This Close to Okay(27)

When it was time, he transferred the steaks to the oven, then he took the empty skillet off the stove and added glugs of stock and cognac. Used the wooden spoon to get the delicious crispy bits from the bottom before returning it to the burner and turning the heat up, bubbling it down. Tallie talked while Emmett cooked, and he pulled the steaks out of the oven when he knew the insides were still pink and cool.

“We’ll let them rest,” he said.

“How did you and your ex-wife meet?” Tallie asked.

“Are you going to tell me how you met Joel?”

“Do you want to know how I met Joel?”

Emmett nodded.

“Do you want me to go first?”

“Yes,” he said.

When Tallie met Joel, he was a marketing manager at the health insurance company where Lionel was chief financial officer. They played on the company’s intramural soccer team together. Tallie saw Joel at the soccer matches when she would go, thought he was cute.

“Joel had these black curls that bounced when he ran and an overly exuberant running gait, like a puppy. After I’d been to a couple of their matches, Joel asked Lionel if it’d be okay for him to ask me out. Lionel told me, ‘He’s a good dude. Kind of boring, but he’s a kick-ass soccer player. He’s smart, strong, wiry. He’s pretty, too,’” Tallie said.

She had Lionel’s comments memorized. Emmett watched her mouth move as she talked. She told him how picky Lionel had been about her boyfriends, taking forever to warm up to them, and she admitted to being pretty awful to some of his girlfriends as well. But she talked about how much she loved her sister-in-law, Zora. She told him Zora was more than a sister-in-law to her; she was a real friend. Tallie mentioned Zora coming over and staying with her one night after Joel had moved out. How Zora had cleaned Tallie’s kitchen and made dinner for her, let Tallie cry in her lap while she petted her hair.

“How many dates until you knew Joel was the one?” Emmett asked after listening.

“I don’t know…maybe two months’ worth? I was seeing someone else off and on for a bit, but Joel was handsome, flirty, funny. Really sexy and aggressively confident, and he wore suits…a lot,” Tallie said. “He’s brainy and intrepid, too.”

“Wow…intrepid,” Emmett teased in a deeper voice.

“I know. But he is! Trust me, I’d never use that word to describe anyone else but Joel.”

“Well, it’s a great word.”

“Agreed.” Tallie paused. “And yeah, so…I’d had serious boyfriends, but being with Joel made me feel like I’d won something in a way I can’t explain. Like in choosing between him and the other man I was seeing…Joel made me feel like it had to be him. How could it not be him? He was Joel! He’d somehow convinced me he was the only man in the world.”

“And now?”

“Now I know better,” she said. “Your turn.”

“Well…our story is that I used to work with one of her best friends, who started dating my best friend…they’re the ones who moved to Montana. I told you about them on the bridge. That’s how Christine and I got to know each other,” Emmett said, saying her name aloud for the first time to Tallie, filling in the relationship blank his letter had left open for her.

“Christine,” Tallie repeated, like she enjoyed how it felt in her mouth. “And you haven’t changed your mind about giving your best friend a call? What’s his name?”

“His name is Hunter. And I love him, but I don’t need to talk to him right now.”

Hunter would want to beat his ass, dead or not, once he got wind of Emmett’s letter to his parents. An irreverent laugh knocked at his stomach, and he put his hand there.

“How many dates until you knew Christine was the one?”

“One,” he said.

“Really? Wow…the dream.”

Emmett turned to the stove, watched the potatoes rolling in the water. When they were soft enough he used a masher to smash them, added more butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper. He put their steaks and potatoes on the plates he’d gotten from her cabinet, spooned the skillet cognac sauce over the meat.

*



“My wife, Christine…what happened is…unfortunately, she died,” he said after sitting at the table and taking his first bite. Swallowing.

Talking about Christine’s death was a surefire way to get him thinking about his own. Grief was so tedious, and his own death was the only escape from it. He told Tallie some truth and let it out—even if only a little—to avoid detonation. The only other option was to move forward with his original plan to make it all stop.

He watched the cloud swish over Tallie’s face before she put her fork down. He’d suspected that Tallie would be a cloud-swish person, although some people gave a sad gasp. Others seemed to be attempting the quick math in their heads, turning away or lowering their eyes as they considered his age and how young Christine might’ve been. But Tallie didn’t turn away. She looked right at him, and her eyes were so sweet. Her bright heart, tender and open, spread across her face. Emmett sat there, staring back, vibrating from the small comforts of normal domesticity. Unlocking in that safe space felt both as dangerous and as freeing as speedily descending a hill on a bicycle and letting go of the handlebars, holding his arms out straight.