They sat at the corner of the bar and ordered two beers. The air from the cooling unit chilled Will’s shirt on his back. He felt his skin clam up. Jenna wrapped her arms around her ribs and when she turned toward him, Will could make out the width of her nipples. They dabbed their faces with waxy napkins. They dried their hair with their hands.
Will activated his roaming again and texted Whitney to let her know they’d left. He checked his email, too. There might be news. No word on the script, of course, but there was a message from the airline: flights would start back up in the midafternoon tomorrow. They still had their place in line, so they should stand by for further updates. He cycled back to his texts. Nothing in response.
He placed his phone on the bar, screen facedown.
“You don’t have to hide it,” Jenna said.
Will glanced at the black rubber case, touched it with his finger, flipped it over.
“I’m a big girl,” she said. “I know she’s probably not thrilled that you’re alone with me. And certainly not psyched about that move you pulled back there. If I were her, I wouldn’t have been so chill about splitting off.”
“It’s no problem,” he said. “We can do some things apart.”
“But it’s not just doing some things apart…” she said. “She obviously doesn’t, you know…she doesn’t seem to like me much.”
“What makes you say that?” he said.
She shaded toward him in her seat, and instead of answering the question, ticked her head from twelve o’clock to two.
“I don’t know…” he said. “It hasn’t come up. I think she likes you fine. We’ve all just been a little stressed these past few days. If you’re referring to last night, that was just booze and exhaustion. That was as weird as anything I’ve seen her do, but nothing to read too much into.”
“You’re sweet,” she said. “Defending her. Defending me. It’s a lie, but it’s a lie with heart.”
She sipped her beer and wore the foam on her lip. He smiled. The length of her long pink tongue removed the foam like a windshield wiper. He watched a little too fixedly and his smile dialed back.
“I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever have something like that, you know?” she said. “Someone who’ll lie helpfully on my behalf. Someone who’ll lie with heart for me.”
“Well, you’re twenty-two,” he said.
“Which means, yes, you think so?” she said.
“You have endless time. You’ll meet your share.”
“But I’m not just talking about meeting boys, going out. I’m talking about dinners and vacations and real fucking. I’m talking about years. I’m talking about something built-up, like…living in a conspiracy with someone.”
“You’re very early days in this whole thing,” he said, smiling. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I think if you asked Whitney, she might say she could’ve used a couple more years in your shoes. Could’ve used a couple more years in her twenties, as a person in the world, before getting in too deep with someone else.”
“And what about you?”
“I don’t think about it much anymore because it doesn’t change anything at this point. But, I mean, it’s always easier to look back from a nice position and say, Hey, I should’ve taken more advantage of being single. That it would’ve been nice to screw around while I had the opportunity.…But you never know what’s in store, right? You never know when you’re out of time.”
“That’s depressing,” she said.
“Then maybe that’s not the way to put it. But you get what I mean. When you’ve found the person—”
“The person for ever and ever…” she said.
“Something like that,” he said.
“Is there ever any pressure? I mean, seven years? Don’t people ask you about it?”
He laughed a little and clicked his nails on the bar to the bass line. “Are you asking as a follow-up to your taste-bud theory? Or because you believe so deeply in marriage that you can’t imagine waiting?”
She shrugged, though he saw the answer in her face.
“I don’t know about it,” he said. “We don’t know about it. I know we seem ancient to you, but in some circles we’re thought of as young still.”
“I know that…” she said. “It’s just impossible for me to imagine what I’ll be looking for in seven years. Especially given that seven years ago I was at camp just praying each night that Davy Rothman would feel me up before the end of the summer.”
Will finished his beer. It came in a small glass. He felt his scalp lift a centimeter off his skull.
“And were your prayers answered?”
“They certainly were,” she said. “Unwavering faith here.”
The waiter brought over two more. Will was wondering about Whitney again, and he could feel Jenna reading it on his face. He glanced at his phone and she caught his eyes.
“No response?” she said.
He moved his phone to his pocket.
“I wonder if she’s still with Jack,” she said.
“Don’t know,” he said, sipping his fresh beer.
“And you don’t worry about her with other men like that?”
“Should I?” he said. “Do you worry about him with other women like that?”
“Oh, I could care less. We’re just, you know…I’m going home. He’s cool. And I like the way he looks with his clothes off. But we’ll never see each other again after we get out of here.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
She shrugged again.
“You’re right, that’s not giving you enough credit,” he said. “But that’s a pretty mature way to think about this stuff.”
“If I was convinced he was my Whitney, maybe it’d be different…” She’d said her name out loud and it
