All Good People Here(61)

Jodie’s eyes flicked over Krissy’s face, but she just smiled softly. “Hey, you know what I was thinking about recently? Do you remember that one time in sixth grade when Dusty Stephens ran for class treasurer and he made that speech in the cafeteria and the whole time his sweatshirt was on backwards?” She and Krissy both started grinning at the memory. “Like, do you think he knew? Was it on purpose? What was the point?” Jodie laughed and Krissy couldn’t help but join in. Soon they were both shaking with it.

For the rest of that drink and for the rest of another, the two women reminisced about their shared past, and Krissy felt lighter than she had in years.

“Do you have to go?” she asked at one point when Jodie stole a glance at her watch. Her voice was casual as she said it, but the idea of ending the night now was a wrench in her stomach. It had been a very long time since she’d felt this good. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Sorry, but I probably should. I need to throw something together for dinner. My husband should be home by now, but he’s worthless without me there to hold his hand.” She rolled her eyes, laughing.

Krissy smiled, but it felt tight. “Of course, no problem.”

“But maybe…” Jodie hesitated. “Maybe we could do this again sometime?”

There was the slightest hint of nerves in her voice, and Krissy’s heart sank. Her old acquaintance may have been kinder than most, but Jodie clearly still thought she was sitting across from a killer. “Thanks. But you probably don’t wanna go around town with a murderer.” She’d tried to sound flip, but her eyes prickled.

Jodie gave her a long look. “I don’t think you killed your daughter, Krissy.”

Tears fell so suddenly down Krissy’s cheeks it was as if she’d been slapped. Jodie’s words felt like sunlight on her skin after a long, dark winter. “Okay then,” she said, brushing her fingers beneath her eyes. “I’ll give you my number.”

The two women got drinks again the next week and then coffee two days after that, and soon they were meeting up almost every other day. Through all their conversations, Krissy learned that Jodie had also spent her high school years burning to escape Wakarusa. Upon graduation, she’d moved to South Bend for the fall semester at Notre Dame and never left. There, she’d studied Spanish and art history—so practical, huh?—and met her husband. They’d gotten married a few years out of college, and while Jodie had dreamed of a career in the arts, she’d gotten pregnant with her firstborn shortly thereafter. Her second kid had come only a year later, and by the time she’d had her third, she was a full-time mom and her brain was too crammed with feeding and sleeping schedules to fit anything else. Over the years, Jodie and her husband had drifted further and further apart until she felt like they were friendly co-workers with only sometimes overlapping shifts. I still love him, she told Krissy once. But I haven’t been in love in a long time. Jodie’s story was all too familiar to Krissy, and it made her ache for her new friend. What small tragedies their lives had turned out to be.

There was something open and unassuming about Jodie that allowed Krissy to relax around her in a way she hadn’t with anyone in a very long time. The band of tightness around her chest loosened when she was with her. Her shoulders and jaw unclenched. For years, she’d pasted on tight smiles, forced cordiality, endured backhanded compliments. But with Jodie, she laughed. Sometimes, she even forgot.

Krissy was in the kitchen one morning about three months after their first run-in in South Bend when her phone chimed with a text from Jodie. The kids are at sleepovers this Saturday, so I’m treating myself to a staycation! Want to get dinner at the hotel that night? Maybe face masks in the room after?

By this point, Krissy had developed a near Pavlovian response of excitement to seeing Jodie’s name on her phone, and she felt herself biting back a smile as she typed her response. Duh! I’ll bring the masks and wine.

For the rest of the week, every time she thought about their plans, Krissy got a little jolt of excitement, and when the night came, as they ate in the hotel’s restaurant, the air felt electric. For the past few months, Krissy had felt something building between them, though what it was exactly she didn’t know. The last time she’d felt something similar had been that summer after senior year—not with Billy, but with Dave. Her friendship with Jodie felt like a fluttering, a giddiness, a literal spark. But every time her brain went in that direction, it ground to a halt. She wasn’t gay. So perhaps this was simply what it felt like to have a real friend. Perhaps she’d been starved of companionship for so long she couldn’t tell the difference between that and romance.

That night at dinner, they split a bottle of wine, and afterward, giggling and tipsy, they took the elevator to Jodie’s floor. When the doors dinged open, Jodie walked out, but Krissy, who’d just noticed a button on her blouse had come undone, stopped.

“Oh no,” she said, laughing. “Has it been like this all night?” She looked up, fumbling with the button, to see Jodie, her fingers pressed to her lips. When they locked eyes, Jodie snorted out a laugh. “Oh my god,” Krissy said through her giggles. “It has!”

Jodie lifted her hand. “I didn’t notice it, I swear.” But then she burst into another fit of laughter that morphed into a shriek as the elevator doors began to close. “The doors!” She threw out an arm, grabbed Krissy by the hand, and tugged her over the threshold.