Chapter 9.
9.
Icebreaker (n.)
a game or activity used to introduce people so they feel more relaxed together
my formidable adversary
“ I ...” I look to Damon to find him watching me intently. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s doing that soul-staring bullshit. I rush out the first three things that come to mind. “I work as a corporate mediator, my father is a pilot, and I... I love hairless cats.”
I glance reflexively at Damon, wishing I hadn’t brought up my father.
“That’s it?” Cam says.
“Easy,” Tamra scolds.
“I’m sure there’s more,” Damon says gently.
“You don’t like hairless cats,” Cam says, not waiting for me to confirm. “Damon, you’re up.”
Damon clears his throat, his eyes lingering on me as if still dissecting my answers, before turning his attention back to the group. “Okay, fine. I ride motocross, as part of my job I write the sayings on the digital freeway signs, and I... also like hairless cats.” He looks at me when he says the last one.
“You ride motocross? That’s awesome. What kind of bike?” Cam and Damon launch into a discussion I quickly lose the details of, grateful to be done with Cam’s game but lost in Damon’s admissions.
My breath is caught somewhere in my chest. He writes the roadway signs I chuckle at and even look forward to during my daily commutes with Mel. I believed we hadn’t had any contact over the last ten years, but in this unwitting way, we have.
And, perhaps equally compelling, he rides motocross. Back then, it was just an idea. One he’d tucked away in the safety of one of his letters. I DON’T KNOW HOW I’LL AFFORD A BIKE OF MY OWN. I’LL HAVE TO SETTLE FOR RIDING SAWYER’S COATTAILS FOR NOW. BUT FROM THE TIME I’VE HAD ON HIS BIKE, I REALLY LOVE IT, SYD.
How easy it would have been for me to find these things out, I think. I’ve found myself ready to google “Damon Nathan Bradburn” more times than I’d care to admit over the years. But each time, something stopped me. I never felt prepared enough for what I might find. And after everything that happened back then, I shut down all my personal social media accounts and never returned.
I eat my three rolls, unsure of which of the many items rattling around in my brain to stew on—the disheartening details from the trial today, my poor showing in Cam’s silly game, or these particulars of who Damon is now, ten years removed from when there was an us. So, I vacillate between the three as I chew, wanting desperately to confront Damon about our past but equally content in ignoring it.
Eventually, Tamra heads to her room, and Cam veers back to the buffet, shoving brownies into the many pockets of his cargo pants.
Damon has finished eating, as have I, but we linger.
“Road signs, huh?” I ask finally.
He nods, leaning in. These are the first words I’ve initiated with him, and he seems slightly uplifted by the gesture.
I should get up and leave, but I feel compelled to ask, “The one a few months back on the 10 just outside Santa Monica, I think, that said GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR APPS AND DRIVE SAFELY ?”
“That was me.”
“And the one when Taylor Swift was in town? THE OLD TAYLOR CAN’T COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW. SHE’S DRIVING. ”
His chin dimple twitches. “Also me.”
This brute-sized man beside me, who can only seem to shape his face into a barely there smile with great effort, writes the punny roadway signs that warm me near daily.
Better on paper.
We look at each other for a beat too long over the acknowledgment that I know his work, and that perhaps he’s even lifted my mood while stuck in traffic.
“Why do you hate hairless cats?” he asks.
“Why do you?”
He shakes his head. “Cats are too intelligent. I imagine them plotting against us all day long.” He wipes his mouth with his napkin and then places it on his plate. “Like they’re spies in people’s houses to learn the ways of us humans.”
“It seems like you’ve put quite a bit of thought into this, cats and their intended takeover of the world.”
“It’s worth the thought, isn’t it? If I’m right?”
“I feel justified in being more of a dog person,” I say, thinking of the reddish-brown indistinguishable mutt his family took in when his dad found it, scrawny and shivering, sheltering behind their recycling bin. Kara named her Phoebe after the Friends character, having taken to the show at a really young age. Phoebe was a quick fan of me—not something I was used to, since I grew up pet-less and was unsure of how to interact with them. Phoebe would find my lap first regardless of who else was in the room. “Dogs go to whoever needs their love most,” Mr. Bradburn once told me.
Phoebe died of undiagnosed heart disease seven months later. A twelve-year-old Damon showed up barefoot at my front door, then cried silently with his head in my lap. It was the first time I’d seen him cry. It happened only once more—tears running along his cheeks—four years later when we said our abrupt goodbyes.
“Do you have a dog? Now?” I ask.
The corner of Damon’s mouth quirks up, and I struggle, as I always have, with where to look first: his peacock-feather-colored eyes or his twitching chin dimple. He shakes his head.
We fall silent, and I again contemplate getting up. This is the first moment we’ve been semi-alone, and there is so much to say. But I’m afraid if I start talking, I’ll begin to cry, and it will be a devastatingly embarrassing display of how much he still affects me. Besides, how would I explain a tear-inducing confrontation with another jury member on day one of the trial without conceding that we know each other as more than just childhood neighbors?
His voice clips my thoughts. “So was she everything you thought? Now that you’ve gotten to see Margot in person.”
I breathe deeply at the shift in conversation. I clearly can’t put off the superfan scent he’s caught onto. And at this point, I’d much rather talk about Margot than us.
“She’s beautiful. Even more of a force in person than on TV. What do you think?” I ask, trying to tread lightly and not talk about case details, just Margot.
“She seems... cold.”
I mmm in noncommittal agreement. I think cold is a word one might use to describe this new version of Damon upon first meeting. Or even the one who went from best friend to never speaking to me again in a matter of a few days.
“And you’re not?” I ask before I can filter the words. I can’t help the dig. I want to hold him accountable for abandoning me. Abandoning us . “It’s not that you have RBF, exactly,” I say, “because you don’t scowl. It’s more... frozen indifference, your face.” I say it teasingly, though I hope he picks up on the caustic undertone.
“Are we talking about me or Margot?” he says, the right side of his mouth twitching a millimeter upward.
“She’s famous,” I say, irritated he’s managed to steer the conversation away from himself.
“Famous is a justification for being cold?”
“No, but... she’s like the spring fling crown at the end of Mean Girls that Cady Heron breaks into pieces and tosses around until there’s nothing left.”
He looks at me for a beat, face unmoving, then says, “That’s an obscure reference.”
I wonder if he remembers me sitting him down in his living room after he made a big show of not wanting to watch, but then never pulled his eyes away from the screen, even chuckling when Regina asked if butter was a carb.
I shake my head. “ Unexpected reference, perhaps, but not obscure. My point is, she has to be guarded.”
He stares at me, and there’s a glimmer of... something. It’s like knowingness and un-pin-down-able sadness mixed into one. I watch as he grabs a napkin from an unused stack on the table and begins folding it, both purposeful and absentminded in his movements.
I look on, finding myself too interested in this interaction between us. In the silence, we are testing each other. Who will break and dive into our history first?
He looks down at our plates. “I would kill for some sushi right now,” he says, backing down.
My stomach instantly rumbles. “Why did you say that? Now all I can think about is the yellowtail at Sushi Gen.”
Damon shifts to face me more fully. “I love that place.”
I’ve seen his road signs. We frequent the same sushi restaurant. Perhaps these are meaningless details, but they confirm that Damon and I could have crossed paths so many times before this trial in the last ten years. And in some ways, we already have.
“How’s Kara?” It’s an abrupt shift, but I’ve wanted to ask about his sister since the moment I saw him. She’s a big part of what I’m still angry with him about. When he left me, he cut me off from her, too.
I knew her from the time she could barely speak, when a then-ten-year-old Damon and his family moved into the house two doors down. The blue one with the neglected yard and paint chipping at its base. Kara used to push up and down the street on a pint-sized red race car. I gave her a strawberry once when she wandered over, pointing to the bowl next to my seat on the front porch. My mom later scolded me for giving a toddler food she could have potentially been allergic to, which hadn’t even occurred to me. But from then on, I was her designated strawberry stand, coming over to ask for “sawbayees.” It didn’t take much before she no longer had to ask, and I’d open the door with a bowl.
She’s the reason I met Damon. He came jogging up the drive. His eyes caught me, even then. They were interesting. He was interesting. “Sorry,” he huffed, scooping Kara up like a football, making her giggle—this high-pitched, kicky laugh, like the stutter of a struggling ignition. Never having had a sibling myself, she always felt like a little sister to me, too.
Now, I watch the jut of his neck as he swallows with what seems to be great effort. He concentrates on a fold of the napkin in his hands and then, satisfied, pushes it toward me before standing.
“Good night, Syd,” he says, and I’m struck by his abruptness. He eyes me for a second before heading in the direction of our rooms. I watch him go and, when he disappears around the corner, pick up the napkin. It’s folded with tight, crisp lines, now holding the clear shape of a well-practiced origami crane.
I press my fingertips to the tangle of emotion in my chest, trying and failing to unknot it.