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“Hmm? How do you mean?”
“Like …” He moans. I hear him shifting on his bed, then settle in place. “Like if you just had this totally different life. And people saw you a different way. And you lived somewhere else. And you did things that scare you, things you would never, ever do. And you had … different friends …” His voice drifts off.
At once, I’m no longer sleepy, my eyes open. “W-What …?”
Jimmy takes a long, lazy breath, groans, then says, “It’s weird, ‘cause … no matter how differently I picture my life, you’re …” A sleepy sort of chuckle escapes his lips, then silence.
I blink. “I’m …?”
So sleepily, somewhere between being awake and dreaming, Jimmy finishes: “You’re always in it.”
Oh.
Wow.
A smile slowly spreads over my face. I close my eyes and hug my phone to my ear. “Jimmy, that … that really means a lot to me. I know things have been kind of complicated between the two of us lately, and …” I bite my lip, thinking. “… and I know we’ve got a lot to figure out together. Maybe whatever’s going on between us has a shelf life. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I think I’ve …” I feel so safe with him. I can tell Jimmy anything. “I think I’ve felt strongly about you for a long time. Maybe ever since we first met as clueless kids. And I think … maybe I’ve always loved you.”
I listen for his reply.
There is nothing.
“Jimmy?” Still nothing. “Jimmy …? Are you still—?”
Then the calm sound of deep breathing passes through the phone like soft, white noise.
The boy’s fallen asleep.
As if the phone is his face, I softly whisper, “Goodnight,” to it before closing my eyes and turning over in the bed. Then I listen to the gentle sound of Jimmy breathing as I drift off.
If only every night could be as peaceful as Sunday’s.
Monday morning is a harsh and unkind wake-up call of spilled soda on four seats in auditorium two, puking kids in auditorium three, and a leaky, spraying soda fountain that I’m somehow given the task of figuring out how to fix. Vince is off, and it’s the power-tripping Anthony who shrugs, makes some excuse about having to man the concession stand during the busy afternoon rush (it isn’t busy at all), then tosses me a set of tools. Anthony might be an enemy of Jimmy’s, but he sure is doing his best to antagonize me, too. So much for keeping the peace at work. After getting home, I can’t get into the shower fast enough.
Then wash, rinse, repeat for Tuesday morning: another day without Vince, and up to here with Anthony Myer’s smug bossing me around and shoving off the worst, most disgusting, and tedious of tasks onto my shoulders. I’m not one to complain or cause a scene, so I take each and every one of them and perform to my best, even if I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
And Wednesday isn’t any damn better.
Can someone remind me why I took this job again …?
The saving grace each day is texting back and forth with Jimmy on my breaks. He’s decided to take my advice and keep off of his foot for the week, to everyone’s surprise. He sends me funny selfies from the ranch where he’s been kept busy on a laptop or at a table full of crafty things by his ma, who needs this and that to be done for the Spruce Ball. Jimmy’s convinced his ma has totally lost her mind or else is in complete denial that it isn’t she who’s running the event this summer.
And each time my break ends and my fun text-tennis with Jimmy’s over, I’m already excited for the next time I’ll get to chat with him about my day, which is going to be whenever I finally clock out and head home. I’ve talked my pa out of coming by and picking me up every day, preferring to do the seventeen-minute-walk home—which turns into a half-hour walk, since I like to take my time. It gives me a chance to text back and forth with Jimmy some more before I get home and am bombarded by my ma’s love and dinner plans and spilling all about her own (comparatively uneventful) day.
Then comes Thursday: my last day of work this week before I get both Friday and Saturday off.
It would be the perfect day if it weren’t for Anthony Myers—once more—being a total and unnecessary dick.
Like when he hounds me about emptying the trash in the concession scullery. “Isn’t that your job?” he asks pseudo-politely while leaning halfway over the counter, flippantly tossing kernels of popcorn in the air and catching them with his mouth. “Your job is trash, right? It’s been full-up for almost an hour with empty syrup boxes and popcorn seed bags. The trash doesn’t take out itself. I mean …” He shrugs at me. “… unless you’re too busy with another tour of the projectionist booth that you’re wanting to give some other friend of yours.”
