Page 32 of Absolute Certainty
“Good job, El!”
“How come you don’t get pineapple? You’re not allergic.”
“Solidarity,” he answered.
Eloise smiled, giddily taking a sip of her strawberry lemonade. And then, she perked up, dropping her mouth open in shock, her eyes leveled at his wrist. “You aren’t wearing the bracelet I gave you! Did you lose it?”
Jay looked down, remembering that he had left it beside his watch near the sink yesterday. “I took it off last night to shower and forgot to put it back on.”
“Phew,” she said dramatically, leaning back in the booth like the mere thought took years out of her life.
When kids at school started making friendship bracelets for concerts or something, Eloise made them for her family, too. She’d given Jay one that simply had her name on it with navy and pale blue rubbery beads. He’d worn it proudly every day, except at the coffee shop, to ensure nothing would happen to it. There, he usually kept it in his pocket with his wallet and keys.
Eloise, on the other hand, basically wore five bracelets on her left hand at all times.
“I’ll never lose it. It’s precious to me,” he promised.
A sweet smile made its way onto her face, bright and beaming.
It was moments like these that always made his chest constrict. His childhood was shit, but his present was nearly perfect because of her. Once more, he thought of how lucky he was. He thought of how he and Maya got along so well that when it came to Eloise, they almost never argued.
Jay’s earliest memories were full of either neglect or blaring altercations, one curse word after another. A father who was almost always either at work or causing fights. A father who never once spent time with his son. Doors slammed often in his house. Yelling was a constant.
Until recent years, his mother’s eyes were perpetually swollen with tears.
Maybe Sahar was right. Life, for most people, was too sad to solely create heavier content. Perhaps people could benefit from small glimmers of hope in the fiction they consumed.
“Is the bracelet as precious as my ugly, old drawings?” Eloise asked, pulling Jay out of his thoughts.
He gave her a playful glare. “What’d I tell you about calling your drawings ugly?”
“That progress is important.”
“Exactly.”
With a closed-mouth smile, she looked at him through her lashes. “Fine, fine.” She took another sip of her drink.
“Now, hypothetically, if Ididlose my bracelet, which I haven’t,” he promised, gesturing with his hands, “would you be able to make me another one?”
Gavin, Maya’s husband, had some sort of a brown one that said “badger” because it was his favorite animal. Jay was mostly asking out of curiosity, wondering if one day, when he had someone, whether Eloise would be able to make something for her.
For Sahar,his mind whispered.
“Yeah! But it would have to be later because I left all the letters and beads in Philly.”
He bobbed his head, grabbing his Coke for a sip.
When their food arrived, Eloise proceeded to ask twenty-one more questions about why he only made sad movies. After talking to Maya about the art class later that night, they spent the rest of the evening watchingBarbiefor the eighty-seventh time.
Eloise fell asleep on his shoulder, and as he carried her to bed, she woke up briefly to say, “I want to make movies, too, Daddy.”
Jay nearly lost his mind at the sleep-born statement, every fear he ever possessed materializing into phantoms that danced before his eyes. He prayed wordlessly that she didn’t mean it—that she’d grow up and realize life as a pediatrician like her mother guaranteed a far better future than the unpredictable industry he was mercilessly chained to. It had been his choice to go into entertainment, sure, but every single day, he wished for the brain and the passion to pursue a different career.
If only he loved writing and directing a little less. If only he were better at biology or math oranythingelse.
Much later that night,as he sat in bed, reviewing episode four, Jay realized that most of it would need to be rewritten. He took his phone from the bedside table to text Sahar. They hadn’t talked in a few days outside of the coffee shop, and this could be a segue back.
At least, he hoped it’d be.
