Veer puts her burger down, checks over her shoulder that the waitress isn’t looking, and grimaces. “Maybe we should have ordered something else.”
“Not sure if that would help,” I whisper back.
She laughs softly, the orange light from the old-fashioned chandelier making her eyes gleam. “Let me be an optimist.”
I think about the taste of her broken skin, about pressing my tongue to the cut above her eye. Does she remember that? Did it scare her?
It scares me a little that I want to do it again.
Veer’s water glass tinkles as she raises it to her mouth. When she puts it down again, she says, “A kid overdosed. Well, not really a kid, someone, like, our age. How old are you again?”
“Thirty-one,” I reply automatically. What’s she talking about?
“Oh.” She smiles, rubs sheepishly at her temple. “Like my age, then.”
I realize first that she’s gone back to my question, that this is the start of what happened. And I realize second that I took it for granted that she was in her thirties, but she must be younger. I rewind through the life story she told me in the car and peg her for twenty-six. She just looks worn, lines around the eyes and a sad, sardonic edge to her smile. Is that what I look like too? Is that how she knew I had something dark in me?
“Anyway, we get up to this condo, and he’s lying on the rug in front of the TV. Football player–looking dude, and his pupils, you know”—pinpoint, probably—“and hypoventilating. And his friend’s totally freaking out, so I push the Narcan while Rodriguez preps the bag valve and keeps the friend calm.” Her nose crinkles. “He’s good at that. Guys respect him.”
I wash another bite of the burger down with water. The ice makes my teeth ache.
“So he’s on his side, I’m counting, friend’s yelling at us, Rodriguez is doing his thing, and eventually I put him on his back again for oxygen and maybe a line, and, boom.” She slams her hand on the table. It’s not loud, but I still jump. “Up he pops, this huge guy who was barely breathing, like, a minute ago, and throws me right into the TV stand.”
She grins like that’s funny, and adds, “The best part is, he had a fucking katana up there, and I got this close to a surprise appendectomy.”
Her voice and her face are making it a joke, but the oversalted burger can’t hide the lingering fear on her breath.
“And then what?” I ask.
She shrugs. Pushes a couple of fries around on her plate. “And then we took him to the hospital. It’s not his fault. If I woke up with a stranger in my face, I’d start swinging too.” She flags down the waitress. “I think I’ll get the rest of this to go.”
I ask for a box too, even though I don’t plan to eat any more of it.
“Together?” The waitress asks, and Veer nods before I have a chance to ask for separate checks. In my lap, I dig the ridge of my thumb into the divot above my wrist joint.
Without warning, Veer leans across the table and sweeps my hair behind my ear. The edge of her fingernail scrapes my temple. It’s still tender from my encounter with the freezer door. There’s no bruise there, just a faint line of mottled red marks.
“Work got to you too?” Her voice is low, her eyes lingering on my hairline.
I want to shrink into my seat, but I force myself to stay still. Don’t act ashamed. Don’t make your mom sound like a monster.
“Got in a fight with the fridge.” I hope I give it the same lighthearted ring as she gave her story. But her eyes sharpen like she knows there’s something I’m not telling her.
The waitress runs her card and Veer signs, and I itch with uncertainty. What does she want me to do? What do I owe her now?
As we wind our way through the smoke-choked hotel hallway back to the parking lot, she leans in and mutters, “Not exactly where I envisioned taking you out, but hey. Could be worse, right?”
When she grins with all her crooked teeth, I wonder if I owe her at all.
15
THE HIGHWAY KEEPS STRETCHING ON FOREVER, ANDVeer starts asking me questions.
“How long have you lived in Northtown?” is one.
“Since I was fifteen.”
“Your folks still there too?”
