Page 40 of Summer Breakdown
Jasmine winks, and it hits Frankie square in the gut, and somewhere else. Zach rests his arm over Mali’s shoulders.
Without looking at Frankie once, Jasmine slides in next to Ezra. Frankie thinks about how to off herself with the beer mat she’s been rolling between her fingers.
“God, must you take up so much space?” Jasmine asks, and he pushes her back out of the booth. They act like siblings. “Ezra!”
“Bar time. Take my seat.”
“Did the kids go off okay?” Mali asks.
“Yeah,” Jasmine replies, as she folds her jacket and moves to put it on the back of the booth. She accidentally elbows Frankie in the arm.
“Oh my God, sorry,” she says, her eyes wide. It’s possible she didn’t know Frankie was here at all. Ezra is massive and blocks most people’s view.
“It’s alright.”
Jasmine blinks rapidly, then spins until she’s facing Mali again. Her hands are tight against her thighs, and Frankiereally shouldn’t have come. Frankie wants to figure out what to say. What she could ask her that would get them to have a conversation. Perhaps Jasmine has put up a story recently and Frankie could reply to that to see if she smiles when the notification pops up? Like Frankie does when Jasmine replies to her.
“Hi!” Cam says, just as Frankie was about to ask Jasmine if she was okay. God, why does she get the hardest struggles?
“Hi, babe,” Jasmine says. Jasmine doesn’t usebabe. Frankie frowns, mainly at that, but then Andrew is in her view. “Oh, hi.”
“Hey,” Andrew says, with a toothy smile. Frankie hates him. “You’re new.”
“This is Jasmine,” Cam says, pulling her jacket off. She’s in a sweatshirt, as if it’s not twenty-three degrees at eight p.m. Andrew is a loser. “Jas, this is Andy.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jasmine replies. They sit down, and it’s almost awkward, but it might all be in Frankie’s mind. She spends her life in a state of being awkward. Jasmine taps the seat, but to be fair, that might be Frankie’s fault.
“Mike was fine?” Mali asks, after thirty-two seconds of silence. Jasmine leans back.
“He was a knob, but what else is new?”
Frankie wants to know what’s wrong and how Mali knows he might have been a knob and Frankie doesn’t.
“Who’s Mike?” Andrew asks.
“My children’s father,” Jasmine replies, pushing her hair over her shoulder.
Andrew’s gaze slips down Jasmine’s body so slowly that Frankie can’t be sure she’s not seeing things. She frowns, barely resisting the urge to wave her hand in front of his face.
“You bounced right back, huh?” he asks, with a smile. Frankie flinches, and the sudden overwhelming need to punch him in the gut stirs within her. She flicks at her fingers instead. She wishes she had a pen because at least then she could draw him with a busted lip.
Jasmine swallows thickly. She shuffles in her seat with a polite smile.
“Andy,” Cam replies, with a jokey scoff. Cam is Frankie’s favourite thing. Frankie does nothing without Cam’s advice, and Cam can’t make a Victoria sponge cake without calling Frankie for the measurements, even though she owns a bakeshop. But Frankie has no idea what happens to her when Andrew is around. Cam broke up with her boyfriend in secondary school because he winked at someone in front of her, but she puts up with this?
“What?” he asks. “It’s a compliment.”
“It’s creepy, man,” Zach replies. He pulls Mali closer to him, and Andrew’s face falls. He wants Zach to think he’s cool, and it’s desperately disgusting.
It’s awkward again. Where is Ezra?
Jasmine riffles in her purse and passes Frankie a pencil. She frowns as she takes it because the quiz hasn’t started, and Frankie’s never the scribe anyway. She thinks of the answers too late and there’s a high chance she won’t think of anything other than the slope of Jasmine’s nose.
Mali squints, then tilts her head. She’s about to say something ridiculous or ask something sexual. “I can’t picture you with a guy,” Mali says to Jasmine. Guess it was both.
Jasmine laughs, but there’s no humour there. “Is it my legions of girlfriends that make it difficult?”
“You like birds?” Andrew asks. Frankie’s fingers flick again. Now that she has a pencil, she drags some napkins close. She throws a few lines about with no real idea what she’s drawing.
