Bill's Detour

My name is Muriel Strand, I'm twenty-nine years old, and I have never once said no to Bill Voss. I need that noted before I tell you what happened, because otherwise you might think I'm the kind of person who does stupid things. I'm not. I'm the kind of person who makes spreadsheets for vacations and alphabetizes her spice rack. Bill is forty-one, a senior partner at the firm, and for four years he has been my boss and my problem.

It started on a Tuesday. He walked into my office without knocking, the way he always does, and dropped a file folder on my desk.

"Client meeting in Ekalaka. Thursday. You're driving me."

I looked up from my brief. "Driving you? It's seven hours. Each way!"

"Well, yes. That's why they invented highways, Muriel. You should look into them sometime."

"But why me? What about Quinn? She has a car. A big one, even!"

"Quinn has the Henderson deposition. You have a light week. I checked your calendar." He smiled, and there it was, that smile that makes me feel like I've been caught doing something I haven't even done yet. "You'll love it. Wide open roads. Nobody around for miles."

Nobody around for miles. I should have known right then that something was off about this trip, but honestly, I think part of me was already excited. That's the shameful part. My stomach did a little flip when he said it, and I actually said, "Sure, okay, what time?"

"Six a.m. Don't be late."

He was gone before I could ask about hotel arrangements, or who was paying for gas, or any of the forty reasonable questions I had. I just sat there with my brief and my cold coffee, thinking, why do I always do this? Why can't I say no to this man?

The truth is I don't know. He's not even my type. Well, that's a lie, maybe. He's tall and he has this gray coming in at his temples and he wears his shirts a little too fitted, and when he reads a contract his whole face goes serious and still, and I've caught myself watching him do it more than once. More than twice, if I'm honest. But he's my boss! Senior partners are supposed to be off limits, like a rule with a capital R. And I love rules. Rules are the only thing holding my whole personality together.

So Wednesday night I packed. I packed like it was a military operation. Printed directions even though my phone has GPS. Printed the client file, twice, once for him and once for me. Snacks, water bottles, phone charger, a paperback I wouldn't read, a spare phone charger because I lose chargers. I laid out my clothes on the bed like a paper doll and stared at them for twenty minutes trying to decide if "remote client meeting" meant blazer or no blazer. I went with blazer. I always go with blazer.

At six a.m. sharp I was standing in the firm parking lot with my suitcase and my tote bag and my coffee, and Bill pulled up in his black sedan, windows down, sunglasses on, looking like he'd slept nine hours and won a poker game.

"Muriel! Look at you. Did you bring an overnight bag or move in somewhere?"

"It's a small suitcase," I said, cramming it in the back. "And a tote."

"And a tote. Of course there's a tote." He took my coffee out of my hand and drank from it! Just drank from it, like that was normal! "Mm. You do sweeten it. I always wondered."

"Hey, that's mine," I said, but I was laughing, which ruined it.

We got on the highway and the city fell away fast, and then it was just Montana. I mean just Montana. Flat brown land to the edges of the earth, sky so big it looked fake, and a road that ran dead straight until it stopped being a road and became a rumor.

I had an itinerary printed. Yes, an itinerary, with the two gas stops and the arrival time and a lunch suggestion circled. I handed it to him at the first red light we hit, which was also the last red light we'd hit for hours.

Bill looked at it for a long time. "You made an itinerary."

"It's a seven-hour drive to a meeting. Someone should plan it."

"You printed out directions." He held up the sheet. "To Ekalaka. From Billings. On paper."

"Phones die!"

"Your phone is plugged into the charger right now. I can see the cable."

I snatched the paper back and folded it, feeling my face go hot. "Fine. I overprepare. I'm aware. You can stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He was grinning behind the sunglasses, I could hear it in his voice. "I'm not looking at you like anything. I'm admiring your thoroughness. Your packed snacks. Your backup charger. Tell me, do you have a backup backup charger?"

"In the glovebox, actually," I said, and he laughed out loud, a real laugh, head back, and I hated how much I liked making that happen.

The thing about that laugh is it affected me. Same old flip in the stomach, same little electricity. Irritation and thrill mixed together like a salad dressing, and it's been that way for four years, and I've never once told anybody, because what would I even say? I get tingles when my boss teases me about printouts? Please.

Around hour two we hit the first gas station. It wasn't even a town, just a station and a grain elevator and a whole lot of nothing. Bill pulled in and shut off the engine.

"I need gum," he said.

"You need gum?"

"I need gum. And here's the thing." He turned and looked at me, dead serious, which should have been my warning. "I want you to buy it."

"...You want me to buy you gum."

"With exact change. Nothing over. Nothing under. Exact." He opened his palm, and there were coins in it. Quarters and dimes and some nickels, and I swear one of those dollar coins. "One dollar and thirty-seven cents. That's what it costs at these places, I've checked. Go on."

"Why would you care how I buy gum?"

"Because I want to watch," he said, simply, like that explained anything. "Go. I'll be right here."

And I should have laughed it off. I should have said, Bill, this is the weirdest thing anyone has ever asked me, and stayed in the car. But my stomach did the flip. The big one. And I took the coins out of his hand, feeling each one of them warm from his palm, and I got out of the car.

The bell over the door jingled and the clerk, a kid maybe twenty-two, barely looked up from his phone. I walked to the candy aisle like I was walking to the gallows. Gum, gum, where was the gum. There. Bottom shelf. I crouched down, and I could feel Bill's eyes on my back through the window, I was sure of it, sure he was watching every move like it was a performance just for him.

I picked a pack. Peppermint. One thirty-seven, the sticker said, and my hands were actually a little shaky. What is wrong with me? It's gum! I counted the coins in my hand as I walked to the counter, twice, because God forbid I was short and had to break the rules in front of the whole state of Montana.

"That's it?" the kid said.

"That's it."

I counted the change out on the counter, coin by coin, one thirty-seven exactly, and my heart was pounding like I'd run up stairs. The kid swept it into the register and handed me the gum, and I walked out with it held in my fist like it was evidence.

Bill was leaning against the car with his arms crossed, watching me cross the lot. When I got close he held out his hand.

"Exact?"

"Exact. Counted it twice."

"Good girl," he said, and took the gum, and from the hair down my whole body went warm. He peeled a piece and put it in his mouth and got back in the car like nothing had happened at all.

I sat in the passenger seat with my heart still going and thought, okay, this is a game. He's playing some kind of game with me. And I thought, I really, really want to know what the next dare is.

We drove another forty miles before I got my nerve up. The air conditioning in his stupid sedan was set to some arctic setting, but the sun came through my window like a magnifying glass, and my left arm was roasting against the glass, and I decided two things at once. One, I was hot. Two, I was going to make him pull over.

"Bill. Pull over."

"Now?"

"Yes, now! Please. Right there, that pullout."

He flicked his blinker on for an empty gravel pullout on the side of a highway with no cars in either direction, which was its own kind of funny, and we rolled to a stop in the dust. "Bathroom?" he asked.

"No. It's a hundred degrees out and your sun visor doesn't tilt and I am taking off my blazer."

"Go ahead," he said, all casual, looking out the windshield.

Oh, no. I wasn't going to let him get away with not watching. That was the entire point of the gum thing, right? He wanted to watch. Well, two could play.

"Bill. Look at me."

He turned his head, slow, and I unbuttoned my blazer one button at a time, sitting sideways in the seat so he had a clear view, and slid it off my shoulders. Underneath I had on a sleeveless blouse, a nice one, the one I'd bought for the Hendricks deposition, and I know exactly what my arms look like in it. I do pilates. Four years of billable hours and I still make it to pilates.

I folded the blazer over my knees, smoothed it, and looked at him. "There. Better?"

His eyes were on my arms. Not my face. My arms, and then up, and then he caught himself and put the sunglasses on top of his head like that would hide anything.

"Much better," he said.

"You're staring."

"I'm admiring your thoroughness."

"That's not even what the word means!"

"It's what I mean by it," he said, and pulled back onto the highway, and I sat there with my bare arms and my heart going like the gum counter all over again. So that was the retaliation. It was