Rock Bottom Girl(60)

The smell of cigar smoke was sweet, pungent. Blue rings of smoke floated lazily to the ceiling.

The crickets lulled me into a relaxed trance.

“You cold?” he asked.

I rubbed my arms. “A little.”

Jake reached behind us and pulled a quilt off the back of the couch and arranged it neatly over us. I pulled it up to my chin and let my head tip onto his shoulder.

This felt…good. How long had it been since I’d felt like this? Everything was always such a battle. A constant, overwhelming wave of anxiety. Always afraid of losing the job, the man, the security. But right now, in this moment, on this pretty little porch, I felt good.

“How did you end up with this house?” I asked him.

He tilted his head and blew a gauzy cloud of smoke upward. “It was my grandmother’s. She died a year or so back and left it to me.”

“That explains the family feel,” I said. “You haven’t changed it much, have you?”

“I’ve added a superficial layer of mess to make it feel more like mine,” he joked.

“Mmm. I know all about waiting,” I told him.

“Waiting?”

“You know. Having all these plans but waiting to do anything about them until something is right or the timing is perfect.”

He scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “Huh. Is that what I’m doing?”

“You’re too busy. You’ll get to it after the holidays. You’ll carve out some time for it after you’re done binge-watching Riverdale. You’ll wait until you meet the right person, have the right job.”

“I still feel like a visitor in the house,” he admitted. “It still feels like Grams’s house.”

“If you were going to start with one thing, what would you change?” I asked.

“You want?” he held the cigar out, and I took it from him, puffing lightly on the end. “I think the living room. It’s my couch, but everything else is still hers. The curtains,” he decided.

I handed the cigar back. “Good call. Gingham isn’t your style.”

“I don’t know what it is. But as soon as I moved into this place, just me and Homer roaming around with all those bedrooms, all that square footage, I started thinking that maybe it’s time to try the whole relationship thing. To be honest, I’m a little afraid Grams’s spirit is haunting me. She wanted me settled down for a long time.”

I smiled at the idea of a Grams Ghost. “Is that why you came up with this arrangement?”

“I know it’s stupid. To be thirty-eight and have no idea what a relationship is supposed to be like. And maybe I won’t like it. But I feel like I gotta try, you know? I got the house. I got a great job. Who knows, maybe I’ll like being bossed around, having to check in, making decisions with someone.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You’re making it pretty easy on me so far.”

“I guess I didn’t really think you were serious about it,” I admitted with a yawn.

“Well, I am. And I’m counting on you, Mars, to whip me into relationship shape. I want to give it a go. I figured relationships probably take practice, just like sports. Right?”

“I guess you’re right. I’ll take it more seriously,” I promised.

“Good.” It was quiet for a while. A comfortable silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. “What do you want? Out of life, I mean,” he asked. “I was embarrassingly honest about tryin’ out the whole boyfriend-to-husband track. What kind of plans do you have?”

I blew out a slow breath. “I don’t know the specifics, but I want to do something big. Something important. I want to be important, essential. My sister is…amazing. She’s always been larger than life. Crazy smart. Freakishly beautiful. But the good that she does in this world is kind of mind-boggling. I want to do that. Be that.”

“Okay, so define big,” Jake pressed.

“It’s stupid,” I told him.

“Nobody’s dreams are stupid,” he countered.

I sighed. “I want people I don’t even know to have heard about me. And not in the loser, jobless, homeless, pity party way. I want to be impressive. I want to do important things, not just collect a paycheck or wait to get downsized again. Do you know how many times I’ve been let go, downsized, laid off, or fired?” I shifted my head to look at him.

“How many?” he asked, passing me the cigar again.

“Six. Since college. It’s like I’ve developed this radar. As soon as there’s the tiniest hint of trouble, my clock starts ticking down. Waiting for the inevitable. I’ve never been important enough to keep. I’ve never survived the first round of layoffs. I’m dispensable. Replaceable. No one misses me when I’m gone. I want to see what the other side is like.”

“Damn, Mars,” Jake said. “That would really mess with a person.”

I gave a sad laugh. “It’s hard not to feel like a loser. And this job isn’t making me feel much better now that I’m physically losing.”

“That’s because you’re looking for outside validation.”

I lifted my head off of his shoulder. “Okay, Dr. Phil.”

“I’m serious. I’ve spent the last fifteen years working with teenagers. I’m practically a life coach. You need to figure out what would make you more confident in yourself. No amount of ‘atta girls’ from other people is going to give you that swagger you’re looking for. You’re a hell of a girl, Mars. Start acting like it.”