Cherry was so used to thinking about being fat, she hardly even noticed that she was doing it. She was so used to thinking about being fat, she neverthoughtabout it.
There was dog hair on her sleeve. She frowned and plucked it off.
More people were showing up for the concert now. Cherry watched them pour through the door. The crowd was younger than she was expecting. Weren’t these kids too young to know Goldenrod?
Maybe this was just the crowd for every concert here... Guys with patchy beards. Girls with blunt haircuts and tattoos creeping up their necks and onto their cheeks. Everyone had tattoos now. Literally, everyone. Even soccer moms and elementary school teachers. It must be difficult to be young and rebellious these days—you had to get a tattoo right across your face if you wanted to stand out. You had to wear clothes so deeply unflattering that no one over thirty would dare try it. The girls at this concert were wearing what used to be called mom jeans. Waist-thickening, ass-flattening jeans. Mom jeans and dad sneakers. Cherry didn’t have the heart for any of it. She was too old and fat to lean away from her strengths.
She wished that Stacia was here... or somebody.
In the old days, Cherry would have come to the concert with a big group of friends from work or school.
Your friendships change when you get married. And then they change again when everyone starts having kids. Cherry had been left behind at the kid stage. And now Tom was gone, and it was worse than being left behind—it was like getting thrown back to the start.
Maybe she needed younger friends.
She wasn’t theoldestperson here, at least. There were even a few people she recognized, just from living in Omaha her whole life and showing up in certain kinds of places.
She spotted a guy who used to work at the record store... back when Omaha had record stores. And a woman who used to work for the newspaper, back when Omaha still had a real newspaper. Sometimes the world was so new, it made Cherry dizzy—and she was only thirty-six. No wonder her mom always seemed confused.
Someone touched her shoulder. A young woman with short, unfortunate bangs wanted to know if Cherry needed the other chairs ather table. Cherry said she didn’t. The woman dragged them over to the bar for her friends.
Cherry watched them for a while—then realized she was staring at people like some sort of twentieth-century weirdo. She should stare at her phone, like a normal person. She glanced over at the bar one more time—and right into the eyes of someone who was watchingher. A man. He smiled.
Cherry frowned.Was that...
It definitelywas. She smiled, surprised. The man was already walking toward her. She smiled bigger.
“Russell Sutton!” she said as he stepped up to her table. “As I live and breathe.”
“Cherry, Cherry,” he said, grinning at her. “You’re a flashback—look at you.”
“Look atyou,” Cherry said. Shewaslooking at him. He looked...
Well, god, he looked the same way he always had. Like he’d dropped out of his mother’s womb with a good haircut and tortoiseshell glasses. Like he wasbornwith that smirk. Russell Sutton of the Fairacres Suttons. Talk about flashbacks. Talk about concussive blasts from the distant past.
“What are you doing here?” Russ asked, smiling with all of his teeth, like he couldn’t help it.
Cherry laughed. It was a dumb question. “I came for the show.”
He leaned on the high-top table. A lock of brown hair fell onto his forehead. “You know what I mean. I haven’t seen you around forgenerations. Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah, you?”
Russ shrugged and swept his hair back with his hand. “Ish. I came by myself—but you know, I know everyone here.You’rethe fresh face, Cherry. Where have you even been?”
She laughed again. “Nowhere. Around. I still live in midtown. I still work for the railroad.”
“I didn’t know you worked for the railroad—what do you do?”
“I sit in an office and give orders.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet you’re good at that. You’re married, right? To that guy who does the cartoon? They’re making a movie, isn’t that right?”
Cherry clenched her teeth. For just a second. She didn’t stop smiling. “That’s right—Thursday.”
He looked confused. “They’re making it on Thursday?”
“No,” she said. “That’s what it’s called. The comic.Thursday.”
