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“Drop the act, Gina. You just better show up because if you don’t, there is no place or a person who is going to keep me from getting to you.”
“Don’t threaten me, Jamison,” she warns.
“Don’t disappear, Gina.” I pull out my phone and type a message with a location and time. “Put your phone number in so I can send it to you.”
Gina hesitates. Realizing how crazy this is, I turn off my phone and push my cart away from her. If she is fine with how things are, so am I.
I put food into my basket as I push, not really processing the items. Unsure of what I’d added, I decide to check out and come back for anything else that I need.
She’s alive.
And that’s all I can focus on as I pay the cashier for my groceries. Not that it matters now. She hadn’t said a word edge-wise to explain any of it. She didn’t need to fix it or the decency to even apologize for the shit show she left behind. That tells me everything I need to know about her character now. Maybe she never cared at all. We were teenagers and stupidly in love. Things move forward, and people change.
But she still wore the locket. A promise she hadn’t broken.
Then what is the story? What changed? Better yet, what don’t I know?
Loading my car, I try to convert my state of mind back to what it had been before strawberry donuts changed my broken heart into ignorance.
“Hey…” It is her voice.
I scoff in disgust. What does she want now? Was embarrassing me inside the store not enough? Did we need to do it outside too?
“Can I see your phone?”
It is my turn to ignore her. I push my cart to the storing lane and then get into my car. Gina knocks on the window, and I glare at her.
“Please.”
I lower the window, so I’m sure she hears me. “I understand that you’ve moved on and that I didn’t matter enough for you to drop a god damn explanation. What I don’t understand is why you’re acting all high and mighty, like I’m the one who left you to just figure shit out. I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t hurt you. Yet, you’re treating me like I’ve done something. I’ll gracefully decline further scrutiny.”
“You’re right. I just… There’s so much you don’t know. And you just… I shop at this store all the time, and you just appear today? You out of all the people in the world. We’re both in Norfolk? That can’t be a coincidence.”
“I just came back from a naval tour. I’m not out to get you. You saw how shocked I was to see you, too. I wasn’t looking for you. Hell, I didn’t even know you were alive.”
Gina tucks her hair behind her ear and leans into the car, grabbing my phone that I’d put in the car holster so I could use its GPS.
Melons. Her hair still smells of it.
She types something into the phone just before I hear a ping on what I guess is her phone. She reaches back into the car and puts the phone where she got it.
“I’ll see you at seven.” She turns away quickly and jogs over to her car, and drives off.
I look down at the message on the screen. I’d never deleted the one I’d composed, and she’d sent it to her phone. Now, I have her number, and she will be at my house tonight at seven to talk about why she disappeared all those years ago.
Wishing I have a habit like cigarettes or drugs to calm my nerves, I decide to go to the liquor store instead. I rarely drink, but I have a feeling we’ll both need something to take the edge off tonight. And that’s if she ever shows.
9
JULY 2022
I get in my car and rest both hands on the steering wheel. My breathing is heavy, and I feel as if my heart is going to pound right out of my chest.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Lucas asks.
“Nothing, sweetheart, Mommy is fine. I just met an old friend from when I was young, and it caught me by surprise.” Surprise doesn’t even describe what I am feeling right now. It’s Jamie! And he’s here! This can’t be a coincidence; it’s fate. Suddenly, I am giddy with excitement.
“Like when you were six?”
