Page 108 of ClickBack

“And a job?”

“We were standing in it.”

I laugh and turn a baseball to hide the place where the coating has gone lumpy. Rae watches me, then takes it from my hand.

“Eat that one.”

“It can be fixed.”

“Ma. It’s a snack.”

I eat it. She starts telling me about a position she might want to apply for later, and I listen with my hands busy instead of preparing the questions that used to make every conversation about her future feel like a meeting. She has two of those questions answered before I think to ask them. The third she says she is still figuring out.

When Zion comes back, he counts the trays and asks which one we are keeping. His mother tells him the batch is for the team. He looks at the bitten test piece and then at us.

“So quality control is over?”

“Go wash your hands,” Rae says.

They stay for dinner. Afterward, Rae takes the finished trays with her, and Zion carries one carefully enough that I resist straightening it for him. I walk them to the door and kiss them both. Rae glances toward the shopping bag on the hall table, then kisses my cheek again without saying anything.

Upstairs, I put the new set in my drawer. I answer an email, wash the bowls, and find myself thinking about the silk while standing in front of the refrigerator. There is no reason to save it until Friday. I go back upstairs and cut off the tags.

I put on the camisole and shorts, pour wine, and make a plate with cheese, crackers, grapes, and leftover wings. Then I take it to bed and turn on a renovation show. A woman with an excellent blowout is trying to explain why gray flooring does not belong in the house her client has just bought. He wants to discuss resale value. She wants to know whether he has ever liked anything without planning to sell it.

I eat a wing and choose her side.

The silk slides cool against my legs when I shift. My glasses keep slipping down my nose. I break a cracker against my chest and pick up the crumbs. None of this resembles the advertisement in the store window, but I would not exchange places with that woman. She didn’t have a plate.

Jarrett’s name appears on a video call. I finish chewing before I answer.

He is in the back of the SUV, wearing a cap and a rust-colored T-shirt. “What you doing?”

“Watching somebody spend money badly.”

“Who?”

“A man who bought a house he apparently hates.”

Jarrett looks past the phone toward the front of the car. “Sounds like a good show for Cam.”

“Don’t send Cam to my evening.”

He laughs, then looks more closely at the screen. “What have you got on?”

I glance down at the strap he can see. “Something I bought today.”

“Let me see.”

I have the phone near my face. In the small picture of myself, I can see the tops of my shoulders and the expression I get when I know exactly what a man is asking. The last time we tried this, that little picture kept me from going any further. Tonight I am reluctant to let it ruin something I liked before he called.

“I didn’t buy it for you,” I tell him.

“Wasn’t asking for the receipt. Move the phone.”

I laugh and hold it farther away. His eyes drop. I watch him forget whatever he was about to say.

“That’s better,” he says.