Flying Solo(22)

“She said I was out of context. We both realized at kind of the same time.”

Laurie shrugged. “So? Just find somebody else to clean your teeth.”

“She takes my insurance and I had to get two root canals last year,” Nick said, straightening a stack of sorted shots. “I’d rather look for another date than another dentist. She was very understanding. I think she was flattered. It’s too bad there’s not a graceful way for me to leave it in a Yelp review. ‘Very attractive woman, even better dentist.’?”

“But you feel ready to meet somebody?” Laurie asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I kind of hate being single. It was a lot easier being married. I liked having the house, the other person who was there for everything. I get up in the morning now, and I look around, and I have that feeling of freedom that only comes with realizing nobody else cares what you do at all. I hate it.”

“Are you setting dish towels on fire and stuff? Slipping on broken eggs trying to make your own breakfast?” Laurie asked.

“Hey, I’m entirely self-sufficient, that’s not the issue. I just didn’t want to have to figure out what to do on Sundays by myself. I’m totally out of practice.”

“That’s the part I love,” Laurie said. “I know single people are supposed to be fearful about choking to death in their apartments or whatever, but it makes me feel absolutely blissful having no plans with anybody. Not all the time, you understand. But sometimes, if I want.”

Nick nodded slowly. “That’s dark, Sass.”

“I like being the boss,” Laurie said. “I like being capable of taking care of myself. I feel good about not being reliant on somebody else.”

“Oh, thanks,” June said, with an edge of sarcasm.

“What?”

June put down the photos in her hands. “I think it’s great that you like your life. But you make it sound like I’m not independent because I’m married and I have kids.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Laurie protested. “I just meant you have another person who can share the weight of things.”

June’s eyes widened. “I mean, I have that sometimes. Remember when Charlie was working out of Philadelphia for like six weeks? And I wound up driving Bethie to the ER because of her asthma, with Tommy screaming his head off? I was trying to finish everything I was supposed to be doing and getting them fed and getting the garbage out and suddenly driving an improvised ambulance. I have to tell you, I think I’m capable of being pretty self-sufficient.”

Nick was very quiet.

“I’m sorry, Junie,” Laurie said. “I take your point.”

June narrowed her eyes at Laurie, then smiled and picked up a picture that she held out in front of her. “This is me and you. It’s my house on Cragen Ave. I think this is the year your parents’ anniversary party was over there. Maybe ’90?”

“Oh, sure, during the kitchen renovation.” In the picture, Laurie’s ponytail was falling out and both of June’s knees were bandaged, and both girls had prominent front teeth missing: Laurie’s on top and June’s on the bottom. “I loved this shirt because it said I BRAKE FOR LIZARDS. You can’t really tell, though, because the picture is a million years old.”

“Speaking of a million years old,” June said, “remember the buried treasure we found in that yard?”

Laurie laughed. “Oh my God, I tried so hard to forget.” Nick looked up, puzzled. “You tell,” Laurie said with a nod.

June pointed to the picture. “I moved to this house in 1989, and Laurie and I absolutely loved this huge yard it had. We made up all kinds of games, we raked paths in the leaves and raced each other around, it was our personal paradise, pretty much. Then we saw something about buried treasure on TV, and we decided we wanted to check the yard to find out if we had any. There was this big tree, and at the bottom, we found a little circle of rocks. Somebody clearly put it there, and we figured it was probably somebody who was hiding their gold or burying their emeralds, or whatever seemed most logical to us when we were seven. So we decided to do a little archeological dig.”

Laurie put her hands over her eyes. “I brought the shovel.”

June started to laugh. “We start digging, and my parents don’t see us. So they don’t stop us, and we’re digging, and then we find…a bone.” She held her hands about three inches apart. “But a little bone. Like this.”

“What did you do?” Nick asked warily.

“Naturally, we assumed it was a baby dinosaur,” June said. “We figured we were going to become famous, and we thought we should probably take it to a museum. So we kept digging, and there were some more bones, and we set them in this little pile. And then my dad comes out to see what we’re doing, and at first, he’s just mad that we dug a hole in the yard. Then he sees the bones.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t think they were a baby dinosaur.”

Finally Laurie jumped in. “He realized pretty quickly that we had located the remains of a rare domestic catasaurus.”

“Oh,” Nick said, scrunching up his face, “you guys dug up a cat?”

“Cat bones,” June clarified. “Laurie thought it was fascinating.”