Theo raises a brow. He looks back and forth between Claire and Jackie, who suddenly looks pale and pinched.
“I believe that’s what I said, Suzy Homemaker,” Theo says, draining the last of the sangria.
“You kissmen?” Claire says. She feels like the slowest horse at the race, but his nonchalance is so absurd that it doesn’t feel real. This isn’t the sort of thing one says openly. Theo might as well have publicly announced his intention to commit grand larceny.
“Exclusively.” Theo winks again. His confidence is as shocking as the admission itself.
Jackie’s foot is twitching. She’s looking at Claire as if she’s expecting her to explode at any moment, and Claire schools her features to conceal the somersaults her brain is doing.
Theo kisses men. Assumedly, Theo has sexual relations with men. He’s one ofthose. One of the types of people Pete complains about over the morning paper—the sex-freaks. The degenerates. Claire is confused and a little unsettled by it all, but it’s mixed with a great deal of unexpected relief.
Theo and Jackie aren’t together, romantically or otherwise.
Theo laughs, presumably at the expression on Claire’s face. He pats Claire’s hand as if she’s a precocious toddler. “Oh, look at how shocked she is. Jackie, I thought that you—”
“Theodore!” Jackie snaps harshly. Claire jumps at the volume of it—she’s never seen Jackie look so grave. So angry. “Don’t.”
A few beats of silence pass. Claire can feel the awkwardness in the air like a mist—Jackie’s jaw is clenched, and her knuckles are white around her glass. Claire wonders if she and Theo are about to have a fight, and if perhaps she should leave.
Theo’s face falls. He puts his hands up, looking suddenly quite sober. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Jacks. That was—fuck. No more wine for me.”
“What?” Claire asks, looking between them. Some sort of secret has passed through the space she’s sitting in, and she feels slow for not catching it. “What is it?”
Jackie shakes her head with a smile that looks forced. “It’s nothing, Claire. Don’t worry about it.”
“Just a misunderstanding,” Theo says. His blasé tone from earlier is gone.
It doesn’t feel like nothing, but the subject changes so quickly that Claire can barely keep up. The awkwardness never quite eases, though, with Theo clearly trying extra hard to carry the conversation and make up for his mysterious blunder, and Claire excuses herself less than an hour after she arrived. Usually, she’d stay until at least two o’clock.
The first thing Claire does when she gets home is dart up the stairs to peer over the fence into Jackie’s yard. Jackie and Theoare huddled close together now, in a conversation that looks intense and intimate. Theo is holding Jackie’s hands between his much bigger ones. Jackie’s shoulders are hunched. Her head falls forward onto Theo’s shoulder, and he puts an arm around her. Claire isn’t sure she’s ever seen a man and woman, especially of different races, so close unless they’re going steady.
Jackie looks upset about something. The thing that Theo almost revealed, maybe? Claire is too far away to read their lips, but she shouldn’t be spying in the first place, no matter how badly she wants to know.
Reluctantly, Claire lets the curtains fall back across the window.
~ ~ ~
Theo stays at Jackie’s house for two days, from what Claire can tell. She sees them sitting at the pool a few more times through her bedroom window, but she isn’t brave enough to visit Jackie again until Theo’s car no longer sits in the driveway.
She spends that morning fretting, wondering if the strange conversation by the pool will still hang between them, before she finally darts across the lawns.
Claire’s knuckles have hardly touched the door before it opens. Jackie is dressed for driving, her hair wrapped under her silk kerchief, and she has a hand on her hip.
“I have a serious craving for some ice cream,” Jackie says.
It’s as if the day by the pool never happened. Claire blinks, her fist still raised, trying to re-adjust to the sudden shift in her day. “I think I have some in the freezer?”
“I want to go out,” Jackie says. She steps outside, closing the door behind her. “Coming with?”
Claire hesitates. Martha’s curtains are closed for now, but who knows if they will be when Claire gets back? “How long will we be gone?”
“I’ll have you back before you know it. An hour’s break won’t make the house fall apart,” Jackie says. “Do you know a place, or should we just drive around until we find one?”
Claire does know a place. And isn’t it safer to be with Jackie somewhere besides their suburb? Martha isn’t one to venture out to get ice cream. If they go to the shop Claire remembers on the far side of Sacramento, nearer to where she and Pete grew up, there’s little risk.
The glowing yellow and blue neon sign over Sweetie’s Malt Shop is a sight Claire hasn’t seen in years. She used to frequent this place with her childhood girlfriends, and then, later on, with Pete and his larger group of pals. She didn’t enjoy it as much in the later years—she was usually crammed into the corner of a booth while Pete and his boys talked about sports or teased each other about girls. It was more fun with her own friends, before they all slowly found beaus and lost touch. But she does miss the milkshakes.
Claire gets strawberry, with whipped cream and shaved chocolate on top. Jackie goes for a banana split with extra peanuts. It’s just as good as Claire remembers. The day is hot and sunny, and they sit at an outdoor table to soak it in—Claire typically needs to be concerned about sunburn, but Jackie seems to absorb the sunlight and reflect it back out. She’s her own little star, warm and funny and delightful to be around. A little sunburn is worth it.
