Seven Days in June(26)

“Grind it up,” she rasped.

Shane pulled an ATM card (name unknown) from his magic pocket and cut the pills into four lines of chunky powder on a metal medical tray. Gently, he held the tray under her nose, steadying the back of her head with his good hand, and Genevieve sniffed each line. It went down rough but worked fast—the hurt dulling, her face slackening, muscles going gooey. So good. Oxy didn’t kill the pain, just made it so it didn’t matter.

He smoothed her ruined curls from her face. She tucked his hand under her cheek. It belonged there.

“You’re my bestbestbest friend,” she sighed, groggily and goofily.

“Better learn how to pronounce your name, then.”

“Don’t care what you call me,” she slurred. “Just call me.”

Shane smiled. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I know a place. But no one gives a shit where I am. You got parents who do?”

Genevieve thought about Lizette at home, waiting for her daughter to wake her up for her gross job at her disgusting boyfriend’s lounge.

Her answer was obvious.

They walked down the hallway, cool, calm. But the second they hit the exit doors, they linked hands and ran. Wherever Shane was going, she was going, too.





TUESDAY





Chapter 9





A Verbal Blush




SHANE SHOWED UP TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLY TO KOSCIUSKO CAFé, WHICH wasn’t a café at all. It was an untrendy sixty-year-old diner left over from the days when Crown Heights was still a Polish neighborhood. The decor was frozen in 1964: Formica tables, intense fluorescent track lighting, shiny red vinyl booths, and ceiling fans instead of AC. According to Shane’s cursory glance at Yelp, lasagna was their thing. But he was too anxious to eat.

He was too anxious to do anything but seat himself in a booth by a window. And wait. And calm his thundering heart by watching airport-reunion videos on YouTube. (Besides running, this was his clean coping mechanism.) At 10:02, Eva stormed in. She stomped to the hostess stand, looking notably different from last night’s sleek glamazon thing. She was simple in wild curls, clingy tank, boyfriend jeans, Jordans. Unfairly sexy glasses. This morning, she was even more dangerous—if that was possible.

And Shane devolved from a composed adult to a besotted adolescent.

Genevieve. That’s really her, all grown up. Eva. But also definitely Genevieve.

Shane’s thoughts were a jumble. As usual, he hadn’t really thought last night through. He’d never dreamed Genevieve would be at the event. His only goal had been to connect with Cece and nonchalantly ask her for Genevieve’s contact info. And if Cece had asked why? Well, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve said.

If he’d thought too much about any of this, he wouldn’t have come.

Shane watched Genevieve (Eva—he had to get used to her new name) whisper something to the hostess. She hadn’t seen him yet, though, and he stole this small, secret moment to drink her in. To try to reconcile the girl with the woman.

As a girl, she’d been all angles, sharp lines, a wiry spark plug of unpredictability. A little scary. A lot breathtaking. Her expressions were in HD—she broadcast everything on her face. And then there was the dimple, that fucking adorable dimple in her right cheek. It popped when she smiled; it popped when she talked; it popped when she breathed. There was a matching one on the left, too, but it was less prominent. As if once God had so masterfully conceived the right one, he was like, I’m exhausted; this’ll do.

The girl had been irresistible. This woman was something else entirely. Her sharpness had softened. She stood straighter and spoke with clever confidence. She was a badass writer, had been a publishing success story since nineteen, and wore it so well. Her teenage fury had morphed into something else: power.

The hostess pointed to Shane, and Eva strode over to him. Looking stern and gorgeous.

And he knew that he was fucked.

She slid into the seat across from him, plopping down a tote bag that read WELL-READ BLACK GIRL. And then they were finally alone.

Eva, whose written words were bold enough to inspire PTA moms to dream of hopping on a broomstick (or a hot Black dude) and escaping their lives, said, “So. Uh. Hi.”

Shane, whose written words were lyrical enough to make the stuffy Pulitzer Prize board want to roll up, stream Damn, and ruminate on the paradoxical mysteries of man, managed, “Glasses. Nice.”

“Oh. Really? Uh…th-thank you,” she said. “I…found out I was nearsighted after I started writing, so I got LASIK. And I had twenty-twenty vision for ages, but then a couple of years ago, in 2017…no, 2015…my eyesight started deteriorating. And my very helpful Hasidic ophthalmologist, Dr. Steinberg, said I’d developed an astigmatism. So, glasses. I wear them now.”

Shane tried and failed not to smile at this. Her words were a verbal blush.

“The word ‘astigmatism’ feels wrong,” he said. “Like, it should be ‘I have a stigmatism.’”

“‘Opossum,’ too. I always think it’s a possum.”

“So, this isn’t awkward at all.”

“Super normal,” Eva said, downing her entire glass of water.

“I…I’m kinda speechless,” he stammered, still awestruck. “You look the same but so different.”