Chapter 3 #2
God, Jake talked to him. He talked to him like…
well, not like he’d talked when they were teenagers, exactly, it was more stilted and panicky than that, but still.
He talked! He didn’t say, “Sam Adelson, I spit upon thee and upon this deli, and curse you for all your days.” Admittedly, that was probably because he wasn’t, say, a medieval witch, but it was a better conversation than Sam had ever dared to hope for.
“You… good?” Joey asks, sidling over in a way that they obviously mean to indicate they have only just returned, but in fact demonstrates that they stood and shamelessly watched the whole thing play out.
Probably the whole staff did, carefully positioned in long-since-perfected spots in the kitchen that allow for overhearing without being seen.
Testing this theory, Sam jerks his shoulder like he’s planning to turn around, and sighs when he’s rewarded with the scuttling sound of everyone scurrying back to their more usual spots.
Still. “Yeah,” Sam says, and is surprised to find he means it for the first time all week when he adds: “I’m good.”
And he is good. He spends the afternoon and early evening buoyed, a lightness in his step that’s a little unfamiliar.
Sure, it was a weird conversation. Sam can acknowledge that.
But to have had any conversation at all, even an odd one, feels wonderfully like closure.
Even if he never sees Jake again, which he has to imagine he won’t, something sits easier in him to know their story now technically ends on a slightly different note.
Except that five hours later, as they’re preparing to close, Sam is wrapping up an unusually productive run of paperwork when he hears a bit of a commotion through his closed office door.
Last he checked the deli was still stone-dead, so he sighs, expecting some belligerent, early-evening drunk who has stumbled in from the bar scene a block over.
Instead, he opens his office door in time to hear Joey holler, “SAM! That weird guy from earlier is back! He wants to talk to you! He seems weirder than before!”
Yeah, Sam, go ahead and hire the sweet, awkward college student who can’t keep their foot out of their mouth for three seconds, Sam thinks sarcastically to himself as he hurries up to the front. It’s not like you know anyone you’re worried about mortally offending. What could go wrong?
He’d never say it out loud, of course; it wouldn’t be kind, fair, or needful. Anyway, Joey’s particular brand of unfiltered honesty is never malicious. Sometimes it’s even helpful.
Today, though, he says, “Why don’t you go ahead and take off for the night, Joey?
” when he gets to the front. He’s prepared to offer an explanation and to finish their closing tasks, but he doesn’t have the chance; they’re out the door in ten seconds flat, calling a thank-you over their shoulder, clearly afraid he’ll change his mind given half the chance.
“Sorry,” Sam says, with a slight wince, to Jake, who looks a bit wild around the eyes. “They can be a bit blunt. They didn’t mean anything by it.”
Jake blinks at him, clearly thrown, and then, realization dawning: “Oh, that? No, that’s fine, that’s whatever.
I am weird. And weirder than before. Call ’em like they see ’em, who could fault them for that?
” There is a brief pause, after which Jake adds, in a faint, despairing sort of voice, “And also hello.”
“Hello,” Sam says, trying to fight down the urge to smile.
“Right,” Jake says, before Sam can add anything to that single word of greeting.
“The thing is, I was going to be so normal about this, I psyched myself up all afternoon. ‘Be normal, Jake, don’t make it weird, it’s going to be so much weirder if you’re weird about it, these things happen, apparently, and it’s not like it was on purpose!
’” He takes a deep, shaky breath as Sam, slightly alarmed now, shifts his weight in impatience to know what’s going on.
“But then I walked in here and remembered, oh, right. I can’t do it normally, because I can’t do anything normally, because you have to be normal for that!
So I have to just… tell you, right now, even if it’s weird and bad, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s my only move. Right?”
“Uh,” Sam says, lost, “I’m… not sure, to be honest. You’re acting like you sold my organs on the black market.”
Jake snorts out an obviously unwilling laugh, then runs a hand over his face, then groans.
Sounding mortified, he takes a huge breath and, too fast, says: “The thing is I just moved back to Cleveland, because of—reasons, it doesn’t matter—but I’ve been in Los Angeles for ten years, okay?
So you have to believe me when I say I didn’t know, I didn’t know you lived here, I would have found another place, another neighborhood, I swear! ”
Sam feels his eyebrows climb. “What are you talking about?”
“Christ, Jake, say the words,” Jake mutters, clearly to himself. Then, louder but like he wishes it wasn’t actually audible, “I moved into the building behind this one, Sam. Like. The one directly behind it. Like we’re—”
“Neighbors,” Sam says, his eyes widening very slightly. “Again.”
“I’m not a stalker!” Jake waves the hand that isn’t on his cane frantically as he says this.
“And this isn’t some kind of weird—I don’t know, Hitchcockian nightmare scenario!
It was an accident! And I’ll move, okay, it just might take me a second to scrape the money together and I knew we’d run into each other again before then and it would be more awkward if I didn’t tell you—”
“Hey,” Sam cuts him off, unable to entirely keep the laugh out of his voice.
“Slow down; you don’t have to move.” He runs a hand briefly through his hair, noting regretfully that he’s at least three weeks overdue for a haircut, and probably looks like the sort of guy who doesn’t believe in deodorant or regular showers.
“And I don’t think you’re planning to Rear Window me. ”
“Rear Window!” Jake slaps a hand to his forehead. “That’s the one, I couldn’t remember the title, all I could pull up was The Birds and I knew that wasn’t it.”
“Yeah, admittedly, if you have to Hitchcock me, don’t do that one,” Sam says, grinning. “If nothing else, the health code violations—”
“I’m not going to Hitchcock you,” Jake starts in the same moment, and then, glancing up at Sam’s face, pauses. “Wait. You’re… joking, aren’t you?”
Sam nods.
“Because… this isn’t as big a deal to you as I thought it was going to be?”
Sam nods.
“And… it’s not going to be weird?”
Sam shrugs, and then, when Jake raises incredulous eyebrows at this non-response, crosses his arms over his chest and admits, “I mean, I can’t promise that. I don’t think anyone who works here would describe me as normal—”
“We wouldn’t!” someone calls from the back. “We’re not liars!”
“Case in point,” Sam says with a sigh. “So, you know… odd, but fine? Should be fine. Can’t think of any reason it wouldn’t be.”
This seems to stun Jake into silence for a moment. Then, very quietly, he says, “Are you sure?”
Their entire history flashes before Sam’s eyes in an instant, brilliant and wretched by turns. Every shining, perfect moment; every brutal, devastating choice; every action that felt so right at the time. Every consequence.
“I’m sure,” he says, and smiles when Jake does before jerking a thumb at the menu. “You want anything? We’re closing up, but I can throw something together for you out of the case.”
“Oh no, that’s… No,” Jake says quickly. Sam notes with interest that he’s already edging backwards towards the door, like a spooked horse.
“Thank you, but I have dinner at home, and you’re closing, and I said what I wanted to say.
I should go.” He pauses, and then slaps a hand against his forehead again as he adds, “Hell, wait. Hold on. I came in here originally to say that there’s a big van that says ‘Silverman’s’ in what’s supposed to be my parking spot?
And to be honest with you, given the givens here, that’s whatever.
I would have street parked for the next thousand years to avoid having this conversation.
But if you don’t move it before tomorrow morning, my landlord will definitely have it towed, and that doesn’t seem—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sam says, turning an incredulous eyebrow towards where Joey was standing a few minutes ago and then remembering he sent them home.
Shaking his head, he turns back to Jake.
“Sorry. Joey delivered an order to the Katzenberg shiva earlier, and they promised me they’d parked it in our spot when they got back.
I should have checked, though, because they’re painfully bad at remembering which spot that is.
I’ll talk to them, and obviously move it myself right now, and, seriously, sorry for the inconvenience. ”
Giving him a slightly queasy smile, Jake says, “I think maybe don’t? Apologize to me? Since I’m the one who has… well. Moved into your backyard?”
“I mean, fair play to you; I basically moved into yours when we were younger,” Sam says easily, with a little shrug. “Look: Welcome to the neighborhood, okay? And seriously, don’t worry about it—I get that it was a coincidence. Things happen. It’s fine.”
Jake’s face twists into a complicated expression for a second, but he sounds genuine enough, like he really means it, when he says, “Okay, um. Cool, then. Thank you.”
“Sure,” Sam says again, not even sure why this time, and Jake turns towards the door in earnest, and Sam expects that to be that.
But when Jake’s halfway out of the restaurant, he pauses, shakes his head, and turns around in the doorframe.
His tone and his expression both suggest that he can’t quite help himself when he asks, “Would your biggest concern with me inflicting a real-life version of The Birds on you really be the health code violations?”
Sam grins, a little sheepish. “I mean, yeah, probably, honestly. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fully sanitize a place like this after something like that? It would be a nightmare.”
“Christ,” Jake says, shaking his head and looking oddly pleased, “you really did grow up, didn’t you?
Became a full-on adult? Incredible.” Then his expression shifts to an amused one, and he laughs as he turns back around and finishes leaving, calling, “Those birds murder people, Sam! They murder people!” over his shoulder.
Sam watches him go, not sure exactly what he feels.
Then, like he does every night, he closes the restaurant, picking up any tasks his employees have missed.
He shuts off the lights and, in the dark, grabs some of whatever’s about to go out in the deli case, which looks to be roast turkey and mac salad tonight.
He goes upstairs, and sinks onto the couch, and eats while he watches…
well, usually he eats while he watches something, anyway.
Tonight he stares out the window at the tiny brick apartment building behind his, wondering which unit is Jake’s, and doesn’t realize he’s forgotten to turn on the television until long after his food is gone.