Page 80 of Betting on the Boy Next Door
She’s still there when I step out of my upstairs sliding door thirty seconds later.
“You didn’t go inside,” I say.
She doesn’t pretend not to know why I thought she would. “Brain is busy.”
“Would talking help?” It’s all I’ve wanted her to do since that night at pho; open up, even a fraction.
“Not really.”
“Would anything help?”
She rubs her eyes, less like she’s sleepy and more like she’s tired of life. “It’s not one thing. Maybe if you could have a talk with my boss that would convince him I really need another CNA because I can’t do all the work plus cover where we’re short-staffed indefinitely. Or make sure my two favorite patients who never see visitors had family who actually turned up. Or stopped the aging process so I’m not losing a patient a week like I am right now.”
She sinks in her chair and burrows into her balcony blanket. “You could probably solve all my problems if you cloned me. Send one of me to band rehearsals at night and let her sleep all day, send the other of me to work and then come home to a full night of sleep.”
“Which one is your job, and which is the clone’s?”
“You can’t guess?” She sounds almost disappointed.
“Of course I can. But it’s so rare to see you anymore that maybe I’m making conversation just to make it because I’m glad you’re out here tonight.”
She turns toward me, and I think I see a smile in the dark. “I can’t decide if you’re a nerd because you say stuff like that out loud, or if you’re so smooth that you can feed me a line and I don’t realize it’s a line because you’re that good.”
I hold up my plastic container and press it enough to make it crackle loudly. “Which category do you think a guy eating a wilted fast-food salad at midnight falls into?”
“Don’t make me pity you. I need to pity myself right now.”
I snap the plastic lid back in place on the salad and let it thump to the ground. “Tell me about the self-pity. I want to hear more.”
“I know you work five billion hours a week, but between the nursing home, rehearsals, and shows, I’m putting in close to seventy and that feels like a lot. And it gives me no time to write.”
“Write? Like fanfic? Grocery lists? Lyrics?”
“Lyrics. MyReal Housewives of Sunnyside Nursing Homefanfic is dead forever. Didn’t pay the bills.”
“I’d pay money to read it.”
“I bet.”
We’ve been joking, but her tone is suddenly cool. Somehow, we’re back there again, to the narrative where I’m the rich boy who uses money to get his way. I try not to let it get to me. I’m supposed to be letting my actions speak louder than my words, so I leave it alone. But I don’t feel like making a clever comeback either, so I let the words hang there.
After a long pause, she sighs. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You can say whatever you want if you think it’s true. Do you?”
There’s another long pause. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to other humans tonight. I’m an overtired stress case.”
It’s not exactly vindication, but I’ll take it for now.Show interest in the things that matter to her. “Are you going to be okay for the show tomorrow?”
She winces and rubs her face. “It’s a big deal. We’re supposed to sell a certain number of tickets for it, but we’re not pulling our weight right now. People are mostly coming to see Night View. And we really want to make a good impression on their producer so she’ll work with us. Which means we have to be so awesome that we win over a crowd that’s mostly theirs.”
I stand and walk over to the railing, lean over it as far as I can. “Sami. You are awesome. All of you.”
She turns toward me, and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but I swear I see a flash of vulnerability I never see from her cross her face. “We are?”
Her voice is so small. It tangles up my guts. Or my heartstrings? Something in my chest and stomach. “You are,” I say like there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s easy because I’m telling the truth.
“Okay.”
