Free Save the Enemy by Arin Greenwood Page B

back?”
    “Look, Zoey,” P.F. says. “This is how it has to work. You have to trust me.”
    He has a smear of my blood on his trousers now, and Ihave so many questions. I don’t know if this is the time to push … My judgment feels impaired. This also feels like a situation for which I don’t have a body of experience to guide my intuition.
    I reach out to grab his wrist once more for good measure. Perhaps I should have tried a different move. He doesn’t seem surprised, or even annoyed, and definitely not scared. He just moves his arms out of reach, then comes back to pat my own.
    “Your eggs are cold,” P.F. says. He isn’t so much cold as he is cool. As a cucumber. An incredibly dorky cucumber. “Zoey, you have to trust me,” he says again. “Does your hand hurt? I’m sorry you got cut.”
    The fuzzy boldness gives way to P.F. Greenawalt’s certainty. I touch my hangnail.
    “I’m okay,” I say loudly, like I’m objecting.
    We go back downstairs. Ben and Pete have finished their eggs and are spinning the gun around on the table. It slows and stops, pointing right at me as I approach the table.
    “That seems unsafe,” I say.
    Pete opens his hand. He’s taken out the bullets, a small cluster of shiny, brass-colored things. I pick one up. It’s cold and lighter than I thought it would be. I give it back. Pete puts all the bullets in his front pocket.
    “They’re just pieces of metal,” he says, trying to make me feel safe, I think.
    “Let’s go home,” I say.
    “Do you need a ride?” P.F. Greenawalt asks. “I can drive you.”
    This saves me the problem of needing to expect Pete to pay. But I don’t think that I want P.F. Greenawalt, Political Consultant, knowing where I live. On the other hand, he probably knows already. He knew Mom. He knew who I was when I appeared at his doorstep.
    “I’m tired,” Ben says.
    “There probably won’t be any cabs nearby,” Pete says.
    I stare at P.F. Greenawalt.
    “It’s no trouble,” he says in his nasally voice. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you kids and I hadn’t made sure you got home safe.”
    I’m tired, too, I realize. I pick up the gun and put it in my tote bag. It’s about as heavy as a hardback volume of
The Sun Also Rises
. With the two of these objects, the tote has gotten uncomfortably heavy on my shoulder. It would really be terrible if I got, like, scoliosis from walking all the way home to Virginia with
The Sun Also Rises
and a
gun
in my tote bag. I finally nod, surrendering.
    We walk a few blocks and find his black Lincoln sedan. I get in the front seat and P.F. explains his car-buying philosophy, as if this were a natural conversation to have. “I always buy a luxury car that isn’t trendy,” he says. “I can get more car for the money that way.” He shows me a panel that lets each front-seat passenger control their own air temperature.
    “That mattered more when I was married.”
    Now he has my attention. “Oh yeah?” I ask. “So how did you and Mom meet?”
    “Through mutual acquaintances,” he says, waving his left hand a little bit. He’s still got a thin gold band on his ring finger. Did he and my mom have an
affair
? That is the
most
preposterous idea yet, I think. I stare out the window as we drive over the Key Bridge, look at the few boats enjoying this spring Saturday night on the Potomac. Through Rosslyn, which is a grim and militaristic-looking place, then through some of the other Virginia suburbs, which are grim without seeming
especially
militaristic.
    Pete tries to make conversation, asking if anyone’s seenany good movies lately. P.F. Greenawalt describes a Hallmark movie he saw on television that weekend.
    “It turns out that Hallmark films pack a surprising emotional punch,” he concludes.
    He and Pete get to talking about what makes for a good film, and if a good film has to have any meaningful intellectual content or if it’s sufficient for the viewer merely to be