Once and for All(42)
“I know my rights as a landlord,” she continued now. “And I’m not afraid to evict, no sir. But it’s just so unfortunate. I thought having someone in that apartment would be a good thing. Just my luck. I don’t get good things, I guess.”
Hearing this, I craned my neck to see how many people were still ahead of me. I could handle Phone Lady’s complaining, her detailed stories of the slights of co-workers and relatives, even the long-winded stories about her cats’ health issues. But the sad stuff and self-pity just wasn’t worth an egg salad sandwich to me. I had enough of that in my own head.
Luckily, the businesswoman and guy behind her had simple orders, so soon enough I was on my way. As I pushed out the door, holding it for a man carrying a baby, Phone Lady was saying something about having joined a dating website. Better him than me, I thought. The stories just went on and on, whether or not anyone was there to listen.
I’d planned to bring my food back to the office to eat. On my way, though, I saw Ira, tied up by a bench in a shady spot right next to the stationery store, a blue bandana around his neck. Clearly, Ambrose had discovered that the couple that owned the store, Emily and Florence, were huge animal lovers. I was actually surprised he wasn’t already just hanging out inside. When Ira saw me, he sat up, wagging his tail.
“Hey, bud,” I said. He responded by wiggling harder, his front end now joining in, going the opposite direction. “You thirsty?”
He wasn’t. His water bowl, a custom job with his name on it—something I just knew a girl had purchased for Ambrose—was full. Still, when I took a seat and untwisted my own bottle, I poured a bit in, topping him off. Obligingly, he drank. Then, after sniffing at my sandwich from a distance, his long whiskers twitching, he turned in a circle and lay at my feet, his head on my shoe. Again, I was not a dog person. Or an animal person. But it seemed rude to move, so I didn’t.
A moment later, my phone rang. Even without the caller ID I would have known it was Jilly, based only on the noise in the background—children’s voices, engaged in some sort of argument, a baby wailing. “Hello?” I said.
“Hang on,” she replied. Then: “Everyone HUSH I am on the PHONE or NO ICE CREAM for ANYONE.”
The noise volume dropped noticeably, although I could still hear Bean, sputtering.
“Hey,” Jilly said to me. “What are you doing?”
When I heard from Jilly while she was in the throes of sibling caregiver duty and I was doing something alone, peacefully, I was always self-conscious about it. “Working,” I said. “And eating lunch. What’s up?”
The phone was pierced by a bloodcurdling shriek, which she ignored, saying, “Oh, the regular. Shuttling between food trucks and lessons, play dates and diaper changes.”
“You just passed the ice cream place,” I heard Crawford say in his flat monotone.
“Shit,” she said. The girls howled in protest, saying something about bad words. “Oh, like you haven’t heard it before. And there are other ice cream places.”
“Not like that one.” Crawford again.
“Can you please shut up for one second and let me talk to Louna?” she snapped. Silence. Temporarily. “Okay, quickly: I left it with Devon that we’d meet him and his buddy tonight at à la Carte for dinner at seven thirty.”
“Devon?” I asked. “Who’s that?”
“The mock UN guy I met at the student government convention. I told you.” She hadn’t. But Jilly was always talking to different guys, so I wasn’t exactly shocked that one had slipped her mind. “Remember? They’re civilized dinner people. He had on a sport jacket!”
Which was the equivalent of her kryptonite. But not mine, and I hadn’t agreed to anything even resembling this. “Jilly. I don’t want to have dinner with strangers.”
“And you don’t want to go dancing with strangers. Or go to a party with strangers. You don’t want to do anything with anyone.”
“How did we go from strangers to anyone?”
“Everyone will be a stranger as long as you insist on never meeting people! What happened to making memories?”
I sighed, looking down at Ira, who was drooling on the pavement beside my foot. “Why do all our memories have to involve people I don’t know?”
“Because,” she said, as Bean hollered again, “this is the summer for you to get used to meeting guys again. You have to get these first few bumpy awful dates out of the way. Swine before pearls, and all that.”
“And when, exactly, will the pearls arrive?”
“In the fall at college, probably. But if you’ve already done this, the awkward hard part, meeting them will be easier.”
“So you’re saying I should head into dinner tonight expecting disaster.”
“Well, that’s a bit strong. More likely a lack of chemistry, or just boredom. But just consider the numbers. With Ethan, you hit the lottery your first shot. It takes a few tries, just based on odds, before you can expect to win again.”
This was just the kind of twisted Jilly logic that always sucked me in, the type that sounded outright crazy . . . until it didn’t. “Fine,” I said. “Have you seen the guy I’m supposed to be paired up with, or is he purely a theoretical?”
“I have actually laid eyes on him. His name is Tyler. He had on a sport coat, too, for what it’s worth.”