Chapter 10 Thirty-Three Percent Fondue
Chapter 10
Thirty-Three Percent Fondue
I only, very lightly, dipped in and out of the group chat that had come to dominate my phone’s messages. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it—Chloe’s friends were sharp and funny and interesting and thoughtful. They were the kind of friend group I wished I still had; somehow their relationships and parenthood and jobs hadn’t pulled them all apart from each other, the way I could feel my own friendships ebbing. Post-dinner with Chloe, it seemed that perhaps they’d already ebbed.
I had still barely talked to Fiona and Hailey. That wasn’t actually that unusual for us; we were all busy and didn’t attend to our ongoing messages the way Chloe’s friends did. The group chat had been lightening up for a while now. Still, I was too aware of it this time, hating the way it slipped down when I opened my messages app, how between Greg, Chloe, her friends’ group chat, and the all-but-unbelievable times that brands texted me these days, my friends weren’t even on my main screen right now.
So maybe it wasn’t unusual but it still felt significant. I’d decided not to worry about it, so it was annoying that it was still circling my brain so much, like when you had a tiny cut in your mouth and told yourself sternly to leave it alone and yet the tip of your tongue kept finding it anyway.
If Chloe and I were real, I had a feeling I’d go in hard with her group. I’d forcefully friend all of them, maybe even Phoebe. We’d at least come to some sort of respectable work-life-vs.-personal-life friendship balance that made us both comfortable! It would be so easy because everyone made it easy. Chloe and my relationship had only existed for a few weeks as far as they knew, and yet I was included in everything like I was one of them. A conversation about the best snacks had turned into an impromptu Saturday afternoon snacks-potluck, and it was clearly assumed that I’d be coming too.
I couldn’t remember the last time Hailey and Fiona and I had managed an impromptu anything .
Chloe told me she’d handle food as well as driving—not that it was far from my condo to Phoebe and Bianca’s house—and I decided to let her, even though it wasn’t really my speed. I had too many snacks and hors d’oeuvres recipes bookmarked to let an opportunity to make a creamy cheese or fresh vegetable option pass me by, but I was only a guest in this world. I’d leave it to Chloe.
She texted that she was outside, and I walked out to see Fernando bouncing up and down in the back seat of the Bronco. I climbed into the front seat and took a chance on leaning back and petting the hyperactive terrier. He rewarded my forwardness by leaning right into me as I scratched between his wiggling fuzzy ears.
“It’s nice to see you too,” Chloe said, and I laughed and fastened my seat belt.
“Sorry, I knew you’d be here. He was a surprise.”
She shrugged and pulled back onto Rowena Avenue. “I’m getting sick of leaving him at home all the time. Big deal, the perfect dog can be perfect and he can be a maniac.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, and she turned to grin at me as she pulled up to a stoplight. It had been, I realized, so long since I’d had new people in my life. I’d been at my job for half a decade, and I’d had my friends in my life for even longer. No, Chloe wasn’t technically new , if I counted the chat we’d had at my work party, but she also managed to be brand-new as a person in my everyday life. A year ago I think I would have said that I liked that I’d locked it all up, found a person for every role in my life, had it all set up by my mid-thirties. And now here I was, everything unlocked, and—well, sure, there was a surprising ease to it. But of course that was because it was fake; the real thing would never have fallen into place quite so simply.
At Phoebe and Bianca’s, Chloe wrapped Fernando’s leash around her wrist before unlatching the Bronco’s trunk and lifting out a stack of Tupperware containers. She slid them to one side and—quite valiantly—tried to close the trunk with—well, it was hard to say. Her elbow? It wasn’t a one-person job.
“Let me,” I said, leaning past her and pulling the tailgate down. “You only have two arms, you know.”
“Whatever,” she said, as if that might not be true, and I cracked up.
“Come on, let me help.”
She waved me off, and so instead I trailed her as we walked up to Phoebe and Bianca’s. At least if one of the Tupperware containers fell, I’d be there to pick it up.
“Hey, y’all,” Ari greeted us, swinging open the door. “Chlo, can I help you with these?”
“She’s apparently fine,” I said, which made Ari laugh. Maybe someday I’d get used to making a gorgeous Oscar winner laugh, but today was not that day.
“Good to see you, Clementine,” she said, hugging me and then somehow swiping Chloe’s stack away from her. “Hey, Fernando, good to see you, buddy. Chloe, I only found out when we took this private dog training class, but if the leash is around your wrist like that and Fernando bolts, you could break your wrist.”
“I’m not sure he has the strength to bolt that hard,” Chloe said, “but thank you.”
I stayed close at her side as we walked into the large, sunny kitchen, and nudged her as soon as Ari’s attention turned to Phoebe and CJ, who were discussing something about the shiny stainless steel espresso maker that took up nearly half of one counter. It was less a specific nudge and more of an I see you nudge, and we both burst into laughter when we met each other’s eyes.
Nina appeared seemingly out of nowhere, dressed in a sheer black dress edged in shiny gold. “Clementine, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Wait, am I underdressed? What’s happening?”
She laughed and pulled me out of the kitchen and into the living room. It was a cozier space than the vast kitchen and dining space, though still just as stylish and current in a non-hipster and non-mid-century-modern way. It hit me that I was deep within my boss’s house and I’d let myself get way too carried away by the current of the group chat and not thought about this detail enough. When one was up for a promotion, did one hang out near one’s boss’s coffee table?
Bianca sat on the sofa, smiling up at us like she’d just cured cancer. “Am I right or what?”
“About what?” I asked, suddenly nervous she’d figured something out about Chloe and me and our whole situation. Though how , I wondered. And who else knew?
“That’s the dress,” Bianca said, gesturing at Nina. “For the rehearsal dinner.”
I looked Nina over. The dress was gorgeous , delicate fabric that hugged Nina’s curves and shining luxe details that made it feel special. “Oh, wait, I recognize this.”
“Bianca wore it to the Oscars the other year,” Nina said.
“That’s right,” I said, because this was indeed the kind of LA crowd where multiple people had attended the Oscars. Ari, an actual winner. Nina, the significant other of an actual winner. Phoebe, a marketing mastermind invited by flush-with-award-noms studios. Bianca, the wife of a marketing mastermind. “Phoebe and Bianca went for Back Home . She has a photo on her desk of the two of you on the red carpet.”
“I just don’t think that it’s me,” Nina said in a very polite tone aimed at Bianca. “Not that it isn’t beautiful.”
“You hate anything with too much cleavage!” Bianca said in a frustrated tone.
“Not anything! And I didn’t say I hated it.”
They both looked to me, and I felt certain I was in no way ensconced enough in this friend group to actually make this call.
“I love the dress, and you do look amazing, but I’ll just say that I never wear low-cut dresses so I understand.”
“Oh my god, not two of you prudes,” Bianca said.
“I’m not a prude! I wear very sexy underwear all of the time!” Nina said. “It’s not even comfortable!”
“No, mine’s very comfortable,” I said, and all three of us laughed. “But I’m really sex-positive. I just love the necklines and hemlines of a modesty influencer, I don’t know.”
“Oh, god, I feel that. Anyway, Bianca, I appreciate the offer,” Nina said, with a smile that seemed both familiar and practiced, the way you could still be careful with your closest friends’ feelings. “But I think I’m still on the hunt for the perfect rehearsal dinner dress.”
Bianca flashed a smile back at her. “Yeah, honestly, I figured. Go change before you get fondue on that.”
“Ooh, is there fondue?” I asked.
“I think there’s everything,” Bianca said, waving her arm in the direction of the kitchen, as Phoebe and CJ walked into the room.
“The femmes are literally over here talking about dresses,” CJ said, and everyone but me laughed at this because the truth was I felt an overwhelming glow of—well, the feeling was too big to be contained by a single emotion. I’d been worried when I’d thought of all of it ahead of me. It had been one thing to navigate the life I’d already had with this new layer—this queer layer. It had been scarier to wonder about the parts of life I didn’t already know, the queer bars and the queer hangouts and the queer in-jokes. I saw the talk online, the insinuations that bisexual women who’d only had boyfriends weren’t really queer, or at least queer enough to count. I’d seen tiny avatars of people with complicated haircuts explain who did and didn’t get to be included.
But now that I was here, in the midst of this in the real world, not a social media platform on my phone, it didn’t feel like that at all. No one was policing the perimeters or questioning who was here. I’d just been wrapped right up like I was one of this group. Maybe we were being lightly mocked, but I didn’t care because I loved that being a woman who loved to talk about dresses not only didn’t knock me out of this world but maybe even made me a stereotype within it. I couldn’t believe how welcoming that felt.
“You OK?” Nina asked me, and I wondered what on earth expression my face had pulled while I’d had perhaps a too-strong reaction to being referred to as one of the femmes.
Bianca raised an eyebrow. Again, she seemed to know something. Eyebrows could question so much. “Just thinking about fondue?”
“Yep, exactly.” I ended up following them back to the kitchen, and instead of dwelling on potentially weird vibes, took in the immense array of food lining the counter. Yes, there was a tiny Crock-Pot serving as a fondue pot, but there were also at least four hummuses, sliced fresh fruit and veggies that were less generic supermarket crudités and more thinly sliced Honeycrisp apples and imported soppressata and flights of locally sourced honey . Chloe, meanwhile, was carefully prying the lids off of all the Tupperware containers.
“What did you make?” I asked her.
Bianca raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know what your girlfriend brought?”
Having a fake relationship was so easy until suddenly it wasn’t.
“I don’t like help in the kitchen,” Chloe said breezily.
“She didn’t even let me help carry in the Tupperware,” I pointed out as if to cite our sources thoroughly. “And she had Fernando’s leash. Wait, where’s Fernando?”
Chloe nodded to the window. I looked into the back patio area, where Fernando was attempting to win a round of tug-of-war with Nina and Ari’s dog, who was about three times his size.
“He’s very determined,” I said.
“Should it concern me that our dog can’t win against a very small dog?” Ari asked, and the crease between her brows made me think she was serious, even though Nina burst into laughter and shoved Ari out of the way of the feast spread out over the counter.
The contents of Chloe’s Tupperware ended up being four different styles of kimbap rolls, from super traditional with beef over pickled radish to super hipster with ham, Gruyère, and cornichons. I was surprised to see this level of precision, with these perfectly cut rolls stuffed with rice surrounding diced, julienned, shredded goodies; it was tough imagining Chloe devoting the time and attention to each rice roll.
“Are these your mom’s recipe?” Bianca asked her.
“The traditional ones. You should have seen her face when I told her about the ham and Gruyère ones,” Chloe said with a laugh. “I legit thought my FaceTime froze, but it was just her judgmental face staring back at me for the length of time equal to her disappointment in my choices.”
“Been there,” it seemed like half of the room said at once, and it was much better laughing about our horrified mothers’ horrified faces than dwelling on it much longer, and somehow that broke the seal and suddenly the eight of us were loading up our plates—which were a matching purple Fiesta dinnerware set, which I loved. Occasionally Will and I had been invited to dinners at his rich boss’s Brentwood house, and it was a stiff level of wealth devoid of fun that didn’t feel aspirational at all. Phoebe and Bianca’s house was full of color and light touches, and if I ever had the budget to level up from my condo I’d love a home just like this one, though I had always worried Will appreciated those minimally fancy homes like his boss’s too much for that.
As we began making our way to the back patio, Phoebe and Bianca excused themselves to get their toddler, Olivia, up from her nap. When she ran outside ahead of them, I felt the same sense of surprise I had over the precisely executed kimbap when Olivia ran right toward Chloe’s outstretched arms. It felt more than silly to feel like one didn’t know one’s fake girlfriend at all, especially after only a couple of weeks, but Chloe Lee couldn’t be pinned down at all.
“Liv, my favorite person,” Chloe said warmly, and then shot me a look. “Cool your judgy eyes, Clem. Whatever you’re thinking, kids love me.”
I tried to give Olivia a kind smile. Why did I feel so awkward around children? I had so much more experience being a person than they did, but it always seemed like they were nailing it in ways I wasn’t.
And if that didn’t make me feel inept enough, I noticed Bianca’s gaze on mine when she took a seat near me on the patio sofa, watching me for just a moment too long, even when it was clear that I was looking back at her. She, I was certain, had caught us. How, I wasn’t sure, but she somehow knew. I mentioned it to Chloe on our drive to my condo later, but she shrugged it off.
“Why would anyone suspect that? If anything she’s just still weirded out that I have a girlfriend, something I have consistently not had in like a decade.”
“This is suspicious, then,” I said.
“No, everyone assumed I’d break,” Chloe said with a hand wave. “If they’re all coupled up for eternity why wouldn’t everyone else want that?”
“The thought isn’t that terrible, is it?” I asked.
“Clementine, you don’t need me to justify your dreams of locking it down in some cool and modern way with some babe with a strong jawline,” Chloe said. “Also occasionally things are awkward with Bianca when one of us remembers that we dated a thousand years ago, but it always clears up.”
“Wait, what? ”
Chloe’s mouth opened to respond, and it was almost as if I could read her mind, so I held up my hand to stop her.
“Yes, I spend enough time on Queer Instagram to know that it’s all but a cliché to stay friends with your ex, I just didn’t see that coming. All right?”
“Fair,” she said. “You’re a very good baby gay.”
“Don’t,” I said, but I laughed because being teased by Chloe always felt a little warm and fuzzy. “Maybe it does make it more suspicious, though. Bianca’s, like, va-va-voom hot, and I’m—”
“Twee woodland creatures and nerd glasses hot? Clementine, there’s room for all sorts of hot here.”
I pretended to ignore this instead of feeling even warmer and fuzzier due to that hot .
“Could you believe Ari told me how to hold my freaking dog’s leash?” Chloe grumbled. “I’ve had a dog for nearly a decade longer than she has.”
“That said.” I spoke as gently as I could. “If you could break your wrist, really, you should probably rethink that.”
“Fuck you, Clementine,” she said, though with a grin. “OK, should I drop you off, or do you want to come with me while I put away leftovers and then take Fernando on a walk? At this point I’m like thirty-three-percent fondue and I’m thinking your percentage might be similar. A walk sounds not only good but, you know, necessary so it doesn’t all congeal.”
“Sure, I’ll come with,” I said. “Maybe I should interview you or something. I keep learning new things about you in front of other people.”
“I hate to break it to you,” she said, “but I think that’s just what it’s like in a new relationship. You just haven’t had one since you were twelve or whatever.”
“Eighteen,” I corrected, though I knew what she meant. I’d be in a group hang with Will, or sitting next to him in class, and he’d drop some tidbit I’d never heard of before, I played the trumpet in my middle school marching band , and suddenly my world would get a little bigger than it had been before. Why did it feel the opposite with Chloe, things closing in on me?
Well, it was the dishonesty. It wasn’t really that big of a mystery.
“Do you worry sometimes that lying to everyone we know wasn’t the best idea after all?” I asked her as she crossed under Silver Lake Boulevard and turned toward her little side street. I knew that people from other places thought of LA as a giant city, but I loved how, instead, it was a thousand small towns shoved together. I guessed that I also loved that Chloe and I had ended up basically at opposite ends of the exact same small town, but what did it really matter? In a couple months’ time our proximity would mean nothing.
“What?” Chloe scrunched her nose like I’d said something absolutely bananas. “No! Except for the dog leash stuff I’m basically getting treated like an adult by my friends, and you’re going to have so many great ex-girlfriend stories when you start dating for real. Everything’s going exactly like we planned.”
Considering that I hadn’t planned any of it, I didn’t exactly think that was true.
A few nights later, Small Jesse Pinkman pounced ferociously onto my feet at what felt like the absolute middle of the night, though it was possible I hadn’t been sleeping incredibly soundly. Sleeping with a kitten wasn’t technically sleeping alone but I was still getting used to how big the bed felt, how quiet the room was without Will’s breathing, how no one ever slung an arm over me and made me feel cozy and safe. If Will were here, I probably wouldn’t have told him how nervous I was that my job could go up in smoke and my presentation would make me look like a fool, since feelings like those were more for inside of my brain than out, but from the very first night we spent together, I was calmer with him than without. The without now, of course, was on purpose, but it was like my body hadn’t fully caught up with that knowledge yet. My body still wanted less space in the bed, that slow steady breathing, an arm casually holding me in place.
I picked up my phone instead of dwelling on the fact that it was possible no one would ever make me feel particularly calm again. There was a notification from Chloe on my screen, which meant she’d texted since I’d gone to bed, and the pang in my stomach that this wasn’t normal for her turned into an entire percussion section when I saw the words emergency room . Hopefully, I thought, I was only jumping to conclusions without my glasses on, but once they were on my face it was only clearer.
In the emergency room with a minor medical thing. Don’t freak out, Clementine. I’m only telling you because 1) I may not be able to keep it from the group chat and so it’d be weird if you didn’t already know and 2) do you think you can come get my keys from me and pick up Fernando in the morning and take him to doggie daycare because I’m in here for another day or two apparently?
Small Jesse Pinkman, apparently thrilled at the witching hour activity but unaware of the dramatic nature of our situation, bounded back and forth across the room as I bolted up and got dressed. Chloe’s situation, that was, we were no our . The only our I had was with this kitten.
What hospital are you at? I’ll come right now.
She responded right away. Why are you awake? Tomorrow is fine. I’m at the Kaiser on Sunset. For tomorrow morning, the very earliest you will leave your home to come help me. And I will owe you so big. I’ll pay you cash for this.
We only argued about six more times before I kissed Small Jesse Pinkman goodbye and triumphantly headed out. Without traffic, the drive to the hospital was fast, and I nabbed a decent spot in the garage and managed to navigate to Chloe’s floor. By the time I reached the reception desk, I realized I’d spent the entirety of the time in my car feeling victorious for wearing Chloe down and not appropriately concerned about whatever was big enough to get Chloe Lee into a hospital. And then I didn’t know what to think because if everything I learned about Chloe made me feel like I didn’t know her at all, why did I also feel so certain that it would take a lot to get her to the ER?
A frowning woman looked up from the central desk, just barely, and then back to the computer in front of her. “No visitors past eight-thirty.”
“Oh, it’s my—” Chloe had told me to say it to gain late-night entry, but it felt like even more of a lie as it hit my tongue. Well, because it was. “My partner?”
She looked up again and nodded. “Name?”
“Mine? Hers?”
Her gaze softened. “Hers. I know it can be stressful being here. Take a moment.”
I wanted to fess up, that this was about the logistics of a long con of a shenanigan and not concern for my loved one. Except—well, it wasn’t not that, too. Not my loved one . But my liked one , at least.
I got directions to Chloe’s room and thanked the receptionist several times before heading down the corridor. I almost ran smack into a nurse as I approached the doorway, and he luckily laughed instead of looking as annoyed as maybe he should.
“You the girlfriend? She’s waiting on you, worried about her dog,” he said with a smile. “Here’s what I tell everyone, even if it’s awkward, exchange keys earlier than you think. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. But if someone’s your emergency contact, they should already have your key.”
“OK,” I said, nodding as if I was taking this all in for real. It had felt like a big deal the first time I’d listed Will as my emergency contact and not my parents, I remembered. Not that I’d ever been called; Will was like an anti-emergency kind of a person. “Noted.”
“I know you’d be here anyway,” he said. “But you could have already checked in on that dog and she’d be so thrilled to hear it. What’s his name? Some Abba song.”
“There’s only one Abba song that’s a name,” I said.
“‘Chiquitita’?” he asked, and I laughed.
“OK, maybe two.” I thanked him and walked inside, where Chloe was in a hospital gown and sitting up in bed, looking pretty much normal despite the setting. “Hey, how are you? Obviously not great , I know, or you wouldn’t be here, but—”
“Sit down,” she said. “Keep me company.”
I sat down in the armchair near the bed, glancing around the room. In addition to Will’s lack of emergencies, my family had been low-medical-drama, too; the only time I’d ever been in a hospital room was after Hailey’s daughter was born and Fiona and I had swung by the hospital both to meet Ellie and deliver a huge Sugarfish takeout box to Hailey. Those kinds of hospital visits were celebrations, though, nothing like this dim room in the middle of the night.
“What if I told you I’d been harboring a terrible secret?” Chloe asked, and as my heart dropped she burst into laughter. “I’m joking, Clementine, imagine. The only secret my body was harboring was apparently a collection of gallstones, so I’m gonna be down one organ as of tomorrow.”
“Oh my god, what happens then? I don’t even know what it does. I feel like all the organs are important, though. Sorry, I suddenly feel really stupid.”
“No, don’t,” she said, still grinning. “It’s something gross to do with digestion. You’re better off not knowing. Why should you know? You’re like a marketing person, not a doctor. Anyway, I should be home in a day or two. Fernando’s all set up at this place already, it’s where he stays whenever I’m out of town, so—”
“Would it be better if I just took him?” I asked, even though I’d never taken care of a dog and had no idea why I was offering. I just hated the thought of him alone in Chloe’s apartment wondering where she was.
“You would do that?” she asked, and I didn’t miss a streak of hope in her tone. “You know he’s partly from hell, right?”
“I don’t know why you always say things like that. He just seems like a dog to me. Just tell me what he eats and how much and when.”
“OK, if you’re sure,” she said.
“Are you scared?” I asked.
“Of you dog sitting? No, you’re trustworthy, Clementine,” she said, and I caught a softness to her words that felt new.
“I meant of surgery,” I said, smiling. “And, also, are you on drugs?”
Chloe gestured to the IV stand next to her. “So many drugs. It’s like a party in here. Do I sound high?”
“You sound a little high.”
“Man,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t want to seem high, I want to seem cool.”
I managed not to exclaim that she was adorable this way, but only barely. “Do you want me to call or text anyone for you?”
“I can handle it. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “I only texted you because it would have been suspicious or whatever to text anyone else. They’d be like, why isn’t Clementine handling it?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, I’m glad you did,” I said as it hit me. Who on earth would show up for me in the middle of the night once this shenanigan was over? Sure, we hadn’t been emergency people, but I still liked knowing if something terrifying happened that Will would be there, solid and dependable and radiating calming vibes. Did I have to list Greg and Marisol? That felt too sad for words. “I guess those kinds of emergency contacts go away when everyone’s all partnered or whatever.”
Chloe stared at me like I was the one on drugs. “Like people can only emergency contact the person they’re fucking? You’re only here because of keeping this thing going. If not for that I would have just sent a message to the group chat and someone would have jumped in. Probably CJ because they still keep those weird coder hacker shit hours from when they were in college and drinking Mountain Dew Code Red or whatever and never fully got back to normal.”
“Wait, CJ was a hacker? I know they do back-end web stuff, is that how people get started in that? No, sorry, that’s not important right now. CJ just seems so upstanding is all.” It wasn’t that I knew CJ well; they were quieter than most of Chloe’s other friends, but there was a calm steadiness to them that radiated—well, not that .
“If it helps your understanding of them, it was like all social justice stuff, trying to clear debts for people and helping people delete their deadnames and whatever,” Chloe said. “I mean, that’s the stuff they admit to. One time they got us a really good package of Taylor Swift floor seats and I still wonder. Anyway, I had an emergency the other year when I didn’t have a fake girlfriend—”
“Excuse me,” I said, laughing, “I believe I was just upgraded to fake partner.”
She watched me for a few moments.
“What?” I asked, worried I’d misstepped somehow. What did I still have left to learn about queer relationships? How much was possible for me to get wrong?
“You’re just really cute,” she said, her eyes still on me.
A decent amount of blood rushed to my face, and suddenly Chloe’s expression had shifted into something more familiar.
“Oh my god, why are you blushing ?” She cracked up. “Anyway, I’m sorry if you’ve been brainwashed by straight society that your friends can’t be your emergency contacts if they’re married or whatever, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“No, you’re right,” I said, nodding even though it felt like of another era when I could have asked Fiona or Hailey for that.
“The other year I broke my arm and sent out the situation to the group chat,” Chloe continued. “Those idiots didn’t even check with each other, they just all showed up.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” I said. “What happened to your arm? Was it from an unruly dog at work?”
“Look, this isn’t going to sound good for me, Clementine,” Chloe said, “but a woman I was trying to impress dared me to jump from one parked car to another, and let’s just say she was not impressed.”
“Chloe,” I said, and we both cracked up. “May I ask if this was before you stopped drinking?”
“I wish I could tell you yes ,” she said, and we laughed so hard and for so long that the nurse leaned into the room.
“Sounds like you two are having too good of a time in here,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said, standing up. “I should probably go get Fernando. Text me his instructions?”
“Chloe, your procedure’s scheduled for noon tomorrow,” the nurse said, and then glanced at me. “If you wanted to be here, we’ll get you set up in the waiting room. It usually takes a couple of hours, and then as soon as she’s in recovery you can sit with her. And if her numbers are good they’ll probably send her home then.”
“No, don’t skip work,” Chloe said. “Phoebe’s a hard-ass.”
“I’m not afraid of Phoebe,” I said, and we both laughed at the lie. “Phoebe will expect me to be here, I think, with you.”
I stood up to go, and the nurse laughed as I headed toward the door.
“No, I’ll get out of here, you can kiss your girlfriend goodbye in private.”
I felt my cheeks pulse again with heat, and I tried not to make eye contact with Chloe as I waved. “I’ll text you once I’m home.”
“OK,” she said. “I’m only telling you this because I’m high, but—I know it’s minor surgery but I’m kind of freaked out.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’d be freaked out too. Can I do anything?”
“No, I’m just being a baby,” she said, looking away from me.
I took a deep breath and then moved without thinking too much about it, squeezing in next to Chloe in her bed and wrapping an arm around her. I was prepared for a reaction that would humiliate me, but instead she leaned her head on my shoulder. This close to her, the smells of the hospital disappeared and all I could smell was her . We sat this way, silently, for so long that I caught myself nodding off.
“Go get my dog,” she told me, poking me with her elbow. “And only come tomorrow if you really want to.”
“ Really want to is a weird thing to say about a hospital, but I’ll be here.” I disentangled myself from her and waved before grabbing her keys and finding my way back to my car. I wondered if after this whole thing was over we could spin another story as good as this one, the amicable breakup so good that Chloe didn’t want me out of her life. If she and Bianca were such good friends now, surely it must be doable! Chloe single again, just how she wanted it, and me with someone who wanted me back, and all of this new world that had opened up and felt possible now.
And then I imagined being summoned to help Chloe through another injury caused by impressing another woman, and my gut twisted so hard with something that felt strangely close to jealousy that I knew I must be even more tired than I thought.