“I meant the bad stuff.”
That kept her quiet for a moment. The credits finished rolling and a commercial about tampons began, women of all ethnicities running through a pure-green field. “He had his problems,” she said, “there’s no denying that. But none of that is your fault and nothing is decided. It’s up to you to be more than him.”
“I hated how he treated you, how he stole so much of your life.”
A show I didn’t know came on. It seemed to be about a group of dogs that were tired of their humans controlling their life. We watched the intro and then she said, “This is not where I saw myself when I first immigrated to America.”
“What, like, Los Angeles? This house? This couch? Did you want one of those couches that massage you?”
She didn’t laugh. “I don’t even remember anymore what I imagined on that plane ride from Seoul to Chicago, but I didn’t imagine this.”
“I’m sorry.”
She turned away from the TV then, looked at me, didn’t say anything until I looked at her. “Don’t be,” she said. “I have more than I ever thought I would have.”
* * *
—
BILLY HADN’T SAID A WORD to me since we left the hospital. The only time we’d really talked since Bakersfield was the first night back in our room. He’d asked me if I even wanted the baby, if I even loved him, and I’d asked him to stop yelling at me, I couldn’t think when he was yelling at me.
I never asked what happened with the gun. I imagined Jenny holding it, being as fascinated as I was by its stickiness, holding it for a moment and wanting to fire it before tossing it in the trash.
Billy never brought up the gun either, but he came home one day with a large backpack full of textbooks and dropped it on the kitchen table, made Mom and me look up away from the TV. He spoke only to Mom and told her that he had just enrolled in night classes at the local community college and was hoping that, after a year, he could transfer to USC or a college like it, a college that could help him get a good job, a job that actually paid well and would allow him to provide for her and the baby. “I can’t keep doing what I’m doing and stay sane.” He didn’t mention my name.
We were back to avoiding each other in the mornings. I finally got a new phone and sometimes he would call me or text me things he wanted me to grab from the grocery store—peanut butter, black beans, pizza bagels, whatever he needed to make dinner—but mostly my phone didn’t ring throughout the day. I imagined him mowing lawns and digging holes, stabbing his shovel sharply into the ground and picturing my face where the point of the shovel hit.
He’d come home and shower before he went to his classes, and I’d watch him get dressed and look in the mirror, smooth out his button-down, flatten the cowlick at the back of his head, and nod approvingly before leaving the house again, not looking at me. It hurt just watching him walk out like I wasn’t even there, but when I watched him watch himself in the mirror, he looked more like the boy I’d known in high school than he had in a long time—it made me warm thinking about him sitting in a classroom, diligently taking notes.
At night, I’d stay up until he got back from the community college. I’d get into bed on my side and he’d climb in on his side and we’d fall asleep, our backs to each other. But in the mornings, I’d wake up and my face would be against his chest, our bodies wrapped together. When I woke up, I’d quickly close my eyes again, slow my breathing, pretend I was still asleep—I could feel him do the same thing.
We would only move and fake-yawn once our alarm rang. Every evening, one of us would set our alarm a couple minutes later, neither bringing up why we were doing so.
* * *
—
JENNY SHOWED UP at the grocery store on a Wednesday three weeks after Bakersfield.
I had finished my shift for the night, told Marina we would hang tomorrow—we were friends then, had discovered we both loved watching NBA games, no matter what team was playing—and was about to get in my car when I heard a voice from behind me.
“Hey, Pizza Girl.”
* * *
—
I’D AVOIDED thinking about Jenny. I’d stared mindlessly at fluorescent lights for hours, been taking a different route home from work, I’d shouted at Mom a week ago when she suggested we order pizza for dinner, but as Jenny stood in front of me in that grocery store parking lot, I realized how avoidance was the most attention you could give something.
I fiddled with my car keys. She passed her grocery bag back and forth from one hand to the other.
“Why are you grocery shopping here?”
“I’m not. I called Eddie’s first.” she said. “I asked for you, but the guy working there said you were gone, got a new job. I had to threaten to talk to his manager for him to tell me where your new job was.”
“Why do you have a grocery bag, then?”
“I was just hoping to run into you. I bought chicken nuggets and a jug of milk.”
“The dino-shaped ones?”
“No, just the regular.”
A woman walked up and unlocked the car between us. She only had two bags, but it seemed to take her forever to load them into her trunk. Jenny and I both watched her, and I’m sure she was as grateful as I was for a moment to collect ourselves.
The woman finally got the bags into her trunk, hopped into her car, and pulled away. I turned to Jenny and really looked at her then, straight in her eyes. “Do you even know my name?”
She looked blankly at me.
“You’ve never called me by my real name.”
“I know your name.”
“What is it, then?”
I’d never thought about our age gap until that moment, or maybe I’d never thought about it because I’d never wanted to think about it, had ignored the way she had always looked at me, like I was something semi-recognizable, a small flicker of something she remembered, but had mostly forgotten about, shoved to a dark corner of her memory. “Your name is Jane,” she said.
More fiddling with keys, more bag passing between hands. “I’m pregnant too,” she said.
“Oh.” I looked at her belly, no bump visible yet. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll name it Jane if it’s a girl.”
“My baby is going to be a girl too. Maybe I’ll name it Jenny.”
“That would be weird.”