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“What do you enjoy about firefighting?” I ask. “Fighting fires? Fire...extinguishing?”
Jesse takes a sip of his water, shaking his head with a quiet “no thank you,” like he doesn’t want to answer the question. I was not aware that we could just decline to answer questions, but he does it so seamlessly I catalog the interaction away for myself. The next time a colleague tries to ask a leading question about my productivity I will simply do as Jesse does and decline.
“Tell me about your research,” he says and either he knows other academics and thus knows we can’t shut up about our research, or he’s secretly my evil nemesis who somehow knows my one and only kryptonite. So, I spend far too long talking about the history of witches and the Witch Craze, gender and perceptions of witchcraft, especially within the context of early modern Europe, especially,especiallyin England and how, now that I’ve moved home I’m focusing on witchcraft in the colonial period; witch hunts, the bubonic plague, war, fear-mongering misogyny, and law in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Once I start devolving into torture devices used to coerce confessions and Royal Witch-Hunter King James VI or I and explaining how he was both a sixth and a first at once, I stop myself. I’ve definitely wandered into unacceptable conversation topic territory. I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here but my butt is sore from this hard barstool, and I’ve finished one beer and started halfway into another.Whoops.
It’s time to pull this back into safe conversation territory, although Jesse doesn’t seem too concerned about anything I just said. He sat and listened quietly, maintaining eye contact the whole time, nodding,hmm-ing and throwing in a couple well-timedI see’s.
“What about you?” I hiccup into my hand before taking another gulp of IPA. “Why’d you get into fighting fires?” I try again.
He fiddles with the hem of his sweater but at least doesn’t deflect me this time. “Family business.” He says nothing else, and I resist the urge to duck to his level and catch his gaze. It’s probably just the beer but something about Jesse’s attention feels warm and familiar.
“George mentioned you’re not doing that anymore, though?”
Jesse is the All-American type. Like he’d have smiled into the camera of the local TV station on his football field in high school after making the game-winning play, with anaw shucks. He fills his chest with air, like he wants to say something, then never does. He catches me staring, admiring the line of his sweater, his straight back, his freshly buzzed hair. I smile—because that’s what I always do—and something about him loosens.
“Can I get you anything else?” the bartender asks.
Jesse and I lock eyes for that awkward moment where both of us try to decide who’s going to answer. The silence ticks away again, filled only by the few diners left in the restaurant, the sound of the kitchen behind the swinging doors.
“Do you...?” I ask.
“Maybe we should...” he says at the same time.
I smile. His mouth flattens. He looks over his shoulder then back at me. “Just the check, please.”
“I can pay for my drink.”
His throat bobs. “I’d like to pay for it, if you don’t mind,” he says quietly.
The bartender slides the slip of paper between us, his eyes bouncing back and forth, like he’s placed bets on this standoff. After a moment I reach for it, pulling some bills from my wallet. Jesse nods and I feel like I’ve disappointed him and care that I’ve disappointed him, even though I shouldn’t care. I barely know him, other than the weight of his gaze on the side of my face and the sound of his companionable silence.
I stumble as I hop off the barstool, staggering a step, the stool next to mine making a loud, scraping noise along the floor when I bump into it.Perfect.Now he’ll think I’m drunk, when I’m not drunk. I haven’t been drunk since England.
Brian’s hobby was wine. He’d bring rare and expensive bottles to my flat, with never enough cheese, and make us listen to French singers he knew I couldn’t understand.
The urge to tell Jesse about the distaste on Brian’s face when I played “Bitch Better Have My Money,” dancing in my underwear after too much wine, bubbles like Brain’s favorite cava on my tongue. He’d frowned, saidEloise, like the word left a bitter taste in his mouth, and left. At the time I was hurt, but looking back, I think he was withholding sex and punishing me for behaving in a way he didn’t approve of. Also, he left to have sex with Nora, so.
I rummage through my purse, weaving between the empty tables and out the front door, Jesse trailing quietly behind me. “I’m not trying to find my keys,” I say over my shoulder. The sky is blank, the stars covered by storm clouds I can’t really see but feel low and ominous nonetheless, like they’ll sink lower and lower until Wilvale, Pennsylvania, is nothing but fog. The wind blows my hair into my face, catching on my lips. “I’m trying to find my phone so I can call a ride. I’ll get my car tomorrow. My dad can drive me into town.”
“Your phone is in your hand, Lulu.”
And he’s right. I shake it at him, showing him the case with a flower that says “Votes for Women” in the center to distract him from the complete mess I am right now.
He scratches the back of his head, undistracted. “And I can give you a ride.”
“It’s fine.” I wave his words away. “I can get a cab.” The lights are on in Little Texas now and music isn’t exactly audible but the bass of it reaches my feet on the pavement. Soon there will be a lineup of people outside and a procession of cabs coming in and out of the parking lot as students from the university and nearby technical college arrive to kick off their summer vacation.
He points to a rusty blue truck a few spaces down. “I’d feel better if I dropped you off at your door, but I understand if you’re not comfortable.” We stand off in the middle of the parking lot, the wind growing stronger. I hiccup and close my eyes; if I can’t see him then he can’t see how red I’m getting. And it’s not that I wouldn’t like a ride from him, it’s just that I’m still not sure what he even thinks of me. “OK,” I hear myself say. “That would be really nice of you.”
He opens the door to the old Ford Bronco, the rust most prevalent around the tire wells. It smells like leather and car air freshener and, I imagine if I knew him better, Jesse: peppermint and pine. There’s a bench seat and as I climb up my eyes slide over it, the leather soft and cool—and OK, this is definitely the beer talking but—sensual.
I wonder how many people Jesse has had sex with on this bench seat. If I were Jesse, I’d have sex with everyone on this bench seat. He’s pulled on a plaid jacket over his sweater, and he fills it out so well, I think I answer my own question: he probably has sex witha lotof people on this bench seat.
“Just be cool,” I whisper as he walks around the front of the truck. “Be cool, Dr. Banks.”
Jesse cranks the engine as he settles in. His hands are big and veiny and a quick, sudden image of how those hands would look on my bare thighs imprints itself on the back of my eyelids, real enough that I can feel his palms, how rough they’d be on my skin. I’m so caught up in wildly inappropriate thoughts it takes me too long to notice that the truck is rumbling, the engine warm, and Jesse is staring at me.
“Turn right on Main,” I say too loudly.
