Betty stood against the wall next to the door to the kitchen and watched us eat. Hans didn’t seem to make anything of it. When I mentioned how odd she was acting, he only shrugged and said, “Can you blame her? What else is one to do around here for entertainment?”
“I hear Perth has a pretty good gay bar,” I said. “With a karaoke machine to boot.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Not tonight it won’t.”
I put my spoon down and pushed the bowl of lamb stew away from me. I glanced over at Betty. Her eyes were fixed dead on me. She lifted her hand and waved me over. I furrowed my brow and made a questioning face. She waved me over more emphatically.
I said to Hans, “Will you excuse me?” I got up from the table and went over to her.
She spoke to me in a hushed tone. “I have a message for you from Jake.”
Of all the things I was guessing she had to say to me, a message from Jake was nowhere on the list. “A message from Jake?”
Jake wants me to come over tonight, I thought. Instantly, I wasn’t so tired anymore - not even after Betty’s lamb stew.
“He wanted me to tell you goodbye,” she said.
I frowned.
“He wanted to tell you himself, but you were up in the mountains.”
How does she know where I was?
“So there you have it,” she continued. “Goodbye, and take care from Jake.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand!?” she said, her voice suddenly loud and angry. “What’s not to understand? Hasn’t anyone ever said goodbye to you before?”
“I mean, I’m not leaving for another ten days,” I said.
“Nine,” she corrected. “But Jake has some business to do in North Dakota.”
“Oh. When is he leaving?”
She pursed her lips and breathed out loudly through her nose. Apparently, our conversation was lasting longer than she’d expected or hoped for, and she wasn’t making much of an effort to hide her irritation. “He’s left already. Left this afternoon. Goodbye, that’s what he wanted me to tell you. And so I have.”
I stood there motionless, no response on my tongue.
“Anyway,” she said, “You’ve got work to do. And so does Jake.” With that, she turned from me and went back into the kitchen.
I returned to the table, a dozen questions swirling around in my head.
“What was that about?” Hans asked.
“Oh, that? Um, it was nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing,” he said. “What did she want?”
“Um, she just wanted to know if I liked the soup.” I felt terrible for lying to Hans. And I bet it showed on my face because Hans looked up at me from his bowl with an air of suspicion. Then he frowned and went back to his bowl.
As I waited for him to finish, I kept mulling over the words Betty had said to me.
Business in North Dakota? But we had talked about doing more ‘business’ together here in Perth. Is this his way of shrugging me off? I definitely didn’t get the sense that he wanted to get rid of me. Then again, it’s impossible to tell sometimes.
The message was so unexpected and didn’t make much sense to me. Plus, it had come from a dubious source. I didn’t believe her but couldn’t come up with any possible reason why she would lie to me.
“Something wrong?” asked Hans.
I snapped out of my thoughts and shook my head. “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just been a long day.”
“Greta, you’re a terrible liar.”
“What? It hasn’t been a long day!?” The words came out louder and more aggressive than intended. I never was good at accepting criticism. Even if being a bad liar isn’t the worst insult I’d heard, I didn’t like hearing that I was bad at anything, especially from Hans.
“Yeah, it’s been a long day. And tomorrow’s going to be an even longer one.” He sighed and pushed his bowl away. “Greta, when did we start keeping secrets from each other?”
I turned away from him. “Hans, can we argue about this tomorrow? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“That’s what I’m here for, to listen, so you don’t have to keep whatever is bothering you all bottled up inside.”
I crossed my arms. “Nothing’s bothering me.”
“Fine.” He tossed his napkin angrily on the table and stood. “Let’s just call it a night, go back to the room. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“You go on ahead. I need to go for a walk.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said, almost shouting. “Just for a walk, that’s all.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, though more as an order than an offer.
“No.” I took a deep breath and looked at him with what I hoped would be a calming nothing-is-wrong expression. “I want to be alone, get my thoughts together. You understand?”
He frowned. “No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you’d want to keep anything from me.” He walked past me. “Good night, Greta. Enjoy your walk.”