“Yep. He always said modern films were too vulgar.”
The door cracks open, revealing a slice of face behind a dead-bolt chain. A pair of eyeballs scans them. Nelle hears the scrape of a metal chain and, in that second, feels a classicoh shithook in her stomach.
James hasn’t written for me to go inside.
She reaches for the journal and pen in his back pocket, but the door opens, and her moment slips away like a wet bar of soap.
Jessie tackles James in a sideways bear hug, dodging the daddy-size pizza in his hands. Her red curls are fire next to James’s walnut brown.
“Kyle didn’t give you any trouble, did he?”
Nelle has no choice but to stare at Jessie while she hugs James. Her cheeks are lightly freckled, and her eyeliner sweeps out sharply, each point dotted with a stick-on jewel.
“I started the order by name-dropping you, so, no, no trouble.” James gestures for Nelle to come into the apartment.
But she is frozen on the threshold. Trembling like a damn fawn. Realization dawns on James’s face, followed by pale dread. He mouths,One second, before following Jessie.
Inside, he says, “Jessie, look at this pizza, oh my God.”
While Jessie inhales pizza fumes at the kitchen island, James scribbles in the journal, then slips it into his back pocket.
Nelle can breathe again. She steps into the apartment and locks the door slowly to allot herself recovery time. Another deep breath. She exhales.
“I’ve never had pizza,” she says, the words slipping out.
“What?” Jessie’s concentration breaks. “You’re kidding, right?”
“She grew up in a really strict house,” James intervenes.
“My dad was really specific about what I could and couldn’t eat. Nothing mass produced, only organic. He was mostly vegetarian, so I was, too.”
Jessie uncorks the moscato. “You didn’t go out to eat with your friends in high school?”
Nelle didn’t go to high school. Father was her tutor in math, science, history, and literature. He claimed that it was a legitimate way to obtain an education, and at eighteen she received a diploma in the mail. She hung it up in her room, proud of hernormalachievement.
“I didn’t have friends in high school,” she says. It’s notnotthe truth.
Jessie passes out three ceramic plates. “Do you like cheese?”
“Yeah.”
“Tomatoes?”
Nelle nods.
“Bread?”
“Yes.”
Jessie lifts up a gooey slice. “Then you are going todie.”
Doubtful.
She lifts a slice and nibbles at the tip. And she does, indeed, die. Of all the cruelties Quill inflicted, banning delicacies like ice cream and coffee andpizzamay have been the worst. Tangy tomato complements the salted crust and melted parmesan. Garlic glistens in each bite. She stifles a moan. James offers her a glass of wine, but she shakes her head.
Jessie guides them from the kitchen, barely three feet of counter space with a two-eye stove and rounded retro fridge covered in magnets and photographs. She claims it’s nice by New York standards, but the highlight, she says, is the wood-top island facing the living room. One wall of the room is exposed brick, the other two maple paneling. The couch is yellow and covered in quilted throw pillows. Threaded blankets are slung across the cushions.
Nelle’s childhood bedroom housed her books and her art, but it was barely hers.Owninga place—growing into every corner and cabinet like kudzu—is such a foreign concept that Jessie’s apartment feels massive simply because it’shers.
