Kevin is short, at least shorter than Ana. He’s about my height. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt; looks like he got the grocery store memo too. His face is nondescript. His skin is mostly clear but somewhat muddled; his hair is a shade of brown best described as “meh,” and he looks like he neither works out nor is a slovenly couch potato.
He leans toward me, around Ana. “Kevin,” he says, shaking my hand. It’s not a bold handshake, but it’s not a dead fish. It’s polite and nice. He smiles and I smile back. I see him take in his surroundings, and I start to look around my house as well, as an impulse. I see my living room through his eyes. He no doubt knows about me, knows that my husband is dead, knows that Ana is my best friend; maybe he knows that I feel like he is trying to take her away from me. As he looks, I feel self-conscious about all of Ben’s things around us. I want to say, “I’m not some crazy woman. It’s just too hard to put these away yet.” But I don’t, because saying you’re not crazy makes you seem crazy.
“Shall we?” Ana says. Kevin and I nod. Within a few seconds we are out the door. We cram into Kevin’s Honda. I offer to take the backseat, and I squeeze myself into it by ducking and crunching behind the passenger-side door. Why do two-door cars exist? It is the most cumbersome of all tasks to try to wedge yourself into the backseat of one.
On the way to the restaurant, Ana is clearly trying to give Kevin and me a common thread upon which to build a relationship. It feels so strange. I get the distinct impression that Ana is trying to make sure Kevin and I get along. She’s trying to make sure I like Kevin. She’s never done that before. She’s never cared. Most of the time, meeting me is their death knell. She uses me to let them know that she doesn’t need alone time with them, that we are all friends. This isn’t that. She’s not kicking him out the door. She’s inviting him inside.
“How did you guys meet?” I ask from the backseat.
“Oh, at yoga,” he says, paying attention to the road.
“Yeah, Kevin was always in my Tuesday night class and he was just so bad”—she laughs—“that I had to personally help him.”
“I’ve tried to explain to her that instructors are supposed to help their students, but she seems to think she was doing me a favor,” he jokes, and I laugh politely as if this is hilarious. I’m missing whatever it is this guy has going for him. “Worked out in my favor though, since it got her to ask me out.”
“Can you believe that, Elsie?” Ana says, half turning her face toward me in the backseat. “I asked him out.”
I thought he’d been joking.
“Wait,” I say, leaning forward. “Kevin, Ana asked you out?”
Kevin nods as he enters the parking garage and starts to look for a parking space.
“Ana has never asked anyone out the entire time I’ve known her,” I tell him.
“I’ve never asked anyone out in my entire life,” she clarifies.
“So why Kevin?” I ask and immediately realize that I have not phrased it in a polite way. “I just mean—what made you change your mind? About asking people out, I mean.”
Kevin finds a spot and parks the car. Ana grabs his hand. “I don’t know.” She looks at him. “Kevin’s different.”
I want to vomit. I go so far as to make a vomit noise as a joke to them, but neither of them finds it funny. They aren’t even paying much attention to me. I realize, as I try to climb out of the backseat of this shitty little car without injuring myself, that Kevin has hijacked my dinner plans with Ana and they are just letting me come along as a courtesy. I am a third wheel.
You try being a widow and a third wheel. You will never feel more alone.
We get to the restaurant, and it seems pretty cool, actually. Kevin and Ana are having a good time regardless of whether I am.
“How long have you two been dating?” I ask. I’m not sure what to expect, or rather, I don’t expect anything.