In the Arms of Others

Emmy couldn’t scramble into her car fast enough. It didn’t help that the handle had to be jiggled in a certain way to open the door. She let a curse fly into the bitter cold air. The car only sputtered when she turned the key. She screamed another curse. Then another when she saw Jesse in her side mirror. She was turning back into her old self. She’d tried. She’d worked ten times as hard to have ten times less than these people, but in the end she was only a trashy girl who drove a trashy car and had a trashy mouth.

Finally, on the third try, the engine roared to life. She added a roar of her own and was tempted to clip his car that was parallel-parked right in front of her. Frustration vocalized only had the effect of leaving her throat feeling raw and his car dentless for one more day. Although another dent in her own unsavory ride, a dent with a touch of expensive red no less, would have added to the handy effect of repelling traffic every time she tried to merge onto the Schuylkill.

She saw him in her rear-view mirror. She pealed a quick right to spare the mirror of the image. Three hours later, after roaring through successive streets and alleys, she pulled up to the place she imagined felt like home would feel.

It was just a set of back steps. A cook and one of the front-of-house guys were sharing a break.

“Hey, Em,” the cook greeted her.

“Hey.” She tried to recall the name of the front-of-house guy.

“You haven’t been around in awhile,” he said.

“She’s been working the big time,” the cook said. “Got herself a real job.”

“Being the shortest, short order cook at Smokey’s not real enough for you?”

Now she remembered him: Pat King, king of short jokes. Ironically, he was short himself but not bad to look at.

“Not when you’re an art school grad,” the cook said. “So, how’s the fancy job working for you?” he asked Emmy.

She let loose a colorful description.

Pat smiled, “Artful.”

The cook laughed. “Never figured you for fitting in in the burbs.” He ground out his cigarette and went in to clean his grill.

Pat kicked some ice off the side of a step. He motioned for Emmy to sit. “So you’re back to visit?”

She shrugged.

“Got a place to crash tonight?”

It was a college community and it was common for recent grads to pop in with no plans for where to stay. Emmy shrugged again. It was nice of Pat to be looking out for her. He went on to describe their crazy night that was winding down. She missed the restaurant business – no need to pretend to your co-workers. No need to clean up your language or hide your frustrations or opinions.

“Kitchen crew pulled it off though,” Pat said, “so first round’s on me tonight. Want to join us?”

She accidently answered her phone.

She was groggy and he talked and talked. He said so many words before it finally began to sink in. He’d followed her.

Jesse followed her?

She fumbled around the couch, found an old blanket to wrap up in, and made her way down to the street. She winced at the daylight.

“Your hair…”

She batted him away. Bed head. So what. She’d spent most of her college years paying four guys who shared an apartment $50 a month for the privilege of using their two foot by eight foot closet as a bedroom. She’d slept on the floor and kept all her earthly belongings on the rack and shelf above her. She was used to guys seeing her look disheveled. And right now she missed those years.

“You left me in the kitchen with all the wives.” She cursed. “What do I know about shopping and decorating?”

“Do you think I was having a better time trying to act like I cared about the Flyers and the Sixers?”

“But – ”

“We’re artists. We don’t fit in at dinner parties.”

She felt him sit down next to her on the curb. She wiggled away.

“But we fit together.” His voice was so soft she could barely hear him. “This last project, we clicked.” She heard his foot drag aimlessly through the gravel left behind by cinder trucks. “I never had that with someone before.”

She balled her blanketed hand into a fist. “If we ‘fit,’ then how come when I looked for you … ” She took her voice down a couple notches. “You said so many times, ‘I got your back.’ You said it so many times.”

“And I meant it. That’s why I followed you. The way you were driving – and then you end up here. And this guy, that all the girls were ogling at – you’re the one he takes home?”

“You’re jealous?” The outburst made her head hurt. She rested her forehead in her hands. “You’re the one who was embracing that girl. She was so thin and beautiful…”

“So that was it.” Jesse tried again to move closer. She inched away. “Emmy, she was thin because she’d been sick for a long time. I was hugging her because I was relieved that she was finally starting to get better.”

They sat quietly. She heard him pick up some gravel then one at a time throw the little pieces at the car in front of them.

“It’s a college town,” she finally said, “people are always crashing on each other’s couches.” She placed her hand atop his to keep him from throwing another pebble. “Stop doing that to Pat’s car.”

He let her take the gravel from his palm. When she finished removing the last piece, he sandwiched her hand between both of his and brought her fingertips to his lips and kissed them.