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“Now, you make me dinner, massage my feet, become my sex slave, and clean the gutters.” He winked at me.
“Oh really?” I liked joking around with him.
“Nah. But the receptionist here just quit, so if you want a job, you can help by answering the phones for Reggie. He doesn’t exactly have people skills.”
“I don’t know if my people skills would be much better.” I wasn’t sure I even had people skills.
“Yesterday, Reggie told a woman that if she didn’t know how to care for her car then she had no right owning it.”
“Ok, I think I can do better than that,” I said. “But only because he’s set the bar so low.”
“Unless you would rather try to find work somewhere else. That’s cool, too. There’s a Hooters a few miles away. You’d look great in the uniform.” He laughed. He knew exactly what he was doing. He seemed to know the one detail that would get under my skin the most.
“Won’t your dad mind that I work here?” I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
“Nope. He’s locked himself in his house, doesn’t come out much. No one’s seen him in a while, and I’m not about to pay him a friendly house call.”
“That sucks.”
“It’s better if we don’t see each other, anyway. Things didn’t end well when I first left town. Shouldn’t take me long to sort out the mess of a business he’s been ignoring. Then, I’m gone again.” He stared off into the sky, his mind obviously on things that places like Coral Pines could not provide.
Back in the apartment, Jake made us both sandwiches while I sat at the counter. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d last eaten. I could hear my stomach growl when he set my turkey and cheese in front of me on a paper plate. He politely ignored it, although it was loud enough for the neighbors to hear.
“What do you do?” I asked. “Are you a mechanic when you aren’t here?”
“Not exactly.”
“How can you not exactly be a mechanic?”
“I have mechanic skills, but I only work as a mechanic when I am here.” Then, he asked, “Where are you from?” He took a big bite of his sandwich so his mouth was full. Both the question and the face stuffing were avoidance tactics I’d used myself. Maybe, he was embarrassed about his regular job. I didn’t push.
“Atlanta area, I think,” I answered. I was pretty sure that was almost correct, because my parents had been in and out of the Georgia State Prison system. When anyone asked, I usually said Atlanta because it’s the only city I remember in Georgia off the top of my head.
“You think?”
“I was young when we left, and we moved around a lot.”
“And why did you come to Coral Pines?” This was a slippery slope he was heading down.
“To live with my Nan.” My ability to give only vague answers impressed me.
“And why was that?”
“Pass.”
“Pass?” Jake asked.
“Yes. Whenever you don’t want to answer a question, you get to pass. I’m choosing to pass on that one.”
“Who came up with these rules?”
“My Nan.”
“So you’re just gonna take a pass because your Nan invented a game to let you slide on having to tell anyone anything?” He was a perceptive one.
“Pretty much.” I took a big bite of my sandwich. The recognition of what I was doing danced in Jake’s eyes. He flashed me a smirk.
Once I’d choked my way through more turkey than I should have shoved down my throat in the first place, I laid out a few questions of my own. “So you’re from here?”
“Yes.”
“But you left?”
“Yes.” That single-word motherfucker.
“Why did you leave?”
“My mother and brother died.” I thought I had heard that Frank’s wife and son had died, but I didn’t put two and two together that it would have been Jake’s mother and brother. I avoided apologizing for it. I wasn’t sorry. I didn’t do anything. I never understood that practice anyway.
“How?” I asked, curious.
My brother drowned in a boating accident, and shortly after my mom couldn’t process his death, so she opted out.”
“Opted out?” I asked.
“Took matters into her own hands,” he said.
“No—I know what it means. I actually use that phrase myself. I’ve just never heard someone else say it before, is all.” I sipped my Coke. “I can see why you left, then.”
“Yeah, well... that’s not the whole reason.”
“Then, what is?” I’ve never felt the desire to know anything more about anyone before, but Jake intrigued me on a level I was very unfamiliar with. If he had a diary, I would have unapologetically stolen it and read it.
“Pass,” he said smiling, using my own game against me.
“You can’t pass,” I scolded. “It’s not your game!”
“It is now.” He came around the counter to sit on the barstool next to me. He lifted his sandwich and in one bite had finished off half, laughing with his mouth full.
“You’re going to choke,” I said. Jake laughed harder and tried to swallow the food in his mouth. His eyes were watering by the time he got it all down. When he pushed away his empty plate, his forearm brushed mine. I jumped. It wasn’t just a flinch, either. I jumped high enough to knock over the stool I was sitting on and fall against the computer desk.
“Whoa, there. Are you okay?”
It took me a second to do an inventory. I was okay. It was just a brush of the arm. Nothing inappropriate. No harm done. It didn’t even burn all that much. I nodded at him and tried to catch my breath. Jake reached down and righted my stool. He patted the cushion, inviting me to take my seat again. Reluctantly, I did. I naively hoped that he would overlook what had just happened. Of course he didn’t.
“What was that about?”
“It’s nothing,” I answered.
“That didn’t seem like nothing. Was it because I touched you?”
“Pass.” I didn’t want to spend any more time on this subject, and making an excuse for my behavior meant lingering. The pass seemed like my best option.
“This little get-to-know-you lunch is really working out well.” Jake laughed. I actually laughed too. “How about this instead: since we’re going to be living together for a bit, and we are just so damned forthcoming about our personal lives, what if every day we answer one question and reveal one significant thing about ourselves? We can pass on as many questions as we would like, but at some point we have to answer. And no question can be asked twice in one day.” Jake seemed proud of these rules. I was terrified. “Any follow-up questions are allowed.”
“Like, I can ask you what is your favorite color?” I asked.
“We can ask those types of little things too, but by the end of the day you have to answer something significant.”
“Like, what you do for a living?” I offered. I raised my eyebrow at him.
“Now, you’re getting it, Bee,” Jake said. “And I’m gonna pass on that one. How did your Nan die?”
“Meth lab explosion.” It sounded downright silly saying it aloud, like it was a TV crime show instead of my life. I didn’t like talking about it, but it was public record, and in the vault of my secrets it was a relatively minor one.
“Bullshit! You’re making that up.”
“Look it up,” I told him. “Made the news and everything. Nan didn’t do drugs... well, not after the sixties, anyway. And yet somehow she wound up in a meth lab trailer in the middle of the Preserve during the bright light of day when she should have been on her way to my graduation.”
Jake threw away our plates and moved to sit on the couch. Instead of taking the seat next to him, I just swiveled to face him from my place at the counter. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way: let’s not say I’m sorry to one another. I hate that expression. What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything. I’m not sorry because you lost your mother and brother. I didn’t do it.” The words came out a little rougher than I intended.
“Okay,” Jake agreed. “No more I’m sorrys. How about we just tell it like it is?”
“Now we’re talking.”
“Bee, I am not sorry your Nan died because I didn’t do anything to contribute to her untimely demise, but it still sucks.”
“Better.” I laughed.
“What’s your mom like?” Jake asked.
I stopped laughing immediately. “Definite pass on that one.” I pointed to his arm. “The tattoo on your forearm: whose initials?” He glanced down at the intricate gray and black design on his left forearm that started somewhere inside his short sleeved shirt and ran down to the top of his hand, creating an interlocking SL.
“Pass,” he answered. “How long did you live with your grand-mother?”
“A little under four years. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” he replied.
