“But now,” Jenna said, “you’re just another bro from the North Shore who’s ready to start his life all over again in L.A.”
Jack’s mouth smiled, but not his eyes.
“JJ Pickle is still pretty cool,” Will said. “Just not as cool as…Jenna Saisquoi.”
Jenna’s lips were flat and her eyes were still.
“Isn’t that what that guy said last night?” Will said, flailing a little. “That whole weird thing?”
“I forgot about him,” Jenna said.
“Anyway…” Will said. “Does anyone want any more of these?”
“The salmon,” Jack said.
“Two,” Whitney said.
“Two and a half,” Jenna said, undercutting her, so Will got four.
While Will went to the counter, Jack went to the bathroom and Whitney tried her best to keep things normal with Jenna. She asked if there was any place she’d liked more than any other during her time in Europe.
“When I was abroad in Paris,” Whitney said, “we traveled almost every weekend. I don’t totally know why, but I’m the same way now. I’m all excited to get to the one place, but then as soon as I’m there, all I can think about is where I want to go next.”
“I liked Copenhagen,” Jenna said. “I liked Berlin. I didn’t go all that many places, though. I guess I was the same as you heading into the program, but I didn’t change in some big way once I arrived.…I’d waited all my life to live in Paris, so I didn’t want to waste it. There were the trips down here. But those were typically just a couple days. And then some trips with some friends, with my…with my roommates.”
Jenna stumbled over the mention of my roommates as Jack returned. There was a shard of something that had emerged when Jenna had seen Jack. Jenna laughed a low, full-throated giggle, remembering something else.
“The three of us got stuck in Copenhagen for a couple extra days in November,” she said. “It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and it was already dark and snowy. I got what the big deal was about that place, though. We rode bikes around the lakes as it snowed. We drank in dark bars and ate pizza down near the waterfront in an old warehouse. It was outrageously expensive—Fantas cost, like, seven bucks. And so until the tracks were cleared, we mostly lived on hot dogs from the 7-Elevens that were everywhere.”
“What about Jack’s top three?” Whitney said.
“What’s that?” he said, drying his hands on his jeans. She explained. “Besides the places I played, it was really in and out. We’d get to a city in the afternoon and leave that night if we could. Buses and trains. I could tell you my favorite buses and trains? And the places I lived: Bergen, Frankfurt, here obviously. I guess I liked Oslo. I liked Munich. We got a day off for Oktoberfest. A two-beer limit at Oktoberfest is not exactly the point of Oktoberfest, but it was fun to hang with teammates in a different context. Berlin, too, I guess. But it was the middle of winter and I stuck around the hotel most of the time, stayed near the big gate, near the memorial with the stones.”
Will was back with the salmon toasts and another bottle.
“The Eisenman,” Jenna said. “The Murdered Jews of Europe.”
“Hmm?” Whitney said, regretting her show of ignorance at once.
“The memorial he’s talking about,” Jenna said. “I went there, too, with those roommates. There’s something especially strange about being an American Jew walking around that thing with two blond Germans.”
“You realize you have blonde hair, too?” Jack said.
“We come in all shapes, sizes, and colors,” Jenna said, placing her finger on the subtle curve of her nose.
Will and Whitney watched Jack and Jenna. Pinwheels spun behind their eyes. They possibly loathed each other, but craved one another nonetheless. Will and Whitney saw images passing between Jack and Jenna from their previous evening, from their morning, images of their bare bodies and whatever they’d done to each other. There was a taffy-stretched thickness of silence between them. Words only ran the risk of derailing the rest of their thing.
Whitney opened her mouth to tell Will it was probably about time for them to head home, but he started talking before she could.
“So I’m always thinking about this thing,” Will said. “And lately I’ve tried to get my boss to try it out in interviews, but he doesn’t want to fuck around with HR. I’m not long for that place, so what do I care anymore—but have you guys ever seen Bull Durham?” Jenna hadn’t. It was one of Jack’s favorite movies, of course. Whitney winced because she knew where this was going. “Well, there’s this famous speech. This speech where Kevin Costner’s character monologues to Susan Sarandon’s character about the stuff he ‘believes in,’ the stuff he truly lives for. We’ll show you.…Who can pull it up? Mine doesn’t have…”
Jack reached for his phone. His international service.
“The benefits of stardom…” Will said. “Anyway, I’ve always believed there must be no better way to do a job interview. Your résumé says where you went to school, where you’ve clocked in. But the point is to actually learn something about someone, right?”
The clip loaded slowly and they watched it: I believe in the soul…the cock…the pussy…the small of a woman’s back…the hangin’ curveball…high fiber…good Scotch…and on and on.
All four of them laughed at the hamminess. They were a little lit up by the wine.
“So, Whitney,” Will said, turning to her stagily, “what do you believe in?”
“Oh, I like this,” Jenna said.
“Someone else start,” Whitney said, still ready to leave. “How ’bout you?”
“Jack?” Will said, deflecting.
“I can’t do it off the top of my head,” Jack said. “Can I take a minute and write something down?”
Jenna moved across the crowded floor and squeezed between the elbows at the bar again. She put her chest on the counter. She returned with two pencils.
They stood at their table scribbling for several silent minutes, taking breaks to sip wine, to refill glasses. They made lists. Will
