Excerpt of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
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She looked at her watch, which was thin and gold-colored.
“Is there somewhere to get food?” she asked. “I have
to drive back to Missoula.”
The interstate ran straight across Montana, from the edge
of North Dakota, where they were, west through Billings
and Bozeman and past Logan, where he had grown up, over
the mountains to Missoula, near the Idaho border. “That’s an
awful long drive,” he said.
She shook her head, not in disagreement but in amazement.
“I took this job before I finished law school,” she said.
“I wanted any job, I was so afraid of my loans coming due. I
didn’t know where Glendive was. It looks like Belgrade, the
word does I mean, which is closer to Missoula—I must have
gotten them confused. Then I got a real job, and they’re letting
me do this because they think it’s funny. But it took me
nine and a half hours to get here. And now I have to drive
nine and a half hours back, and I have to work in the morning.
I’ve never done anything so stupid in my life.”
“I can show you where the café is,” he said.
She looked like she was wondering whether to fear him,
and then she nodded. “Okay,” she said.
In the parking lot, he was self-conscious about his gait,
but she didn’t seem to notice. She got into a yellow Datsun
and followed his truck to the café on the main drag. He
guessed she could have found it herself, but he wanted more
time with her. He went in and sat opposite her in a booth.
She ordered coffee and a turkey sandwich and a brownie
sundae, and asked the waitress to bring it all at once. He
didn’t want anything. The waitress left, and Beth Travis took
off her glasses and set them on the table. She rubbed her eyes
until they were red.
“Did you grow up here?” she asked. “Do you know those
teachers?”
“No, ma’am.”
She put her glasses back on. “I’m only twenty-five,” she
said. “Don’t call me that.”
He didn’t say anything. She was three years older than he
was. Her hair in the overhead light was the color of honey.
She wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Did you tell me how you ended up in that class?” she
asked.
“I just saw people going in.”
She studied him and seemed to wonder again if she
should be afraid. But the room was bright, and he tried to
look harmless. He was harmless, he was pretty sure. Being
with someone helped—he didn’t feel so wound up and
restless.
“Did I make a fool of myself ?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you going to come back?”
“When’s it next?”
“Thursday,” she said. “Every Tuesday and Thursday for
nine weeks. Oh, God.” She put her hands over her eyes again.
“What have I done?”
He tried to think how he could help her. He had to stay
with the cows, and driving to pick her up in Missoula didn’t
make any sense. It was so far away, and they’d just have to
drive back again.
“I’m not signed up,” he finally said.
She shrugged. “They’re not going to check.”
Her food came, and she started on the sandwich.
“I don’t even know school law,” she said. “I’ll have to
learn enough to teach every time.” She wiped a spot of mustard
from her chin. “Where do you work?”
“Out on the Hayden ranch, feeding cattle. It’s just a winter
job.”
“Do you want the other half of this sandwich?”
He shook his head, and she pushed the plate aside and
took a bite of the melting sundae.
“I’d show you if you could stay longer,” he said.
Excerpted from Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
by Maile Meloy Copyright © 2009 by Maile Meloy. Excerpted by
permission of Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Group, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
