The Season of Open Water by Dawn Tripp Page B

she smiles, she tries not to, but she does. She keeps walking.
    He lets the car run slowly alongside her. “It’s freezing out. Let me drive you home.”
    She stops and looks in at him through the open window. “It’s not on your way.” His face is very pale in the darkness. His eyes sink into her.
    â€œPlease,” he says.
    She hesitates for a moment, then opens the door and climbs in. His gloves are on the seat between them.
    â€œDo you need them?” he asks her.
    â€œNo, I’m fine.”
    â€œYou have no mittens.”
    â€œI forgot them at the Grange.”
    He gives her the gloves. They are soft leather, flannel-lined. She slips them on. They are large on her hands. She has no feeling in the tips of her fingers from the cold. She rubs them through the gloves, bending them back and forth at the joint. “Thank you,” she says. She can feel him looking at her, and she wants to look at him, and at the same time, she is afraid. They are too close. The closeness terrifies her.
    â€œWhat is it?” she says quietly, looking down.
    â€œI’m sorry.” He looks away, out the front windshield.
    â€œShall we go?” she says.
    â€œI don’t know where you live.”
    She laughs, suddenly more at ease. “No, you don’t, do you?”
    â€œI don’t.”
    â€œTake a left up ahead at the corner.”
    He puts the car into gear, and they drive. He takes the turn, and they head up Pine Hill, past the woods and the chicken farm. She notices that he does not drive quickly. He looks straight ahead at the road. Through the window the cold clear night winds past. She feels torn by the silence. She wants to ask him why he came looking for her, why he came to the Grange, if he came because of her, and at the same time, she doesn’t want to know. The feeling is coming back into her fingers. His hands are on the wheel, his skin white as bone in the dim light. They come to the end of the road. He stops.
    â€œLeft again,” she says.
    He makes the turn. “Your name is Bridge.”
    â€œYes.” She smiles. She looks down at his gloves.
    â€œI saw you for the first time at Asa Sisson’s funeral. Do you remember?”
    â€œYes.”
    He does not say anything else, but she can feel that he wants to. She can sense the strange and fitful air between them, and she wants to touch him, his face, his hands. Every muscle in her body is tense.
    â€œHere,” she says quickly. “The next house on the left, but you can just pull up here on the side of the road. This is fine.” She slips off the gloves and lays them on the seat. As the car rolls to a stop, she goes to pull the door latch.
    â€œWait,” he says.
    She looks up at him, her fingers on the handle, the metal is cold, like ice.
    â€œCould I . . .”
    She stares at him. He is looking at her intently, searching her face, and she can feel a slow and quiet trembling deep at the end of her.
    â€œThank you for the ride,” she says. She pulls the handle and gets out of the car and closes the door behind her. She doesn’t look back. She crosses the road into her yard and rounds the corner of the house. She stops there and waits in the darkness, until she hears the sound of his car pull away.
    Over the next few days, she finds him sneaking around in her thoughts—a thin and solitary current that seems to have its own whim, its own restless mind. She thinks of him while she works in the shop with Noel or as she is doing chores around the house: dusting, cooking, feeding the stove. She sees his face as she sets the logs into the fire.
    Later in the week, when she stops by Abigail Dean’s hat shop to buy a few hairpins for her mother, she notices a dozen small blue bottles of perfume by the cashbox.
    â€œSoir de Paris,” says Abigail Dean, her voice glossy over the French words. “It’s all the rage and very expensive.”
    Bridge nods. She