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Next door, Sam emerged from his house dressed in his bland business casual again, looking like a stock photo from a credit union’s website. Khakis, white button-up, sunglasses on top of his head. He gave Conner and me the briefest nod, sliding the sunglasses down over his eyes before climbing into his truck.
“Well,thatwas weird,” Conner said.
I glanced down to see if I looked as sweaty and gross as I felt. My Torrid skinny jeans were black, thank god, so they didn’t show any stains. It was probably one reason I was overheated, but I hadn’t owned a pair of shorts in over a decade. As one concession to the sun beating down on us, my shirt was gray instead of black—DEATH + TEXASwritten across my chest in crackedscreen-printed letters. I’d gotten it while in Austin at the Pop Culture and Literature conference I attended each year, and it was one of my favorites. My messy bun was messier than usual, tendrils of hair falling out and sticking to my neck and face. I stopped to take my hair down and wind it back up again, looping the elastic around it tightly and hoping it would stay.
“I know, right,” I said. “Don’t try to figure out what he’s up to. Maybe he gets discounts on the Dockers if he puts in an hour appearance at the store every now and then.”
“No,” Conner said, “I mean weird that you didn’t even say hello. We were in that guy’shousea few days ago.”
And I’d forgotten to even try the garage door to see if it was locked. Truly a missed opportunity. “Uh-huh.”
Conner gave me an exasperated look I couldn’t read. He’d been a little taken aback when I’d wanted to leave so abruptly, but then Shani reminded him that they both had to wake up early for work, and he’d shrugged and gone along with it. We hadn’t even said goodbye. Was that rude?
I had a feeling that was rude.
“Josue told me some very interesting things about your neighbor Sam,” Conner said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Did he give you a handwriting sample?” I asked, starting to rifle through a box of old mail before tossing the whole thing in the dumpster. “Does Sam use an excessive amount of pen pressure and leave odd spacing between individual letters?”
“You act so cool,” Conner said, “but I know when you bring up handwriting analysis it’s because you’re dying inside for answers.”
“Only because of the lack of closure around the JonBenét ransom note,” I said irritably. “Just tell me whatever you learned, Conner. You obviously won’t leave it alone until you do.”
“Well,” Conner said. “For one thing. He’s single.”
A treacherous flutter, low in my belly. “So?”
“Apparently he did have a girlfriend,” Conner said. “They were together a long time—Josue told me her name, something with anA? Anyway, she broke up with Sam right before Christmas. He was pretty wrecked by it.”
We should really go back inside to load up more to sort through and toss. We’d run out of the load we’d brought out of the house already and were just standing in the driveway at this point, talking. But for some reason I didn’t feel like breaking this up just yet.
“Why did Josue even tell you all this?”
“Oh,” Conner said. “I asked.”
I tried not to react to that. Knowing Conner, that meant that he’d come out and said something really embarrassing, like how his sister was paranoid or, worse, how his sister was single herself and increasingly thirsty.
“Amanda!” Conner said, like an exclamation ofEureka!“That was the girlfriend’s name. Ex-girlfriend.”
It was just too hot to have this conversation outside. I finally moved for the front door, already dreading the next time we’d have to lug more stuff out here.
“Let me guess,” I said. “She’s thin and sophisticated and parts her hair down the middle.”
“See, that’s the problem with you.” Conner followed me into the house, giving a box by the door a kick to see if it was empty.Of course it wasn’t. “I can never tell if you’re saying, like, typical jealous girl stuff, or more serial killer stuff.”
“Iam not jealous,” I said emphatically. “First of all, I have no claim to Sam, nor do I want one. Second, you know that the greatest trick the patriarchy ever pulled was pitting women against each other.”
I meant every word. At the same time, it did give me a funny feeling, learning more about Sam. I didn’t know why. Maybe it just felt strange, having to acknowledge that he was a real person with a past and a present and a life beyond the little snippets I observed and pretended I could draw conclusions about.
It was the way I’d felt when I saw him hug Barbara at the party. It had been so clear in that moment, that these people all had relationships with each other, inside jokes and histories and real feelings. And if I normally felt like a fish out of water at most parties, suddenly I felt like the biggest bottom dweller who shriveled from any exposure to daylight. Sam looked like he gave great hugs, and I’d wanted one so bad.
Disgusting.
“Any ideas about the proposal?” I asked, because I’d take any subject change at this point. There was the most random stuff piled on a chair pushed over to one wall—clothes and a manila folder of warranties and wireless headphones still in their case. I separated the headphones out and started shoving the rest into a laundry basket.
His face brightened. “I was thinking graffiti?” he said. “A giant mural that asks her to marry me, and we can go on a walk and just, like, stumble on it. But you know my artistic skills tapped out by first grade, and I have no idea how you’d even go abouthiring someone to do that or if it’s even legal. So it’s back to the drawing board.”
“Pun intended,” I said.
