She looked up, startled.
“After Charles bought the house, but before you guys moved in, I drove by. I saw them standing in the yard.”
Her cheeks burned. “Well, yeah. I’m talking about them, I guess.”
Scott balled up a paper napkin and aimed it for the trash can. It went in. “They’re fucking Stepford wives.”
She stirred her coffee. There—that was the answer she’d longed for when she called Charles yesterday. That was what she’d wanted him to say.
A woman passed, carrying four bouquets of tiger lilies in her arms. And then something else tumbled unwittingly out of Joanna’s mouth. “How about … Bronwyn?” She squinted, as though groping for Charles’s ex-girlfriend’s name. “Was she cold, too?”
Behind them, a man working at the bakery counter called the next number, and a woman strutted up and asked for a box of croissants. “Probably,” Scott replied, his tone suddenly hard.
“I’ve never met her. I guess she moved or whatever.”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
She rotated her ankle, feeling the joint pop. “Do you know why they broke up?”
He raised his eyebrows, creasing his forehead. “Like I would know?”
“Well, Charles hasn’t really given me an answer, so …”
He pointed at her. “I never pegged you for that kind of chick.”
She sat back, self-consciously touching her chin. “What kind of chick?”
“The kind that cares.”
“N–no,” she answered. Her pulse raced, throbbing at the insides of her elbows, the backs of her knees. I didn’t used to be, she almost said.
She sat back, having said way, way too much. “No, I’m not,” she said more firmly, more certainly.
This was by far the longest, most intimate conversation she’d ever had with Scott. It was wearing her out, but at the same time, she didn’t want to move. “I’m going to see my mother next week,” she said. “I was talking to her when you came up.”
Scott smiled. “I remember your mom from your wedding. She wore that red dress.”
Joanna hid a smirk. After a few cocktails, that red dress had slipped off Catherine’s shoulders, exposing the lacy edges of her strapless bra.
“What?” Scott asked, noting her look.
“Nothing.” She stared down at the checkerboard floor. It was shiny, so clean one could probably eat off it. “She’s having some kind of breast biopsy.”
“That’s funny?”
“No …” She waved her hand. “I mean, it won’t be anything. It never is. But I always have to go and be with her.”
“Why do you have to go?”
“Because …”
“Doesn’t she have friends who live closer? Other family members?”
Joanna stared at the barista behind the coffee counter as she industriously wiped down the steamed-milk nozzles. She wasn’t about to try and explain her issues with her mom to Scott of all people. “It has to be me,” she finally said.
“That’s pretty shitty.”
“It’s … complicated.”
Joanna’s eyes finally wandered to Scott’s shopping basket. There were a few items in it—peanut butter, a jar of olives, Klondike bars, an industrial-size bag of beef jerky. It didn’t exactly add up to a meal. Then she noticed a purple box tucked into the corner. “You like Sleepytime tea?” she exclaimed, pointing at the bear mascot on the label.
Scott paled and quickly turned the box of tea over. But that just made it worse—the bear mascot was now tucked into bed, a striped sleeping cap on his head, little holes cut out for his ears, his eyes two closed half-moons. Little z’s floated above his head, and a cup of tea sat on his nightstand, steam rising from the cup.
“Aww, that’s you,” Joanna said, pointing to the bear.
Scott winced. But his face was still open. He hadn’t shut down, amazingly.
“Does it help you sleep?” Joanna pressed.
“Maybe.”
“Do you have trouble sleeping?”
“Only when I’m thinking about you.”
Joanna flushed and looked away. But when she glanced at him again, he was chuckling. It was a joke. Of course it was a joke.
The automatic doors wheezed open again. Cold wind blew in, and as Scott raised his eyes, his face went gray. Joanna turned around to see what he was looking at. A few people had stopped to gather baskets or carts: a guy talking on his cell phone, a college-age couple, a forty-something woman in a tan trench coat and gray pants.
“What?” Joanna asked as Scott’s face tightened.
“I think I know that bitch.”
“Which one? In the trench coat?” Joanna wondered how often Scott went around calling people bitches.
Scott nodded and shrank against the wall. “She won’t recognize me or anything. She never came to the matches.”
Joanna struggled to understand. “Her son wrestled?”