I meant what I said, she told him. I just meant it in a different way.
This baffled him. She had just clearly said she’d talked to the Russian minister. How else should he interpret that?
You just hear things differently than I say them, she said. I have one way of saying the truth, and you have another way of hearing it.
He left her office as confused as he’d ever been, his stomach twisted in anticipation of what could happen next.
Nasty weather, said the driver, and she agreed it was bad.
I hope you’re able to stay dry out there tonight, he said. It’s one of those nights I’m glad I can’t leave the car.
He was a black man driving a car in the rain, and she was a white woman on her way to a wine bar. She didn’t want to think about what this all meant. She had things she liked and things she didn’t. She didn’t want to think about what happened if the man had to exit his vehicle.
Even between storms, there are sunny days when we can find a place to sit alone for a minute, or with our families, or our friends, and say, rest. It’s time to fill a glass with just-squeezed juice, to open the jar of jam made on a hot summer day, to spread it thickly with butter on home-baked bread. It’s time to bask in the warm light, curled up in a chair with a book, or just staring off at the horizon without seeking a solution.
Gather energy when the opportunity arises, friends. The clouds surround us.
Delete your phone before you travel, he said. I’ve heard they’re checking them at the border.
Why should they care about my phone? she asked. I’m not who they’re looking for.
Sure, he said. You’re not the person they’re looking for now, but what about when they run out of those people? At some point, your kind comes on the list.
She had not needed to think about her kind before, but she could imagine herself in a lineup with certain people. She could see how she might be passed over in the search for someone to take away.
Do you have your stapler? I asked.
I am nothing if not creative, she replied.
We were only calling to talk about our weekend plans, but in this new world, even those needed encryption. We didn’t want someone following us to our local watering hole. We did not want to hand over our phones, our identification, our passports, our identities.
So, like spies, we exchanged authentications, assuring each other, for the moment, that we were safe, that our conversation was our own, that we had done everything we could to make sure nothing happened to us along the way.
The tides cycled in and out that weekend, and they felt like the most certain thing she’d seen in weeks. Everything else had gone off-rhythm, the new order of things creating a flapping noise in her ears every day like the sound a flat tire makes as the car limps to the next exit on the highway.
Can I stay here forever? she asked as the water receded, baring sea grass and mud, crusty undersides of docks.
No, whispered the water. But, I go away and return, and so can you, when the time is right.
How much does it cost to throw a nuclear war? he asked. This was the sort of question they’d come to expect, even so early in his tenure, even given that several of them were allegedly giving him advice on a regular basis.
$14 billion, give or take, said the lone general invited to the meeting. I mean, I don’t know that for sure, but that’s what I’m ballparking, if you don’t account for human life. The general nodded to underscore everything he said.
We can make that again, right? he said. It’s just money.
100 Proof 