This Close to Okay(33)

When it was over, Emmett had tears in his eyes. Tallie said oh, no and apologized for unintentionally upsetting him. She turned the TV off.

“No. Please don’t. I wanted to see it. I’m okay. And maybe next time I’m in town we can go to your art museum together and try not to have art attacks,” he said, sniffing. Blinking and blinking. He reassured her he was okay once more.

“If you’re around Louisville on Sunday afternoon, I’ll take you. Our own A Sunday Afternoon in Louisville at the Speed Art Museum,” she said.

“We could roast a Sunday chicken and pretend like this is our real life?”

“Exactly. Then poof! Back to reality for me on Monday because I have to go to work.”

“Back to school?”

Tallie knew he was picturing her as a teacher in a high school classroom full of rowdy, colorfully shirted kids—a sugary, bubbling gumball machine of hormones and long limbs, acne and braces. She thought instead of the morning therapy appointments she had scheduled for Monday. One of her favorite clients, whom she’d watched courageously tackle and conquer her agoraphobia over the past two years; another with self-diagnosed attention-seeking issues and selfitis—an addiction to taking and posting selfies on social media. Then there was one new potential client—a black woman struggling with the stress of living in America and the long-lasting damaging effects of racism—who was coming in for an initial consult to see if they clicked. Tallie was looking forward to it and already feeling like they were a perfect match if their emails were any indication. She had black clients who specifically sought out a black therapist, needing that understanding and connection. The beating heart of her therapy practice was helping people feel less alone.

On Monday, she and her receptionist would be in the office at eight, like usual. And soon after, Tallie would be taking her endless therapy notes and listening. Letting her clients tell her their secrets and asking them the questions that would lead them to more questions. More answers. And, she hoped, more healing.

Where would Emmett be on Monday?

“Yes. Exactly. Back to school,” she said, then nodded, cleared her throat. “I’ve never been to Clementine. I’ve heard of it, though. How’d you end up in Louisville? I guess I could’ve asked this yesterday, but I was already overwhelming you so much.”

“I like Louisville.”

“When did you get here?”

“Wednesday night,” he said.

“Where’d you stay?”

“Nowhere. I just walked around.”

“In the rain?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Is that what you wanted to do?”

“Pretty much,” he said.

“You were happy doing that?”

“Are you happy at this moment?” he asked.

“Pretty much.”

She smirked and turned the TV back on, flicked through the channels until she found the World Series. “Here we go. I hope the Giants win,” she said as the rain snapped to a stop. Emmett looked like he was going to say something when it started up again, harder.

The electricity popped out with a swoosh.





EMMETT




His mom’s maiden name was in slim blanched capital letters over the doorway of the restaurant. Previously owned by his great-grandparents, it’d been there since 1950 as part of the lake resort. A prime spot right on the water. Emmett had grown up happy inside those walls, learned to cook from his grandparents, his mom, and her brothers. High-end southern food, a hot tourist spot in the summers.

Christine’s uncle had been mayor of that lake town for years and before him, her grandfather. Her great-grandfather before that. Her mom was a debutante; both of her older brothers were high school football stars. Christine—with her heart-shaped face, big brown eyes, and honey-brown hair—was the town princess. Her beauty: spectacularly normal, timeless. Practical and clean, like a girl on a bar of soap.

Emmett’s mom, Lisa, and Christine’s dad, Mike, had grown up near each other, and Lisa had never liked him or his crew. “A bunch of spoiled bullies,” she’d say. Everyone knew Christine and her family, but she went to the private high school on the other side of town, and Emmett hadn’t spent much time with her, although he’d grown up hearing stories about the brawls their dads had with each other when they were in high school together. The first time Emmett had ever heard the word nemesis, his dad, Robert, had said it about Mike. Emmett was raised with the details of how much his parents didn’t like Christine’s family, but neither of them had anything bad to say about Christine. Occasionally, Emmett saw her at a summer party or ran into her and her brothers at the ice cream shop, the movies, or football games.

*



Emmett’s best friend, Hunter, worked at the restaurant alongside him. Emmett and Hunter lived together in a small apartment by the lake. Emmett was twenty-two, anchored by the restaurant; Christine was twenty-one and wandering. She would come to the restaurant to hang out with her friend Savannah, one of the waitresses, who was also friends with Emmett. Once Savannah began dating Hunter, they made a sunshine-on-the-lake-happy foursome.

There were long stretches of seemingly last-forever summer days when Christine and Savannah would show up smelling like coconuts and beer after hanging out on a pontoon all morning and afternoon. Bathing suits blooming wet patterns beneath their sundresses, plastic flip-flops slapping. The humid summer nights wrapped them up in the same strange magic: nightswimming in the navy coolness, smoking sticky bud, sharing cigarettes. The boys would reopen the restaurant in the wee small hours and cook for the girls, the four of them sharing salty fries and suds in a corner booth.