Emergency Contact(18)

No, he told himself.

He wanted to reconfigure his brain. Why couldn’t he control when he thought about her? Why couldn’t he control when she thought about him?

When they first broke up he’d watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and High Fidelity on a loop. He stopped sleeping. One morning Fin, sensing a need, reached out and hugged him. The two of them stood there for well over ten minutes while Sam cried so hard he got the hiccups.

Nope. Never. Again.

He deleted the text.

? ? ?

For the next two hours, he tidied obsessively. Jude texted again, and Sam nearly had a heart attack thinking it was Lorraine. It was another invitation to dinner, but again he begged off, citing work. He felt equal parts guilty and annoyed. He considered telling Jude he would be busy for the foreseeable future but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. His lower back hurt and Sam wondered if the customers could detect the crazy in his eyes.

When his shift ended, he was spent. Sam settled the register and yawned. He could hear Fin in the back, hauling trash. Fin unfailingly let the screen door slam, which drove Sam nuts, but this time he was too tired to bitch. The only good thing about getting up at the absolute asscrack of dawn was that he was closed by eight and in bed sometimes by eight fifteen. Even if all he did under the covers was blink and not drink.

Earlier that year, Al had installed an impenetrable security system that amounted to a fake video camera affixed above the door and an automated gate that was already no longer automated. Sam walked outside to pull it closed. It took both hands and his full body weight.

“Put your back into it, flaco!” Fin yelled over his shoulder.

Sam laughed. “Your mom,” he said. Fin cackled and cracked open a beer.

Your mom? God, he was tired.

Sam’s nickname in high school had been AIDS because kids are jerks and because he was so emaciated. He hated his concave body with his visible veins and the individual, stringy muscles that you could watch move under his skin when he worked. Yet somewhere along the line, girls started seeing something in him other than the skinniness, and by then he stopped caring.

Still, there were times when he wished he were a big, hulking, ham-fisted dude who could slam the stupid gate shut in one go.

“Sam,” called a voice from the shadows.

Sam jumped and made a high-pitched “wooot” that he immediately regretted.

He knew who it was instantly. And she’d for sure heard his sapless, startled woooot.

“I texted you,” Lorraine said. He could detect flint in her tone.

Sam was surprised that it had taken only one afternoon for Lorraine, a.k.a. LIAR, to materialize. Patience wasn’t her thing, though dropping by after a disappearance was bold even for her.

“What do you want, Lorraine?” Sam shot back.

“We have to talk,” she said.

Original, he thought.

“What could there possibly be left to discuss?” He finished locking up. “I mean, if anything, your silence for the past month suggests there’s nothing on the docket.”

He wished he could subtly sniff his pits to see how he smelled. Why was he only ever running into her when he was completely unprepared? Of course, she was buttoned up for work and wearing a blazer. Liar was the worst.

“Seriously, Lorraine,” he continued. “You made it clear. We’re ancient history. The Paleozoic era. Older even. Whatever comes before the Paleozoic era. The Anthropocene . . . No, wait, that’s now. . . .” He shoved his sweaty hands into his pockets.

“Stop talking,” she said.

He scowled at her.

“Please.”

Lorraine stepped into the light. She was pale. Paler than usual, which was already poet blouses and Oh-My-Goth levels of pallor.

Sam walked toward the porch steps and sat down. She followed. The sunset smeared pink across the sky as they stared out to the street.

“What is it?” His hand twitched for the cigarettes he didn’t want to smoke in front of her.

“Sam,” she said. “I’m late.”

No joke, he thought for the split second before the full weight of her words hit him.

He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. They felt numb.

Of course she was late. It made sense. In fact, it was the only news it could have been. It’s not as if anything ever went the way he thought it would. Lorraine, for that matter, was not returning to his life after a spell of soul-searching to tell him she still loved him.

Christ.

Late.

They’d done it this time.

The dreadful rush of adrenaline was so immediate that he clapped his hands. Just once. Some lizard-brain Texas hardwiring kicked in to where all he knew was to act out the caricature of a high school football coach in times of crisis.

“Okay,” he said in a purposeful tone. “How late?”

Clear eyes, full heart.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What?” Sam squawked. “Aren’t girls supposed to, you know, keep track?” Sam understood that the female reproductive system was a mysterious universe, but this seemed far-fetched. Then he thought about the teen moms on TV who accidentally had their babies on the toilet.

“Did you take a pregnancy test?”

Lorraine rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Sam.”

“And?”