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By Root 265 0

it on the floor of the Town Car in the chaos of arrival. The donut—spurned by the only vegan livery driver in New Jersey—is still in its unopened bag, tucked deep within one of the hidden pockets of Jessica’s carry-on, completely forgotten until right now. Jessica reaches in and rummages around until she feels something soft and crinkly. She unfolds the donut bag, peers inside, and recognizes one of the shop’s best sellers, a pink-frosted, rainbow-sprinkled vanilla cream puff once called the McGreevey during a brief and ill-conceived marketing campaign in which all Papa D’s products were named after famous New Jerseyans. This donut, more like a cupcake than anything anyone should ever eat for breakfast, was her mother’s way of making the morning more festive, distinct from the other 364 days of the year.

The McGreevey is something she wouldn’t normally eat in her real life, as opposed to her airport life, which, if Jessica thinks about it, is slowly but surely taking over the former. Despite her frequent flying, Jessica is merely a competent traveler. She hasn’t spent enough time in the air to become a sky warrior, one of the savvy business-class masses who manage to fit an impressive array of gourmet foodstuffs in their carry-on luggage. As such, Jessica continually finds herself in one airport newsstand or another, her common sense and taste buds dulled by jet lag, swiping her debit card to buy bags of crunchy, starchy, salty, sugary crap that she wouldn’t consume anywhere else in the world, as if the airport’s artificial atmosphere makes her crave only the fakest approximations of food. How many times has she found herself slumped on a bench at the departures gate, licking high-fructose residue from her fingers and thinking, Why the hell did I just eat that?

This donut will be good for a brief rush of sweet elation, quickly followed by the inevitable crash, withdrawal, and lingering sugar hangover, but she doesn’t care. Hell no, not today. Her teeth sink into the dense cake, and the sensation brings such indulgent relief that she scarcely notices when a glob of vanilla cream filling oozes from the opposite side and splats onto her foot.

thirteen

“Let me help you,” cajoles Jonelle, blinking up at Marcus through three coats of mascara.

This woman peddles an ersatz eroticism that Marcus does not buy in to. Men are anthropologically programmed to want women with violin curves and poreless skin, saucer eyes and plump lips, but this one looks like what happens when a seventh-grade girl creates a I WANNA LOOK LIKE THIS composite of celebrity body parts and facial features that reflects an immature idea of perfection. On their own, the features are alluring. But when the disparate parts are all awkwardly glued together through cosmetic surgery, it comes across as a collagelike caricature of sexiness that makes Marcus feel bad for Jonelle.

A Frankenskank, thinks Marcus. That’s what Jessica would call her.

He winces, regretting the expression as soon as it comes to him as being unfair to Jonelle and Jessica. Especially Jessica. He hates when he does this, when he puts hypothetical words in her mouth, imagining how she might react to different moments in his life without her. It has been many months since Marcus has spoken her name aloud, but that hasn’t stopped the conversations inside his mind. Like when he sees a film he knows she would appreciate (Before Sunset), reads a book that could speak to her like it has spoken to him (Youth and Life), or hears a song that should be on her iPod (anything by the Mighties—that is, before the group’s lead singer/songwriter made himself the “my,” Marcus the “he,” and Jessica the “you” in their viral sensation, “My Song Will Never Mean as Much [As the One He Once Sang for You].”) Marcus sees, hears, reads, and thinks of Jessica, inventing her side of the dialogue in the absence of the real thing. Far less inspired and more shameful are the artless, mundane moments like this, when it’s almost as if his subconscious is reaching for excuses to remember Jessica for no legitimate reason