This Close to Okay(21)
*
Emmett French-inhaled again, and it was sexy. Why was he doing that? So sexy. Oh, the rebellious paradox of her not wanting him to harm himself but also loving to watch him smoke. Tallie turned away with blushes. Was he doing this on purpose? Was he seriously this sexy and didn’t know it? Knew but didn’t care? He had plenty on his mind. He could lean there, smoke sexily, and it wouldn’t matter to anyone in the world. He was depressed, and depression wasn’t sexy. She saw so much of it every day that she didn’t have a romanticized idea of it. People died, people were miserable, people gave up. Forgot how important and loved they were. Depression was a vacuum that sucked out everything—leaving nothing behind except the burdening weight of nothingness.
They’d been quiet, smoking by the window of the restaurant. She was afraid Emmett would be able to read her mind because of the look on her face, so she relaxed it. A technique she used often with her clients: projecting placidity. And when he smiled at her it wasn’t the creepy one. It was toothsome and tricky. Like he was saying, I told you so. Tallie smiled in accord. Absolutely. You told me so.
*
“Thanks again for this. The food and spirits, figuring out the costumes,” he said as they wandered around the outlet mall after lunch, the air like cool water.
“Don’t mention it,” she said, pausing only for a moment before blurting out, “Yesterday I told you I feel better, but sometimes I still have a hard time with my divorce.”
“Honestly? He sounds like a dumbass. You’re too good for him,” Emmett said, as if he’d been waiting for permission to say it.
“You sure about that?” Tallie asked, snickering.
They stopped in front of a candle store. Tallie felt like she wasn’t a proper steward of her money when she went in there and inevitably paid fifty dollars for candles that made her house smell like campfires, pumpkins, apple trees. She looked at the window display and saw a limited-edition fall candle they were sold out of last time. She pushed her nose to the glass.
“Hell, yeah. I would’ve given anything for a wife like you. That’s me being honest,” he said, looking at the same candle with matched intensity.
“Oh, please, you must be drunk,” she said, giggling. “Let’s go get this candle. This store is so overpriced. Let’s go inside.” She took his hand and he let her.
*
She’d worn comforting clothes to the outlet mall that made her feel pretty, like a forty-year-old Hermione Granger on a day trip to Hogsmeade for butterbeer. A toasty, oversize cardigan she’d finished knitting during the heat of summer. The color a deep goldenrod. She wore it over a long-sleeved gray bodysuit, dark skinny jeans. She’d chosen her trusty brown waterproof boots over the toffee-colored oxfords she’d wanted to wear, proud of how she’d gone with the more reasonable, practical choice for once in the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t want to make it look like she was trying too, too hard, but it was a special occasion—Emmett was alive! And so was she! She’d put on hoop earrings, concealer and powder, eyeliner and blush. And lipstick, always lipstick. She never left the house without at least some nude color and gloss.
After Tallie got the candles, they wandered in and out of the other stores, only touching things, mocking, occasionally agreeing when anything cool and interesting was discovered.
“So you’ve been married?” she asked him as they made their way through the rest of the mall and to the parking lot, returning to her car. She’d bought him a fuzzy blue snow hat with ear flaps, pulled it on top of his head, and he still had it on, looking like he had owned it his whole life. She’d gotten herself a red one to match.
“I’ve been married,” he said.
Christine? Brenna? Both?
“What happened?” she asked.
“What happened is…I’m not married anymore.”
She smiled at him, playfully swatted at his elbow.
“That’s all you’re giving me?” she asked.
“Your turn to tell me something honest.”
“I’m thinking of adopting a baby,” she said. She’d told only one other soul: Aisha.
“Whoa. Big talk. Huge talk.”
“Yep. I go to the same websites every couple days and think What if?”
She liked to click around reading about the pregnant women, some of them not due for months and months from now. How if they made a good match, that baby could be hers anywhere from twenty-four hours to three days after it was born. She loved thinking about converting her spare bedroom into a nursery and knitting tiny socks and hats with bamboo yarn. It didn’t terrify her, as it had in the not-so-distant past, thinking of how much her life would change, thinking of doing it as a single woman. The trauma of Joel’s betrayal and their divorce had made her feel as if she were starting her entire life over. She’d tried to fight it off, but now? Now she was finally ready to do just that.
*
Emmett was driving her car. Tallie was too buzzed, and despite her recent behavior, she really wasn’t a natural risk taker. She’d been on safety patrol in elementary school, forced her family to practice fire drills in every house they’d lived in growing up. She’d convinced Joel they needed to start traveling with a portable carbon monoxide detector when they stayed in hotels after hearing about couples who had been killed by the murderous gas on vacation. Tallie, comfortable in her own passenger seat, clicked on the radio and searched for a song she thought Emmett might like.