Carmen had grown up near Memphis. Her parents divorced when she was only three, and her dad took Carmen’s brother, who was nine at the time, and moved to Texas; she never saw them again, heard not one word from her dad or brother. “For all I know,” she told Izzy, “they’re both dead. Or on the moon. Or still in Texas, not thinking a thing about me.”
Like Izzy, Carmen was thirteen when her mother died, a swift and inoperable lung cancer, and Carmen moved to Memphis proper to live with a distant, older cousin who already had a family of her own. She did that until she was sixteen, when the cousin and her family moved to Florida, and Carmen spent the next two years living with friends, until she graduated from high school. Then she’d met Kenny, who’d been working at a garage where Carmen, one of her two jobs, worked the register. They married two months after getting together. “We loved each other,” Carmen admitted, as if Izzy had doubted her, “but we also were just so happy to be with somebody who wasn’t going to up and leave as soon as they had the chance. Both of us had a bad history of getting left behind, and so we thought we’d do much better if we held on to each other.” Two months after Carmen had decided to enroll in nursing school, a step toward the future, she got pregnant, and now here she was, so much further into the future, on Izzy’s couch, the two of them slightly drunk, talking about Izzy’s love life.
“So it’s not going to happen with David?” Carmen asked.
“I don’t know that it ever was, but it’s definitely not going to happen now,” Izzy replied, her teeth stained red from the hurricane. “I’ve shut the door on that.”
“His loss,” Carmen said. “There are lots of other guys for you.”
“I can’t imagine starting anything with them. They seem very, very young to me.”
“You old soul,” Carmen said, shaking her head.
“Well, I have a kid. I have responsibilities. I don’t begrudge the fact that they don’t. But I don’t have time for them.”
Then Izzy, just buzzed enough, spoke before she could consider how smart it was. “What do you think of Dr. Grind?”
“What do you mean? Romantically?”
“I guess,” Izzy replied, knowing she had made a mistake.
“Izzy?” Carmen said, and then laughed loudly, a quick burst of surprise. “You have a crush on Dr. Grind?”
“I don’t know.” Izzy’s face, she could feel, was blazing hot. But there was no point in turning back. “I guess I do.”
“He’s cute enough, I guess, though he looks so much like a little kid. Plain, but not unattractive. He’s sweet. He’s too earnest for me, though. He talks to everyone like they’re a purebred dog that might bite. Always wearing that tie. Kind of spooky, the way he moves so quietly through the complex.”
“But he’s kind,” Izzy offered, suddenly feeling the need to defend him.
“Is that all you need, kindness?” Carmen said. “Dr. Grind doesn’t look like he’s spent a single minute of his life thinking about sex.”
“I think kindness is sexy,” Izzy said quietly, now grasping at straws.
“You’d make a cute couple,” Carmen allowed, reaching for another cookie.
“It doesn’t matter,” Izzy said, thinking back to the kiss. “It couldn’t happen.”
“No, I guess not,” Carmen said. “Not while he’s running the show.”
“So there’s no point in talking about it.”
“You brought it up, Izzy.”
“Sorry.”
“I wonder if he dates,” Carmen said. “Do you think he has some Internet girlfriend that he talks to?”
“Let’s just finish the movie,” Izzy said, feeling sick at the possibility.
They watched Diana Ross on the TV, the lines almost memorized by this point. After ten minutes of quiet, so much time passing that Izzy assumed the conversation was over, Carmen rubbed her shoulder and said, “It’s okay to want somebody, Izzy. Dr. Grind’s a good guy.”
“Maybe someday,” Izzy said, just to end the conversation. She leaned against Carmen, suddenly tired, and Carmen snorted. “That tie,” she said. “Those sneakers.”
Izzy closed her eyes, unable to keep herself from smiling.
After Carmen went back to her own place, Izzy went upstairs and sat in her bed, suddenly unable to sleep. She reached into the drawer of her nightstand and retrieved a gray velvet box. She didn’t open it, merely held it in her open hand. It was one of the few objects she’d brought with her to the complex, something she couldn’t get rid of, and so here it was, in her hand again.
For her birthday, Hal had given her an antique emerald ring, the kind of jewelry that could not be mistaken for anything other than priceless, old world beauty. It fit her finger perfectly. “I can’t wear this,” she told him, immediately tamping down the joy she felt upon seeing the ring.
“Why not?” he asked, smiling, still proud of the perfection of his gift.
“Because someone like me, who doesn’t have five dollars in her purse and has to wear clothes from Goodwill, does not get to walk around school with this kind of ring on her finger. People will want to know who gave it to me.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have to tell them the truth. Say it was your grandmother’s ring.”