Today
Garrett reaches the Rabbittown Square thirty minutes ahead of schedule. Even though he had been to Rabbittown before and knew the odds of rural Alabama being hit with a sudden case of rush-hour traffic, why take the risk? He pulls into a diagonal parking spot down the street from Rabbittown Casket Company to wait in his air-conditioned car until closer to the agreed-upon time.
Garrett is always early. He loves it when other people are early, too. He also knows that showing up thirty minutes early for a first date is a red flag. Well, he didn’t know that at first, but his sister had explained it after he’d recounted the awkwardness of a date answering her door in a bathrobe with wet hair.
He does what everyone does when they have time to waste. He scrolls. His friend Thomas has a new baby and refers to it as his twin. Garrett doesn’t see the resemblance. He thinks babies look like babies, not grown men with beards. But he’s genuinely happy that his friend is happy. Like.
His ex-girlfriend has posted more pictures from her wedding. Garrett swipes through all of them, even the artsy photos of her shoes. They used to talk about getting married or, more specifically, eloping. His job had been a deal-breaker for her, or at least that’s what she said. She couldn’t move far away from everyone she knew for him to take a job with so much travel. Didn’t he want a family, she had asked. Within a year, she had gotten married to someone else. It didn’t last long. Garrett doesn’t know the details. He hopes this time will turn out better for her. Next.
There’s another series of photos of his sister, Rebecca, and her husband. They’re standing next to a waterfall in the first one. In the second they’re drinking wine on a patio overlooking a picturesque mountain view. In the third they’re kissing, which Garrett could have lived without seeing. Under the photo he types out, “Do either of you have jobs?” He deletes it before posting. It seems like one of those jokes that would be funnier in person, if at all. Like.
Bored of everyone else’s life updates, he catches up with news on the New York Times app. He responds to two work emails. He tries to do anything else on his phone to keep himself from getting nervous about the date with Nora.
Garrett didn’t know what he was getting into when he first walked into Rabbittown Casket Company. He had been in a hurry, expecting to run in and run out so he could make his appointment time at Pearl Café. He had not expected Nora. Sure, she was pretty, and it’s not like he had never seen a pretty girl in public before. Normally, Garrett tried to ignore them. Women around his age usually weren’t single, and if they were, the thought of it going so badly he could never show his face again at Target or the grocery store was enough for him to mind his own business.
It was something else. Something else about her was intriguing before he had even spoken to her. Maybe there was something endearing about the way she was existing in her own world in the middle of the day without expecting to be interrupted. Or the way she jumped when she noticed him standing there. It certainly hadn’t been graceful. Somehow, it had struck him as genuine. Unfiltered. Human.
Something catches his eye in the rearview mirror. A man. Two men. Staring at the back of Garrett’s car with their arms folded across their tucked-in T-shirts. Garrett is a white man in Alabama, so it doesn’t occur to him to be afraid, just curious. He didn’t grow up in a small town, but he’s been in enough small towns over the years to know that his car attracts attention. Maybe, to them, it’s a bit unreasonable or over the top. Garrett figures if he’s going to spend the majority of his time in his car, he might as well enjoy it.