“Get what you want,” said Robin.
Emily looked at her gratefully. She appreciated the protection, which she had never felt like she needed until that moment, at least not from her grandmother. In a few years, her aunt would again protect her when the shit really started to go down between Emily and her mother; there was screaming and yelling and one hair-pulling incident, and so it was decided that on certain weekends Emily would spend some time with her schoolteacher aunt and her boyfriend in their apartment downtown, because clearly Emily, who was so bright and so creative (and yet so good at math, a fact everyone always ignored), needed a wider cultural perspective, visits to galleries and museums and vintage stores and bookstores and independent movie theaters and so forth, and those visits once a month helped clear everyone’s head, her mother’s, her father’s, Emily’s, and those visits would have continued had her aunt not had the breakdown that one night, too much to drink, too sad, a lost baby in her belly that no one had known about except for her boyfriend, and it had been too much for her aunt to handle, mourning this thing she had known for only a few weeks, not even a baby, just an idea of a baby, and it had devastated her so much, too much, and it had scared Emily, to see someone who couldn’t stop crying for so long into the night and through the next morning until her father could come pick her up, just one urgent phone call away. “You’re welcome back whenever you like, as soon as she gets better,” said Robin’s boyfriend, Daniel, red-faced and sad himself, but by the time she was ready, after the brief hospital stay and the many therapy sessions, and the stopping and starting and stopping again of drinking, Emily was long gone to college.
“The dumplings are delicious,” said her grandmother, embarrassed, staring deeply at the menu. “You can’t go wrong with the dumplings.” Her grandmother ordered a few dishes from a cool-looking waitress who was maybe her aunt’s age but looked younger with her purple-striped hair and high-legged lace-up leather boots and punky miniskirt. “And whatever else you think is good,” she said. “But I wanted my granddaughter to try those dishes.”
“Your granddaughter!” the waitress squealed, and then rushed to Emily’s side, extending her hand, and Emily wondered why the waitress was so happy to see her. “Of course, look at all of you, three peas in a pod. The same eyes,” she said. It was true: They all had the same dark eyes; Emily’s were not damaged yet, though, no wounds burned deep within her, not like with the two women.
“Emily, this is Anna,” said her grandmother.
Emily was still looking at the waitress’s hand, specifically her nails, which were painted a sparkly purple color.
“She’s a friend of mine,” said her grandmother. “Go on, don’t be rude. Shake her hand.”
Emily reached out and shook the waitress’s hand.
“I like your nail polish,” she said, and she felt completely lame, but she had never been introduced to a waitress in her life. She knew her family and her friends at school and the people at the synagogue and some of her neighbors and her parents’ friends and some random distant relatives, but people who worked out in the world, the people who served you at various stores and restaurants, were not people you befriended, not because you were better than they were (or they were worse than you), but because . . . she didn’t know why because. Because they didn’t quite exist for her yet. Maybe, just then, they started to exist.
“I’ve got the bottle in back,” said Anna. “I can grab it for you, it’s no trouble.”
“Aren’t you just so lovely,” said her grandmother. “After we eat, of course.”