Page 56 of Atmosphere

“I didn’t look like myself last night?”

“I don’t know, Jo. I’m still trying to figure out if you know who you are.”

“Doyouknow who I am?” Joan asked her. It came out with an edge, but Joan desperately hoped she’d say yes.

Vanessa shook her head. “I’m hoping I do. Only you can say for sure.”

Joan could feel the space between them grow thicker.

“I kissed Griff last night,” Joan said. “After the strip club.” She studied Vanessa’s face for any reaction. It showed nothing.

“You seemed to be having quite a nice time at that club,” Vanessa said.

“I didn’t enjoy it,” Joan told her. “Kissing Griff.”

Vanessa nodded. “No, I had suspected you wouldn’t.”

“I liked the club, though.”

Vanessa was quiet, but she held Joan’s gaze. Then she looked away and nodded again, this time with a little smirk. “Yeah, I suspected you would.”

“Did you enjoy it?” Joan asked. “The club?”

“What do you think?” Vanessa said.

“I don’t know. You left early. I couldn’t tell.”

Vanessa didn’t say anything.

“You say I don’t know who I am, but do you know whoyouare?” Joan asked her.

Vanessa laughed. Joan cringed.

“Yes, Joan, I do. And you know who I am, too. If you’re honest with yourself.”

Oh, they were much too close to the sun.

“I think we should…I mean…we’re already so late! Can you grab my sunglasses? I’ll get dressed.”

Vanessa looked at her for a moment longer and then said, “Okay.”

Joan shut the bathroom door and put on her clothes. She fixed her hair. When she came out, Vanessa was holding her sunglasses and her wallet. She was standing right by the nightstand. Joan’s cheeks grew hot, as she worried Vanessa had opened the drawer. But she showed no signs of having seen anything.

Vanessa started to walk past the bed, toward Joan and the door, but then she stopped and leaned over. “Oh, looks like you left something,” she said as she grabbed a piece of paper, half-buried in the sheets.

“It’s nothing,” Joan said. “Don’t look at it. You don’t need to.”

But Vanessa did look at it, and then she smiled. “Oh, I do know you,” she said. “I know you so well. I know you exactly, Joan Goodwin.”

Joan could feel her cheeks warming. She was on the thinnest edge of something. But, somehow, she knew she was okay.

“All right, Ford,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The following weekend, Joan hadmade plans to pick Frances up on Sunday morning at ten, but she woke up almost half an hour late.

She’d been doing that lately. Unable to sleep, then unable to wake up, her mind scattered, her body falling behind. She called the house but no one answered, so she threw on a dress and got in the car. She made up some of the time by cutting through corner gas stations to avoid red lights—painfully aware that the maneuver was illegal.

When she pulled into Barbara’s driveway, Frances was outside sitting on the stoop. She was in cream overalls, her hair in two braids she’d clearly done herself.

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