Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [109]
JULES
Once you’re done with school, summer doesn’t mean what it used to. Every day was a workday, and the only way the seasons mattered was whether it was light when I left for the office and when I came home, and what I’d wear from Kimmie’s apartment to the subway. Once I was at work, time and weather disappeared. The office seemed to generate its own climate, hot and humid, the air thick with stress and gray with unhappiness. In an effort to recognize summer as summer, Kimmie and I would try to eat outdoors once every week. We’d take turns picking the spot: bistros with sidewalk seating, pocket parks, museum courtyards, restaurants with backyard gardens where we could sit and imagine we were someplace other than New York.
This week, we’d grabbed street food and were dining on the benches outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was hazy and warm, the sky a washed-out white, the trees thick with glossy green leaves, a Friday afternoon, which meant that Rajit was probably halfway to the Hamptons already, and I wouldn’t be missed as long as I stayed late enough to finish my research (today’s enthralling topic—a sneaker factory in Paraguay). People had kicked off their shoes and rolled up their sleeves and pants legs (and, in the cases of some of the girls, their shirts) in an effort to make the most of the sunshine.
I bought a plate of halal chicken and rice. Kimmie had a container of fruit salad, a big bottle of water, and a black-and-white cookie. We spread napkins over our laps, traded plastic silverware, and split the cookie so that we each got black and white.
“We should go to the beach,” I said. “I’ll bet Florida’s cheap right now.”
“I bet Florida’s hot.”
“No hotter than this,” I said.
Kimmie speared a bite of kiwi and held it out to me. I looked around to make sure no one was looking, then ate the kiwi off her fork. “JetBlue’s got good deals.” She held out a chunk of pineapple. I looked around again and, when I noticed a trio of guys in ties staring at us, pulled away. Her sigh was so soft I almost didn’t hear it.
Since that first night—the night we played show and tell, as I called it—we’d spent almost every night together. I still paid rent on my apartment, and my roommates thought I had a serious boyfriend. I wasn’t in a hurry to disabuse them. It was none of their business. Kimmie and I woke up together, snuggled on her futon, and made tea in her tiny kitchen. We showered together, hip to hip in her narrow tub, washing each other’s hair under the spray. She’d sleep in my T-shirts, which fell to her thighs, and we wore beaded bracelets we’d picked up at the Brooklyn Flea, but we didn’t hold hands in public, let alone kiss. When we’d visited her parents for Christmas, they put us in Kimmie’s room, which had a single bed, and spread blankets and a sleeping bag on the floor for me. We’d spooned in the bed, whispering and giggling as Kimmie’s mother rattled around in the kitchen, preparing lasagna, the most American dish she knew.
When we were together, at dinner, at the movies, or strolling through a store or a street fair, we looked like best friends. I wasn’t sure what I was—if I was gay, if I’d always been attracted to women and had never managed to figure it out. All I knew for sure was that I was in love with Kimmie. With her, I felt safe in a way I hadn’t in years, maybe not ever, and certainly not since my father’s accident. She was so small, so fragile, with her little bird bones. I could span both of her wrists with one of my hands, could buy clothing for her at Gap Kids, but she was stronger than she looked; smart, and fierce. When she got a cold, I bought her Theraflu and Gatorade and chicken soup from the deli. When I lost my wallet, she called my credit-card company and figured out how to get the DMV to FedEx me a replacement license overnight.
On the bench Kimmie ate the pineapple herself, then pressed her lips together. I wanted to pull the elastic out of her hair, to bury my hands in its cool silk. If she were a boy I wouldn’t have thought