Nineteen
Nadine stared out at the construction site—another condo going in where there used to be a school—and drank her raspberry beer. The late afternoon sun had dropped behind the buildings, making the heat bearable for the first time all day.
“Let me get this straight,” Lisanne said. “You’re going to be on a secret assignment that has nothing to do with work.”
“It’s more accurate to say it’s not sanctioned by work,” corrected Nadine. She and Wes had agreed to stick to Dot’s original don’t-say-a-word rules for now, but it was a good idea for someone to know who she was working with if she was going AWOL for three weeks. She’d known Wes a long time, but a woman could never be too safe.
“Are you assuming it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?”
“Yes.”
“Good call.” Lisanne swung her sunglassed gaze over, forcing Nadine to carry on a conversation with her own doubled reflection. “Are you telling me so I can do wellness checks on you? Should I be worried?”
“I’ll be in touch,” Nadine assured her. “I’m working with Wes. Wes Chen from the Spear .”
“The competition?” Lisanne stopped as the server came by with a cheese plate containing tiny wedges better suited to a mouse and ramekins of chutneys and jams.
“The source insisted on working with both of us.”
“Sure, sure.” Lisanne waved that off to narrow in on what interested her. “Wes Chen, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. I didn’t know you were friends.”
“We’re absolutely not. I’ve known Wes since school, and we happen to be working on the same story. That’s it.” She poured more water into a glass dripping with condensation.
“I remember him from the stint I did at the Belleville Recorder ,” Lisanne said, looking at her phone. Then she squinted. “Oh. Wes got hot . Like, the signs were there, but he has fulfilled his full hotness potential.”
Nadine choked. “Wes?”
Lisanne brandished his photo from the Spear website. “Look, I may be biased because pickings are slim in our field, but Wes is an indisputably attractive man.”
“I guess so.” Too bad his personality got in the way.
Lisanne lifted the shades to sit on her head. “Hold up. Did you have a thing with him?”
“Oh my God, no .” Nadine made a warding sign over the bread.
Lisanne didn’t shift her gaze. “Nothing happened?”
Nadine clamped her lips shut before she forced out an answer. “Nothing. We had some misunderstandings, and we were always going for the same things. That’s it.”
“Liar.” Lisanne was gleeful. “Stop lying, liar.”
The drinks had put Nadine into that liminal zone where oversharing seemed like more of a bonding exercise than a first step to humiliation. “It was nothing,” she insisted. “I might have had a small crush at first. Then there was this one time…”
“I knew it.”
“I thought there could have been a moment, but nothing happened, you know?”
Lisanne nodded. “Did you want something to?”
“Not after I sobered up. I just…I don’t know. The feeling passed.”
He’d caught her when she tripped at a party. That was it, but they’d never been physically close before, and Nadine had become abruptly conscious that Wes was a man. She’d always categorized him, along with the other men in her program, as simply a co . Co-students. Potential co workers and future co lleagues. Men she refused to consider as people she could be attracted to because she wanted her personal life completely separate from her work.
Which was why, on that winter night, she was shocked to find herself looking at Wes’s mouth and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Then someone had shoved their way down the hall, yelling, “ Beer pong in the kitchen ,” and pushing her closer to Wes.
His arms had come up to wrap protectively around her, and ridiculously, in that student house that reeked of weed and was one rager away from being condemned, she’d thought, This is what safe feels like .
Obviously that was the cheap wine talking, because then, like now, Wes Chen was anything but safe. He was double-plus unsafe, the guy who applied for all the same scholarships and would be going for the same limited number of jobs. But for those few seconds, Wes’s breath ruffling her hair and his heart thumping against hers, she wanted to press in closer.
Then it was over.
“What if the moment comes up again?” Lisanne asked.
“It won’t.” Nadine took some of the grilled bread. “He was always my nemesis.”
“Me on the other hand, I wouldn’t hesitate if Ying made the smallest move.” Lisanne held up her fingers so close they were almost touching to demonstrate the precious little Ying would have to do to send her into a tizzy.
“You don’t know if Ying likes women,” Nadine said.
“She had a rainbow pin on her bag once.”
“I have a rainbow pin. You gave it to me.”
“Yeah, but I’m getting a vibe.” Lisanne sighed. “It would help if she talked about anything besides work. She’s so smart.”
Nadine was grateful Ying had replaced the more unwelcome topics of Wes and Lisanne’s fantastic career-making assignment. Since she was also lacking the emotional capacity to work through why she found those so volatile, she kept talking. “What about the date you went on the other day?”
Lisanne made a face. “I had to pretend I hadn’t done a deep dive on the poor guy before we met and fake surprise when he told me about doing a charity bike ride. I’d already seen the post on his company’s blog along with a photo of him in his gear.”
“Was he wearing the shorts?” Nadine shifted on the incredibly uncomfortable seat and waved her foot around until it found purchase on a stool rung.
“With a shirt that had pouches on the back.” Lisanne drained her beer. “You need to get out there. All you do is work.”
“It’s not all I do.” She saw Lisanne open her mouth to disagree. “Almost not all.”
“Close enough. You need a hobby,” said Lisanne.
“I’ve started reading obits.” At least she’d read a few.
Lisanne looked taken aback. “Okay. I didn’t expect that. Why?”
“They’re interesting.” Nadine was sure that was part of the reason, even if she wasn’t certain it was the full one. “But that’s too morbid to be a hobby.”
“Like cleaning moss off gravestones,” said Lisanne, waving to the server for a fresh round.
“Or doing the rubbings of the engraved text.”
“People do that?”
“Genealogists do it to get information from tombstones.”
“That makes sense.” Lisanne made a face. “My parents bought their grave plots last week. They were excited to tell me about it.”
“Planning ahead is smart,” soothed Nadine. “I know you’d rather not think about it.”
“They got a place overlooking a little creek and said it’s shady if I go to visit in the summer.”
What was appropriate to say? “It’s nice they’re looking out for your comfort.” Something occurred to her. “Did they get a family plot?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, with enough space for you as well.” Nadine dabbed her face with a napkin.
Lisanne’s outraged gasp was answer enough. “No! I didn’t think of that, but it’s only for the two of them. Unbelievable.”
“To be fair, don’t you hate your hometown?”
“That’s not the point,” Lisanne whined. “Where am I going to go? Some pauper’s plot? Do they still have those?”
“Why would I know this?” asked Nadine, pulling out her phone for a quick fact-check.
A man leaned over from the table next to them. “Unclaimed bodies are usually buried by the local government in the municipality the person dies in,” he said. When they looked at him in surprise, he went bright red. “Sorry. I overheard your conversation.”
“Oh, interesting,” said Lisanne, putting down her drink. “Is that…? Do you work with bodies? Unclaimed ones?”
The man pulled on a ball cap and laughed as he picked his credit card off the table. “You could say that.” He left with a little wave, and they stared after him.
“I’m intrigued,” said Nadine.
“He was cute and kind of charming, so odds are good he’s a serial killer.” Lisanne took an olive. “It’s hard out there.”
Nadine offered her glass in a commiserative cheers, which Lisanne tapped with her own.
“Also, I saw the West Coast correspondent position went up,” said Lisanne.
“Everyone knows it was tailored for Marcus,” said Nadine as she bent to the cheese plate. “There’s no point in applying.”
“Nadine.”
“It’s not what I want to do, okay?” The words came out before Nadine could think them through. A quick, hard panic suddenly rose up in her chest at the thought of what might happen once her name was over a story again. Was she never going to be able to publish a byline without freaking out? No, it wasn’t her. It was the job. She just didn’t want to go to the West Coast. If a spot came up on the politics team, she would feel different. She wanted that.
“You hate the night shift and hated doing obits.”
“I didn’t hate obits,” said Nadine. Not anymore, and it hadn’t been hate. She didn’t appreciate them; that was it.
“Think about it.” Lisanne made a face at the chutney. “Nasty. This is garlic, not orange peel. The job would be good for you. Get you out of your comfort zone.”
“I will when I’m ready.” Nadine’s voice was sharper than she intended.
The server interrupted the subsequent silence with a new round of drinks. That was enough to relieve the tension.
“I’m sorry,” said Nadine, trying to keep polite. “It’s not the right job for me.”
Lisanne pointed at her. “You know the Herald . If you take too long, you’ll be pigeonholed as the night web editor. It’ll be some hot new thing coming through getting the jobs.”
“I know.”
“You don’t want to be stuck,” said Lisanne as she sipped her beer.
“I know,” Nadine repeated.
Lisanne looked at her. “Think about it?”
“I will.”
The conversation moved on. Nadine did her best to focus, but her mind kept drifting to tomorrow and Wes, who was going to be living with her for three weeks. Less if they found what they needed, although that thought gave her no pleasure. Did she want more time with Wes? She gulped down the rest of her drink without coming to a conclusion and listened to Lisanne talk.