Page 60 of Hard to Kill

“You act like this is still high school.”

“As it should be.”

Sam leans across the table, trying to act conspiratorial. “Was it still there?”

“Was what still there?”

She grins. “What my grandmother used to call the old zookety-zook.”

“You want the truth?”

“You’re practically required to be truthful with your personal physician.”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Really. And even if I did still have feelings for him, which I don’t, they wouldn’t matter because I’m with Ben now. Who loves me for who I am, instead of what I’m not.”

“Who was it that said the heart wants what it wants?”

“Woody Allen,” I say. “You still want to play that particular card?”

We both laugh. It feels good, if fleetingly.

Then, almost in the next moment, I start to cry.

I wouldn’t do it in her office. But I’m doing it here. The tears come freely and in full force, nothing I can do to stop them, no point in even trying. Our waitress is on the way back to us, probably to tell us about the special. She turns right around and heads back toward the kitchen. My hands are pressed firmly on the table, as if I’m afraid to lose my balance or further lose control. Sam reaches across and covers them with her own.

I’m no longer making any noise, but my shoulders continue to rise and fall as I try to get enough air into me, and not make more of a scene than I already have.

“It’s okay, Jane,” Sam says softly. “It’s okay.”

My voice is practically a whisper.

“I want to live so much.”

We sit there like that, at the window table, her hands still over mine. I don’t know what the other people at Highway think, how many of them might recognize me from all the television airtime I’d gotten during Rob Jacobson’s first trial. For as long as I’ve known Sam, she’s always told me there’s nothing I can’t tell her, nothing I should hold back, no matter how private or personal.

I don’t hold back now.

“I want to be happy,” I say. “Is that too much to ask?”

Then I’m crying again.

FIFTY

“WELL,” I SAY AFTER a lengthy trip to the ladies’ room, “that was embarrassing.”

“Don’t feel embarrassed on my account, pal.” Sam smiles. “As I remember it, I cried for a week after Tommy O’Neill broke up with me in high school. I thought I was going to have bags under my eyes for the rest of my life.”

We both order appetizer salads as entrées, even though I’ve pretty much lost my appetite.

“I frankly don’t know how you’ve managed to hold it together this long.”

“Fake it till you make it.”

“Jane Smith,” Sam says, “you’re the toughest person I know.”

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