Tegan’s taken her dessert—a very elegant-looking ice cream sundae—out onto the restaurant’s expansive deck, since the sun’s about to set and the server promised spectacular views. With the edges of her mood smoothed out after our brief foray into the worst time of my life, Tegan turned into a friendly dinner companion to both me and Jess. She took some of those potatoes, finally, and told me about how she’ll be attending Allegheny in the fall, a small college in Pennsylvania where she’s gotten a big scholarship. She asked about what I did before I went back to school for my master’s, and I told her about my mostly aimless and unsatisfying few years as a sales rep for a national sporting goods company. When her ice cream arrived at the table, she even invited her sister out for the sunset, and I thought for sure Jess would go. I figured I’d take a few minutes to text Salem, to get my head on straight again, to give the sisters some alone time after such a big day.
Instead, Jess had stayed.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes,” she told Tegan, and now it’s only the two of us. The check paid, the table clear but for the candle and the cup of decaf Jess ordered, which she hasn’t taken a sip of yet.
I am trying to remind myself that I’m not on a date. It isn’t easy, what with the candlelight. With a purple-pink-orange sky outside, a whole ocean reflecting its glory.
It isn’t easy, with Jess Greene across from me.
She clears her throat, gentle and nervous. Not an interrupting effort. More of a courage-gathering one. I figure she’s maybe about to bust my chops for saying what I did to Tegan, though she hasn’t ever needed courage for that sort of thing before.
“I’m really sorry about your friend,” she says, so quickly that it takes a second for the words to register.
I’m oddly overwhelmed by them from her. She offers so little of herself that an expression of sympathy, even a quickly spoken one, feels powerful. Honest and fully meant.
“I knew about it, but I didn’t want to say,” she continues, her thumb rubbing back and forth nervously on the tablecloth. “I didn’t know if I should know about it, I mean.”
I want you to know about it, I think.I want you to know about me.
But obviously, I can’t say that.
“Thanks. And it’s okay that you know about it. I’m used to that.”
She nods down at where her thumb still rubs, back and forth, back and forth. “Tegan is—well. She’s a much more open person than I am.”
I smile. “You don’t say.”
Teasing her, it could go either way. I’m definitely date-nervous. Date-with-Jess-Greene nervous, which is exponential nervousness.
When she raises her eyes to mine and slowly smiles back, it suddenly becomes the best date of my life, even though it is not a date at all. Her smile is the same as her condolences. Rare. Honest.Meant.
“You sound just like her,” she teases back, her eyes dancing. Probably it’s the candlelight, but still. They’re dancing.
“How was my delivery?”
“Try rolling your eyes next time.”
We both laugh—tentative and quiet, a secret we’re keeping from the rest of this restaurant. It is strangely, strikingly intimate to share this:Look at what we’ve had to endure from this teenager, we’re saying to each other.Look how we’ve persevered together through her attitude.
I may not have asked many personal questions of Jess in the time since I’ve known her, but I still know she doesn’t share anything—with anyone—often. And my suspicion is confirmed a few seconds later when she says, as though it’s a correction, “I mean, I’m not making fun of her. I’m not—”
“I know. You’re just letting off steam. I get it.”
She lifts her cup of decaf, takes a sip. I’m afraid she’ll go back to being closed off and quiet, but she doesn’t. She blows out a sigh and speaks again.
“It’s hard, with her. It’s always been hard one way or another, but this week . . .” She trails off, turns her head to look toward where Tegan stands on the deck, and suddenly, my stomach sinks, because the professional part of me knows that in that trail-off, she’s left me an opening. An opportunity to prompt her. To say,How has it been hard?orWhat’s it been like for you, to raise her alone?
But if I prompt her, aren’t I betraying her?
It occurs to me how fucked I am, howstuckI am. I put off telling Salem how I’ve been feeling toward Jess, and now Salem’s gone. I’m sitting here alone with Jess and she finally seems to trust me enough to invite conversation, and I can’t bring myself to take her up on it.
After a long, painful silence—one in which I repeatedly contemplate how rude it would be to excuse myself from this table and call Salem right this second, when she’s in the middle of a pretty serious family crisis—Jess lifts her cup again and takes another sip of her coffee.
I missed the window. The way she opened it just a crack.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” she asks, her voice back in that distant, not-quite-polite tone. “After she deals with this thing with her daughter?”
I don’t know what she hopes this answer is, but I give her the honest one. I know Salem well enough to know. Or at least I know her devotion to this story enough to know.
