Page 15 of The Idiot

My palm is sweating against the window frame, watching the road to town crawl toward us with each passing minute as silence starts to grow like a fungus between us. He doesn’t even have the strip club’s greatest hits playing on his radio tonight. Something feels off. Maybe I just want too badly for things to go back to normal, back to before I had an emotional outburst after seeing Pete and Cam hold hands.

I’m mentally analyzing facial expressions. This is silly. Everything will be fine. We’re fine.

Wiping my hand on my jeans, I hate that it requires actual effort to remember how to be the me around Jesse I always am. I’m actually having to search for small talk. Freaking small talk with my best friend.

“How’s the hot tub project coming along?” I throw out, knowing it’s a topic that always lights him up.

Grinning, he looks like his old self, relaxing the tension in my shoulders. “I decided I’m going to put up a big-ass pole building instead of a gazebo.”

“A pole building? You’re going to put up an entire building just for a hot tub?” I scoff at his newest addition to the project he’s been talking about for over a year. “You said you wanted to sit in it and look at the stars. Won’t that defeat the purpose?”

“No, I’ll get skylights put in the roof. This way, though, I can sit out there in the winter and not freeze my ass off when I get out. We can hop out, sit at the bar, and watch the big screen while we eat, then get back in when we’re done.”

I’ve heard every single development of this party pad he’s been planning for what feels like forever, but all I can focus on right now is the word ‘we.’ He said ‘we’as in, I’ll still be in the picture if he ever does put his money where his mouth is and build the damn thing. I think it’s the first time I’ve smiled, truly smiled, since Sunday.

Popping Delores intopark, he announces, “We’re here.”

It’s now that I notice we’re in the new business district of downtown that’s slowly taken form over the last few years. It’s lined with retro shops that still don’t feel like they belong in the Wenatchee I grew up in. Trendy mannequins with their eyeless faces, in gothic and new age apparel, stare back at me blankly from a clothing shop. I’m as lost as they are as to what Jesse wants to do in this part of town where the tourists and younger generations flock.

I peel myself out of Delores and meet him on the sidewalk, mustering a positive attitude. His anxious smile has my heart palpitating. I wish to hell he’d quit doing that. It reminds me of one day in high school, and how he acted all the way throughlast period before he finally confessed that he’d broken the passenger door handle off my truck. There’s nothing to break right now except me.

“Are you up for coffee? They supposedly have everything. They’ve even got a five-star rating onYep.”

‘Yep?’ What the fuck is Yep?

“You meanYelp?” Squinting at a neon sign over a café next to the clothing store, I follow him warily toward Un-bean-lievable. Is he seriously taking me out for coffee on a Saturday evening?

“No, it’s Yep. Isn’t it? Like, ‘yep. This place is great.’” Cackling, he opens the door, holding it for me. He never holds the door for me. “Why would they call a review serviceYelp? That sounds like a noise you make if someone dumps hot coffee on your lap.”

A hot wall of coffee-scented air hits my face when we enter, and I’m assaulted by the sharp notes of jazz music being blasted from overhead speakers.

A giant chalkboard menu hangs on the wall behind a brush-metal counter strewn with a sea of coffee variations that I don’t understand. Why did I think we’d be going out to dinner?

“Welcome to Un-bean-lievable,” a dark-haired teen with a messy man bun behind the counter drones out with the enthusiasm of Ben Stein. “What can we make you fresh from our un-bean-lievably wicked menu?”

Did he just refer to beverages as ‘wicked?’ “Um, what’s good?” Jesse asks, looking lost as he gapes at the five hundred different coffee selections on the menu board.

“I recommend our wheatgrass avocado latte. We make them with real wheatgrass.” The kid gestures behind him to aflat of bright green grass that I thought was some type of eco decoration.

Where the fuck has Jesse brought me?

Glancing over at him, I’m intent on discerning if he’s recently suffered a head injury that I don’t know about.

When he looks at me, and his brows raise in intrigue, asking, “What do you think?” I’m certain of it.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Trying to subdue a disbelieving scoff as I take in the rest of the café, I fail. There are no chairs at any of the tables, just bean bags. It looks like the daycare my niece goes to but in black and beige. Did he freaking read the wrong business review and get confused?

“I didn’t have dinner yet,” I supply, patiently. “I thought maybe we were going out to eat.”

Man bun barista interjects with another spiel, gesturing to a convex case with pastries in it to our left. “Our lentil chocolate chip cookies and kelp bacon quiche just came out of the oven.”

I get another hopeful look from Jesse, almost like he’s awaiting my approval. He cannot be serious. I’m starting to think he is a legit stranger in a Jesse suit now.

“Jesse, I’m not eating kelp, and the only wheat I touch is the winter cover crop I plant in the back twenty for the game birds,” I inform him in a low voice so as not to offend ourenthusiasticbarista.

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