I take a large sip of my beer as Hearn walks over. “Well, look at this trio!” he says, ignoring Dane because, frankly, she’s not exactly hanging out with us anymore while she gets in some solitary practice. “We should do a building party here sometime!”
“Oh that would be fun when it’s cold outside,” Tom encourages.
“I loved that little mixer Eli had,” Hearn says. “He’s such a good boy, isn’t he? Esther would be so proud.”
I wish I could ignore how much it tugs on my heartstrings to hear someone say the one thing about Esther that I know Eli would want to hear. Even if it’s coming in a patronizing way from Hearn. But Tom and Kwan are nodding along, so maybe that consensus would be the best thing of all.
“Andit’s so nice how he’s scaled back his roof plans a little bit. He said he talked to a landscaper and didn’t want to cause any potential drainage issues with his planters, so he readjusted without us even having to ask.” Well,thatpart stuns me. Eli changed his roof plans? But before I can ask anything, Hearn changes the subject. “Anyway, I’m meeting up with my team.”
“Your team?” I ask, not having quite noticed before that he’s wearing a shirt with a logo that has two pool cues crossing.
“Oh yeah, big invitational coming up soon. We’ve gotta crush everyone.”
I try to school my surprised expression. I wouldn’t have pegged Hearn for having any friends or hobbies beyond nitpicking at our building.
Dane walks over, and suddenly Hearn’s face turns serious. “Dane,” he says, with mock formality.
“Your honor,” she says with the same competitive bite, tipping her baseball cap in his direction.
At that, Hearn walks away, and I turn to Dane, bewildered by the whole exchange.
“He’s a retired judge. And his team is our biggest competition,” she shrugs.
“Hearnis good at pool?”
“Not as good as me,” she says, swiping my beer and taking a large chug. With a wink she wanders back over to the table next to us and reracks. Kwan joins her while Tom and I stand and watch.
“So what’s going on with your stranger?” Dane asks, never taking her eye off the balls.
“Oooh, what stranger?” Tom asks, looking delighted.
“It’s nothing—” I start to say, but Dane cuts me off.
“She’s in love with a dude she’s never met,” she explains, as though I’m not standing right here. “He edits an advice column that she writes. At first it was love notes in the margin, and now it’s a full-scale texting relationship.”
“I’m not sure I’d call texting a relationship,” Kwan says, taking his time making his next shot after Dane’s went flawlessly.
“I think that’s very romantic,” Tom interjects.
“Thanks for the extra-special glimpse into your insights about my life,” I grumble, not loving all this attention suddenly on me, even if I know Dane’s doing it to try and move me forward through sheer will. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Well, it’s relevant!” Dane says to me and then turns back to Kwan and Tom. “She’s going to London for work in a few days, and they’re going to meet up for the first time.”
“If I didn’t know any better,” Kwan says, trying to rile Dane up now that she’s clearly beating him, “I’d say you’re going soft and gooey.”
“I’m not gooey; I’m just Team Nora,” she responds matter-of-factly, and I can’t help but feel a little fuzzy inside. But Dane clocks my reaction and rolls her eyes.
“I know you didn’t necessarily want to bring this up with us,” Tom says in a statement so obvious that it probably didn’t need to be articulated, “but I am curious. Do you really think you can know someone without meeting them? Is this generational?”
“Definitely not all of us,” Dane mutters.
I finish my beer and try to think of how to explain something that seems so unfathomable.
“I know him,” I finally say. “I don’t know a lot of the surface things. I don’t know what color his eyes are or even what he looks like, that’s true. But I think you can fall in love with a person through words. I think in some ways, that’s more powerful than all the other external things.”
“But if he walked in here right now,” Kwan points out, “he’d still be a stranger.”
“Yes, but he’s a sort of intimate stranger,” Tom says, and I give his arm a squeeze of thanks. Tom is so straightlaced and by the book, but I like to think being married to a free spirit like Meryl has made him perennially open minded.
