She was glad to be here with him. Alone. In this secluded place.
North removed his hat and tossed it onto the rock beside him. He rubbed his chestnut-brown hair, trying to get rid of the hat shape. It only partially helped.
Marigold had always liked North’s hair. It was the same warm brown shade as his eyes. She smiled again, and he smiled back. And then their smiles faded away together. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he was struggling to find the right words. For the first time, Marigold wondered if maybe it wasn’t easy for him to explain what he was doing here. Maybe he didn’t have a good answer, not even for himself.
At last, he spoke. “My sister came back. In May.”
It shocked her. It would be difficult for her to feel more shocked.
“We’d been talking—me and Noelle—and … she came back. And, this time, my parents listened to her.”
Marigold hated to interrupt, but she couldn’t help herself. “You mean they gave it to her? She’s running the farm now?”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s … that’s great.”
Another nod. He stared at his hiking boots.
What was she missing? Noelle had returned—something unexpected and wonderful had happened—but then North had cut off communications with Marigold. “Okay,” she tried. “Your sister took over the farm … so you needed a new job? Except, as you pointed out, you’re not actually working here.”
“I’m here because I need something to do until I figure out what I want to do.”
“You want to go to college. You want to work in radio.”
North picked out a sharp rock from the tread on his right boot. “My dad’s best friend is a ranger here, and he told us about the open volunteer position. I was stationed in the museum, but on my first week he overheard me giving an improvised lecture to a tour group and was taken aback. Impressed,” he added, with a touch of embarrassment.
“Two of the operators had just quit, and the rangers were desperate. They don’t like the funiculars—giving the same two speeches, twice per hour. My dad’s friend knew I had a lot of experience with big machinery, so he sort of … threw me into it. That same day. It didn’t take long for them to teach me how to operate it, and I already knew the trivia from the museum, and because I wasn’t getting paid I didn’t feel like I had to follow the park’s usual monologue…”
“Let me guess,” Marigold said. “The rangers received so many raves from the park’s visitors that they switched you over permanently?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“Wow.” Now Marigold was the one staring at her shoes, a pair of red sneakers. “Wow,” she said again. “You should be proud of that. Congratulations.”
“The other volunteers aren’t happy with me.”
Marigold glanced up. “Because you were singled out for the better job?”
North shrugged. “Most of them will be gone after the summer season, anyway.”
“So … you’re staying, then.”
When he didn’t reply, her outrage exploded back to the surface. “But they should be paying you! You should have a salary and health insurance and a 401(k).”
North hesitated. As if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say what he was about to say. “They are. If you’d come next week, I would’ve been wearing pants.”
Marigold blinked.
“Only volunteers wear shorts,” he explained. “If you’re paid, they give you pants.”
As quickly as it had arrived, Marigold’s anger dissipated into disappointment. She pulled her knees up to her chest. “Oh.”
North rubbed the back of his neck. “They told me today. Right before I saw you, actually.”
“That’s why you were called into the park office?”
He nodded. “They offered me a full-time job. I accepted.”
“Oh,” Marigold said again. The wind rustled the trees. A droplet of water fell from a dangling branch and landed beside her. She shivered.
“What is it?” His voice was quiet.
Marigold shook her head.
North didn’t prod, but he did notice the goose bumps on her arms. “You’re freezing. Why wouldn’t you bring a jacket?”
She shot him another aggressive glare. “Nice. Shorts.”
North laughed as he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath. He held out the work shirt.
Marigold continued to glare.
“Take it,” he said.
She made him wait for another five seconds before accepting it. “Thank you.”
He seemed pleased for the victory. “You’re welcome.”
Marigold draped it over her arms and legs like a blanket, and her eyes shuddered closed. The shirt smelled like North’s sweat and North’s detergent and North’s Christmas tree farm and something else North that slipped even deeper, that reached inside her physical body to fan out her memories like a magician revealing a deck of unblemished cards.
She saw their first kiss in her old apartment, illuminated by the glow of the tree that he’d just helped her decorate. The snowy nighttime rides in his truck, his right hand clasped over her left on the center console. The hours at her computer, watching him record his voice, breathing life into her animations. The first time they made love. He was feeding his neighbors’ alpacas while they were in Florida, and he led her inside their house. They both got rug burn from the dining room carpet. It was more romantic than it sounded. And then the last memory: clinging to that stupid microwave in that stupid parking lot while North told her that he had no interest in a long-distance relationship. Better to stop this charade now. That was the word he’d used. Charade.
“What are you thinking about?” North asked.
Marigold opened her eyes. She was still frowning, but it had grown into a frown of concern. “Where will you live when you move out of your parents’ house?”
North winced.
“You’re not going to,” she said.
“I will.”
“Bullshit.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and her frustration rose. “Is it at least for a good reason?” she asked. “Do they still need your help or something?”
“My parents will always need my help.”
“Bullshit,” she said again.
North turned his full body toward her, furious. “Why are you even here? Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t talk to me!”
“And that didn’t tell you something? Like, that I didn’t want to talk to you?”
It was a slap in the face. “You ass.”
His energy deflated the moment he realized how much he’d hurt her. “Yeah. Maybe. Probably.”
Marigold felt like a fool. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t want to cry in front of him. She pushed back the tears. “I’m here…”
North waited.
She tried again. “I came here … to rescue you.”
Now he was the one who was surprised. His forehead wrinkled as she sprang to her feet, a Marigold-shaped ball of nerves. She clutched his shirt against her chest and paced before him. “So my plan was to help you look for someone who could run your parents’ farm. I was going to convince you to move to Atlanta and enroll in community college. And then we’d save up, or you could get some grants or loans, or all of the above, and then you could finish at one of the other schools. By then, you’d qualify for in-state tuition. Atlanta does have the second-highest number of colleges after Boston, you know.”