Page 17 of Finders Keepers
It’s sort of mortifying, now that I think about it, that I somehow managed to stretch what Cole must’ve intended as nothing but a three a.m. coffee-fueled convenient hookup into a six-year-long relationship.
“Yeah, yeah.” Sabrina verbally waves away my words before grinning. “So. Is this very frustrating old neighbor friend of yours single?” she asks. While I’m not a huge fan of this line of questioning, I’m glad to at least shift my focus away from Cole and the uncomfortable mixture of sadness, anger, and shame that intensifies whenever I start remembering the way things were between us. All the red flags to which I was apparently oblivious.
“Sabrina,” I chide anyway.
“Well,ishe?”
“Yes. Newly,” I admit.
“Hmm,” Sabrina hums, and I know it’s a placeholder forjust like you. I both love and hate the way I always know exactly what she’s thinking even without her saying a word. “Wait. Is this the same guy who moved away after some sort of treasure hunt–related drama when you were in high school?”
I tuck my hair behind my ears as I try to recall which margarita-fueled night in grad school resulted in me spilling my heart about Quentin. Probably the one where I wound up puking in the bushes behind a church and insisting I could speak Portuguese. (I cannot.) “Ugh. Don’t you ever forget anything?”
“Never.” She pauses. Then amends, “Almost never. I did have a student this past semester, could not remember her name for the life of me. Kept calling her Emma, but she was actually…Amy? I think. I still really don’t know!” Sabrina’s beautiful round face lights up as she smiles, and I realize that the scenery behind her hasn’t moved for some time.
“You’re outside Malcolm’s now?”
She looks over her shoulder quickly, as if checking to confirm. “Oh. Yes. That’s his flat. But I don’t need to—” The sudden return of the buzz saw’s screaming drowns out the end of Sabrina’s sentence.
“No, no, go on and have a nice evening with Mal. Some asshole is using power tools outside and making it hard to hear you anyway.”
“If you’re sure?” she says. “I don’t mind…”
I know she’s offering to talk more about what happened with Cole, since it happened so recently that we haven’t been able to discuss it outside of a few quick messages.
But no part of me feels the need to rehash that mess right now. Maybe it’s like when you injure yourself and it takes a second for your body to register the extent of the pain. I’m still in that infinitesimal lull between cause and effect. Sabrina is offering up her kit of best friend emotional bandages, but I’m not sure what size I even need yet, so I respond, “I’m sure. Besides, it’s nearly afternoon here already. I should really get up and get moving. Find something to occupy myself with so my parents don’t start worrying about me.” Also so I don’t start worrying about me. My memories flash back to the fall of 2008, sobbing into my pillow at night as I felt my sadness like a physical thing spreading throughout my body. The heavy, dull ache that would flood in after the numbness I felt during the day. Hopelessness that things would ever get better mixing with the anxiety that they would keep getting worse. Clinging to my ambition was the way I dug myself out of that hole then, and if I lose the ability to do it now I don’t know for sure that I won’t stumble right back in.
“All right, then,” she says. “Till next week, unless you need me before. Love to my Neen.” She blows a kiss toward the camera.
I blow one back. “Love to my Breen.”
“Chat soon,” she says, before hanging up.
For a moment, I allow myself to imagine the scene unfolding 3,300 miles away: Sabrina unlocking Malcolm’s door with thekey he gave her an almost worryingly short amount of time after they started dating. Her kissing him hello. Filling him in on the conference paper she worked on between meetings with students. Listening to a funny story about one of his patients. Them settling on the couch, limbs tangled as they discuss their dinner plans. Giggling as they fall into bed a few hours later.
Jealousy blooms deep inside my stomach, like a digestive juices–immune lotus flower. I hate feeling this way about someone I love so much. It’s just that, since we met at orientation for our PhD program, Sabrina has been not only my closest friend but also a helpful yardstick by which I can measure my progress toward the life I want. We’ve both been working toward the same things for so long: A university faculty position. A supportive partner. A beautiful home and a bright future. All things Ambitious Nina worked her butt off to secure—was so close to finally having. Sabrina and I used to be inches apart at most, but now it seems like she’s miles ahead, and it stings to see her disappearing into the distance while I collapse from a sudden muscle cramp.
That Bon Jovi pillar from the rest stop pops into my mind.It’s ok to map out your future—but do it in pencil.
At least remembering the overly smug expression on the rock star’s face plastered above that quote gives me enough of a spite-powered burst of motivation to actually get out of bed.
I glance out the window to check the day’s weather as another high-pitched buzz cuts through the air and draws my attention downward and to the left, into Quentin’s backyard. Which is where I find him meticulously running a circular saw over a piece of what appears to be laminate flooring. He’s wearing a raggedy Modest Mouse T-shirt with athletic shorts, and even from up here I can see the sweat rolling down his forehead.I kneel and lean against the sill, watching him work. Just so I know when it’s safe to open the window and holler down without the risk of startling him and making him slip and cut off a finger or something. Not at all because I’m enjoying the view of a hot, sweaty Quentin Bell using power tools.
Okay, I can admit, it’s extremely attractive, but it feels wrong to be thinking about Quentin that way.
Just because we’ve made a deal to continue our search for Fountain’s treasure doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what happened. It just means I’m willing to bury it back down in the deep, dark underbrush of my heart where it dwelled quite contently before Quentin’s sudden reappearance so rudely flushed it out from its hiding place.
I watch as he tosses the cut piece of flooring atop a small pile beside the sawhorse. He takes a step back and wipes his forehead with his arm. Now that he’s standing at a safe distance from things that could maim him, I hoist the window to declare my presence so I’m no longer covertly staring like a creep. The screeching draws his attention upward, and he squints against the powerful near-midday sun.
“Well, ho there, howdy, and good morning to you,” he says, bringing his hand up to provide some shade and, presumably, get a look at me. Perhaps I should have changed out of my cats-with-yarn-balls nightshirt and fixed my hair before getting his attention. Not that it really matters. He can’t see much of me while I’m crouched. And it’s not like I’m trying toimpresshim.
I ignore his teasing and respond with a simple, sharp “Hi” like I intended to the other day before I got all flustered. Maybe I can somehow resummon Badass Nina, now that I haven’t been taken by surprise. I prop my chin on my hand, trying to look as uninterested in him as possible.
Yet something must give me away, because he says, “Been watching me long?”
“No,” I retort, realizing too late that I’ve fallen into a trap. “I mean, I wasn’twatchingyou at all, really, so much as thinking about how every time I see you, you’re dressed more and more casually. What’s next? Swim trunks? A strategically placed fig leaf?”
Why on earth did those words just come out of my mouth?! If Badass Nina were coming back to life, that’s definitely killed her again.
