“I know,” she says, “but we run in such different circles we’d made it from breakup to a couple of weeks ago without running into each other once.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about running into him anymore,” I tell her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says and pulls me into a strange embrace.
“Why are you sorry?” I ask, trying to pull away but being unsuccessful.
“I know you were really hoping things would work out. It’s been so long since anyone’s even looked at you, much less asked you out, and to be rejected like that so soon…” she says. “I don’t know if I could get out of bed in the morning.”
“He didn’t ‘reject’ me,” I tell her. “I just didn’t like how violent his world is.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, releasing her hold on me enough that I’m able to work my way out of it.
“Did he ever take you to one of those fights?” I ask. “One guy in the first one got knocked out. In the second fight, it looked like one of them was seriously considering murdering the other right in front of everyone, and with his bare hands. I’d call that pretty intensely violent.”
“Oh, but that’s not Mason, though,” she says.
“What does that mean?” I ask. “He’s the one that took me there. He said that he fights there all the time. It seems to be a pretty big part of his life.”
“No, well I mean, yeah,” Jana says. I could do without the stammering right now. “I just mean that he’s not a violent person.”
“Still not making any sense,” I tell her.
“He fights the way other guys play football with their friends on the weekends, only he puts more effort into it. Outside all that, he’s really quite the gentleman,” she says. “He’s always just so nice to you and he holds doors and stuff. I mean, we didn’t really hang out that much for that long, but I always got the feeling he was just a really easygoing kind of guy.”
“Didn’t seem like it to me,” I tell her.
“Was he rude or aggressive at all?” Jana asks as she opens the dishwasher and starts unloading it.
I think back.
“Well, no,” I answer.
“Woulda surprised me if you said he was,” she tells me.
“It’s weird hearing you talk about him like that. The first couple of days after we saw him, you seemed like you hated the guy,” I respond.
“I didn’t expect to see him,” she says. “When I did, I went into dealing-with-an-ex mode, and ya know how that goes.”
I guess I did do the right thing, choosing to break it off before it went any further with Mason and me. If she’s interested in him, she can have him.
“He’s a really nice guy, though,” Jana says, looking off at nothing. “And that kid could stick it in me like you wouldn’t even—”
“Got it,” I interrupt. When it comes to Jana and her stories of sex and seduction, it’s best to cut her off quick, right at the beginning. Otherwise, there’s no convincing her to stop and the woman has a memory for sexual detail that can drag a two-minute story into a multi-hour epic, complete with props and distinct character voices.
Who has the patience for something like that?
“It’s not just about that, though,” she says. “I kind of wish we’d stuck with it a little longer.”
“Why not call him?” I ask.
“Nah,” she says. “We’re too different. I’m all crazy energy and spontaneity and he’s more the laidback, pseudo-romantic type. I knew when we first hooked up it wasn’t going to last, but after we slept together... I guess I’m just waning a little nostalgic.”
“Waxing,” I correct. “By the way,” I say, changing directions, “did your mom happen to mention when she might be looking for a place of her own again?”
“Nah. She’s just settling in, though,” Jana says. “It usually takes her at least a month before she can wake up somewhere without screaming, much less think of going anywhere else.”
“What is that, anyway?” I ask. “It sounds like she’s being tortured in there. And to tell you the truth, I’m a little freaked about the fact our neighbors have been hearing a woman scream at the top of her lungs every time she wakes up and nobody’s called the police yet.”
Jana says, “I don’t know what started it. I don’t think she knows. I know she calls it her adjustment period. Back in the day, I never used to hear a peep out of her between when she went to bed and her first cup of coffee the next morning. I think it’s waking up in a new place without dad that does it.”
“That’s actually really sad,” I tell Jana. “Is there something they can do about that to make things easier for her?”
“Like what?” Jana asks.
I don’t have a good answer to the question.
“So you’re still pretty into Mason, huh?” I ask.
“I’d just like to take him for another spin or two, for old times’ sake,” she answers. “I think if we left the bedroom, we’d probably drive each other crazy. That was our mistake the first time.”
“You said he was so nice, though,” I return. “Now you’re saying the sex was the only good part?”
“It was all ‘good,’ I guess,” she says. “I just think he started getting annoyed that I’m always going like a million miles an hour and everything.”
It’s true: While we’re talking, she’s managed to get the dishes in the dishwasher half put away, the countertop halfway wiped down and she’s got a broom in her hands, though its bristles have yet to touch the floor. Jana’s problem isn’t the motivation to start something; it’s the motivation to see things through to the end.
She continues, “He was always just so low key, too. He was sweet, but he just never really moved fast enough for me. I’d want to go, like, five different places in a night and he’d just want to do like dinner or something. We’d just end up getting sick of each other. Anyway, me, Darla, and Cindy are gonna go to the coffee shop and pick up some things. You wanna come?”
By “things,” she means guys.
“I’m not really in the mood,” I tell her. “By the way, could you please tell your mom to stop eating my cocoa butter? She’s gone through almost my whole jar since she got here.”
“It’s edible and it was in the refrigerator,” Jana says, finally starting to sweep, though she stops after only a couple of seconds and sets the broom down. “How was she supposed to know?”
“Because I told her what it is and why I have it when I came home that first night and found her putting some on vegan paella,” I tell her. “I also told her after she used it with her organic rye crackers, her free range donut holes, and she tried—unsuccessfully, by the way—to dissolve it in her GMO-free almond milk.”
“Well, talk to her again,” Jana says, grabbing her keys off the counter and heading toward the door. “I’m running late.”
“It’s just that that stuff’s expensive,” I tell her before releasing her into the night, “and it’s the only thing I’ve found that’ll work for me year-round.”