‘Hi,’ I said when Jennifer turned to look at me.
‘Hi,’ she said, her mouth twitching as if she wanted to smile but wasn’t sure if she should or even could.
‘Bye,’ said Margaret, standing up with a full plate of food on her tray, holding her dead-eyed look on me as she walked off.
‘Mind if I join you?’ I asked.
‘Sure.’
I walked round and sat down where Margaret had been.
The freckles on Jennifer’s face looked more prominent than before the break, her eyes even more blue.
‘You look like you caught the sun,’ I said.
‘Really?’ she said, brushing hair away from her face. ‘It was pretty sunny some of the days.’
‘Yeah, not too much rain.’
Were we really going to talk about the weather?
‘So how …’ we both said at the same time, then laughed.
‘You first …’ we both said and laughed again.
‘I’ll go,’ I said quickly. ‘Mum said you phoned, I didn’t get a chance …’
‘That’s OK, I was only phoning to see how you were.’
‘Ah right.’
‘So …’ She was shaking her head as if to provoke a response. ‘How were you?’
‘Busy.’
‘Right.’
‘I mean, I knew I would be …’
‘Yeah, you’d said …’
‘… but yeah, busy.’
‘Right.’
‘How were you?’
‘Probably not as busy as you. Actually, not busy at all. Well, pretty bored, I suppose. Pretty upset actually …’
‘Upset because of …’
‘No, not upset because of … geez, Brendan.’
‘What?’
She shook her head and looked down.
‘What?’ I said again.
