Page 2 of Natural Selection

“He’s . . . yes, he’s okay. There was an incident. At a party at school.”

“Okay, well . . .” Sophia rearranges expectations and logistics in a game of mental Tetris. “I’ll go with you, obviously.”

Vehement shake of the head. “You can’t come with me.”

She rears back a little; she’s never heard him be curt like this. “Are you . . . will you fly to Austin? To OKC?”

“Home,” he says. “I’m flying home. But Sophia . . .” Here, he finally touches her, cupping her face with both hands. “I’m not sure how long this is going to take.” There’s something fatalistic in his tone; he sounds like they might never see each other again. Sophia reminds herself that he just got blindsided. She knows nothing about addiction firsthand; she’s been lucky that way. When someone like Briar has a relapse, how long does it take until things are okay again? Sophia looks into JP’s eyes and tries to convey empathy, understanding. This is a Moment in their relationship. How she handles this will determine their trajectory for the future.

JP first told Sophia he loved her a week after they’d met. He showed up at her apartment on West Eleventh Street with a bottle of Sancerre from the Chavignol region (her favorite) and a bouquet of white irises (her favorite). He set the wine and the flowers down, tackled her on the bed, and said, “I love you. Let’s get married.”

Sophia had laughed it off. No one she’d dated in the city up to that point had even been willing to say he liked her. It was an affliction of the millennial male: the utter downplaying of emotion. Everything was casual; in a world where their next hookup was only a swipe away, everyone was disposable. But JP was older, fifty-four, unapologetically Gen X. He grew up in another era, one where people met in real life—in bars, on elevators (before everyone was unable to be present in a moment because they were always on their phone!), in line for beers at hockey games, at the Live Aid concert or whatever. JP met Maria at a fraternity mixer at the University of Oklahoma. Sophia did a little research: the university was located in a town called Norman; the nickname was the “Sooners,” which was what they called folks who beat it out west during the land rush of the 1880s. To Sophia, who had grown up on Long Island and attended Queens College, this was exotic.

After JP had told Sophia he loved her that first time, he kept saying it—every day, several times a day—until, somewhere in month three, Sophia felt safe enough to say it back. The status of their relationship now is that they love each other.

“I’ll . . . fly back to New York, then?” she says. “You’ll come when you can?”

“I want you to go on the trip,” he says. “Please . . . just please go, Sophia. Keep my camera, take pictures. There’s a list of all the things I want to see.”

Is this a joke? JP wants her to go and take pictures? JP’s camera rests at their feet in its own aluminum suitcase. She has literally no idea how to use it.

They announce the boarding of the San Cristóbal flight. JP wraps his arms around Sophia and kisses her like they’re in a movie. “I love you,” he says.

Sophia learned about inertia in her senior-year physics class—an object at rest will stay at rest, an object in motion will stay in motion—but she has never understood it more than when JP puts his hand on her lower back and nudges her toward the line. Unlike airlines in the States, there isn’t a litany about who can preboard, then board first, second, third, eleventh; it’s just a big free-for-all. Sophia shuffles forward and thinks, This is somehow happening. I am going to the Galápagos alone. When she turns around to wave goodbye to JP, she sees only the back of his head before he disappears.

Sophia checks her ticket for a seat assignment, then realizes there isn’t one. It’s first come, first served, and Sophia is the last passenger to board the plane. The configuration is two seats to the left of the aisle, one to the right, and by the time she reaches the back of the plane—jostling the people on either side of her because she now has not only her tote and carry-on but also JP’s camera case—she finds that the only two seats left unoccupied are the window seat in the very last row and the aisle in the next-to-last row, but this seat has the disadvantage of putting Sophia between Wanda Ross and her husband.

“Oh good,” Wanda says. “Sit with us.”

Sophia blinks. Why aren’t the Rosses sitting together? What are the chances Mr. Ross will give up his seat to join his wife so Sophia can have a seat by herself on the right? The chances are zero: Mr. Ross looks at Sophia but doesn’t move. Probably, they both want a window. Sophia eyes the seat in the last row—that’s JP’s seat, she thinks—as she sinks down next to Wanda.

“This is my husband, Henry,” Wanda says. “I don’t think you told us your name.”

“Sophia.” When she imagined this trip, she figured JP would do all the introducing because he’s a naturally friendly midwesterner and she a steely-gazed New Yorker who could offer simply a nod with a closed-lip smile. She doesn’t like group activities; that was another strike against this trip, a lack of independence. “Sophia Othonos.”

“And your husband? Was he called away?”

“Oh.” Sophia pauses at the word “husband.” I love you, JP said. Let’s get married. She wonders if she can get away with fibbing, even though she’s not wearing a ring. “He had to go home. His son isn’t well.”

Wanda lays her hand on Sophia’s wrist. “My darling girl, I’m so sorry. What sad news. So it’s a second marriage, then? He has his own children?”

Sophia studies the rough-woven material of the seat in front of her. Wanda Ross has a bad habit, she thinks. She asks inappropriately personal questions.

“JP has three children from his first marriage,” Sophia says. “The youngest, his son, something happened. There was an incident.” “Incident” was the word JP used—but what did this mean, exactly? Had Briar smoked a joint, had he gotten drunk at a fraternity party, had he OD’d on heroin or fentanyl, did he have to be revived by Narcan? “JP had to leave.”

Wanda rests her head against the window as though she’s suddenly very tired. Behind her glasses, her eyes are moist. “Your poor husband,” she says. “You’re so brave, going ahead with the trip.”

“He insisted I come. He wants me to . . .” Sophia is about to say “take pictures,” but how absurd will that sound? “He didn’t want me to miss it.”

“That was so selfless of him,” Wanda says, and Sophia nods along like she agrees, though when she replays the scene in the terminal, she gets the feeling that JP was trying to get rid of her. Sophia isn’t family, and now she understands that she and JP aren’t a couple, at least not the kind of fully realized couple she wants to be. Briar doesn’t even know Sophia exists. Does Maria? Maria knew about the trip, apparently. But did Maria know Sophia was accompanying him, or was Sophia just “someone I’m seeing”?

Sophia has pretended not to be bothered by JP’s relationship with his ex, although she is somewhat bothered. The mentions of Maria, and the life experiences he had while being married to Maria, are to be expected, though it stings that Sophia hasn’t had a serious, long-term relationship of her own to balance the scales. The last person Sophia was in love with was Conor Montrose, whom she dated the last two years of high school and the first two years of college, too long ago now to be relevant. What bothers Sophia about Maria—other than the normal jealousy (Sophia will never be the first person JP marries; she won’t be the first person to have his children)—is how JP handles his communications with her. The calls are always taken in another room, behind closed doors or otherwise out of earshot of Sophia, and when JP is texting with Maria, he might as well be underwater. When Sophia mentioned that it would be nice to spend an actual weekend together in the city, JP said that he couldn’t wait for that to happen “down the road.” However, he still spent his weekends in Oklahoma. That made sense while Briar was in rehab and then back home after rehab, but once Briar was in college, wasn’t JP free to spend a weekend or two in New York?

Absolutely, he said. He gave her one weekend in January. Sophia cooked for him in her apartment on Friday night; she wore red lipstick and channeled her inner Alison Roman, whipping up crispy pork chops with buttered radishes and roasted Broccolini. Saturday they wandered through the Guggenheim, and Sophia showed off her art history minor; then they cabbed down to the Angelika Theater to see a French film, followed by dinner at Le Coucou. Sunday, JP rode the Peloton before their brunch at Sadelle’s, and they spent the rest of the afternoon watching playoff football before ordering in Thai food.

This was a perfect weekend, Sophia said before they climbed into bed Sunday night. Every weekend could be like this, you know.

JP spooned her and said in her ear, Absolutely. Down the road.

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