one. Personally speaking, I cry all the time. Mostly because I’m paid to, and I can do it on command. But still, I’m quite an emotional bloke. People don’t know that about me.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you cry,” she says. “You’re good at it. That scene in the one where you’re trapped on that boat. That was fantastic.”

“Thank you, love,” he says. “Proud of that one. Watch out for the curb, now. I think the airport is right up here, then. Just a bit more to go. Let’s not have a smash-up when we’re this close.”

She turns right, apologizes, crying still. There are signs ahead for the private airport. Through the windshield, a tiny silver plane zooms toward the horizon.

“Tell us what’s wrong,” says Lawson. “Why are you crying?”

“I get it, okay?” she says. “The cardigans? They’re a bit much.”

“Insufferable!” says Lawson.

“And the aw-shucks-I’m-just-happy-being-me attitude?” says Robyn. “Maybe a little forced.”

“Nail on the head, love,” says Lawson.

“But he’s very sweet.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sweet. I’m tired of hearing that. I can be sweet. I recently voiced a cartoon wombat for Pixar. A bloody wombat! Comes out next year. Wait ’til you see it. I’m bloody adorable.”

“No,” she says. “No offense, but I don’t think you understand how rare nice men are. Especially now. It’s like an epidemic of not-niceness. And Billy, God, he was even nicer when we were young. And if I’d…I don’t know, been more patient, he could’ve grown up with me. I could’ve waited him out.”

“Well now, that’s just unreasonable,” says Lawson. “What were you supposed to be, psychic? Entrance is up ahead there. See the little picture of the airplane?”

Robyn has never driven while crying. She’s having trouble gauging her speed. Is she going too fast, or too slow?