Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Jesse arrived early for coffee. Sophie saw him through the window, sitting at a small table near the back with his coat folded beside him. He stood when she came in, and she stopped beside the chair he pulled out for her.
“Hi,” he said. He looked at her with a strained smile. “I ordered too soon. Mine’s cold.”
“Get another,” Sophie said, taking off her scarf. “I’m having one.”
They talked about work, his truck, and the neighbor who had finally moved the broken trampoline from the shared fence.
Jesse told her the new office kettle boiled with the force of a leaf blower, then mimicked Denise shouting a customer’s name over it.
Sophie laughed loudly enough that the woman at the next table looked around.
He asked about the house, and Sophie told him she’d fixed the loose handle on the bathroom cupboard. He wanted to know which screw had been missing, and she said she’d tightened everything until it stopped moving.
“That’ll do it,” he said. He smiled at her over his coffee, and she wanted him to reach across the table.
“I thought you’d tell me I’d used the wrong screwdriver. Or bought the wrong one.”
“Did you?” Jesse asked. He put his hand beside hers, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his fingers before she touched them.
“Kelly had one.” Sophie touched his fingers. “I miss you.”
“Christ, Soph.” He turned his hand beneath hers and held it. “You could’ve led with that. I’ve been talking about a cupboard for ten minutes.”
She let him hold her hand until the server came to clear the cups. Outside, they walked close together without touching, and Sophie couldn’t remember where she’d parked until she saw the corner shop.
At the car, Sophie stepped into his arms. He held her tightly enough that she felt him breathe against her hair, and she closed her eyes with her face against the sweater she had bought him. When she moved back, he let her, but his hands stayed open at his sides for a moment afterward.
At the next class, the teacher came through the door carrying her own sample. Sophie recognized the beginning of another paper house and started telling her they were trying printing that afternoon before the woman had taken off her coat.
“It’s his,” the teacher said. She held it out carefully, keeping a finger beneath the loose roof. “He wanted to show you the upstairs.”
The boy in the red sweater was waiting behind her. Sophie crouched to see through the hole he’d made in the front, where he’d stuck a tiny square of silver paper against the back wall.
“Television,” he told her. He reached inside and knocked it off while he was pointing. “It was there.”
Sophie found glue and held the house still while he fixed it. The teacher went to help another child with her coat, and Sophie stayed on her heels longer than was comfortable because the boy wanted her to see where he’d put the stairs.
When the children sat down, Sophie gave the teacher her scarf.
She said she’d forgotten to write, and the woman wound it around the strap of her bag so she wouldn’t leave it behind again.
They worked at different tables that afternoon, calling across the room when they needed more paper or a clean cloth.
The next Saturday they walked through a market.
Sophie bought a lamp she didn’t need, and Jesse carried it while she stopped at stalls and argued pleasantly about prices.
They ate warm olive bread beside a bakery window, sharing a bag while a woman behind the counter confirmed there was no butter in it.
Sophie kissed a flake of crust from the corner of his mouth before she thought about it.
He went still. Sophie laughed at his expression, then felt the laughter leave her when he put one hand at the back of her neck and kissed her properly.
It lasted only a few seconds. A woman with a stroller needed to pass, and they moved apart, embarrassed and smiling, while Sophie tried to remember how to breathe normally. She took his hand for the walk back to the car.
They took the long way back because Sophie wanted to look at a stall selling old books. Jesse stopped beside her with the lamp under one arm and read over her shoulder while she examined a book of garden photographs with half its jacket missing.
“You have that one,” he said. “You bought it at the station. I carried it all weekend.”
“I could give this one to Mom.” Sophie turned another page.
“You gave her ours.” He caught the page before the wind folded it. “At Easter. She asked you to write the plants she should buy inside the front.”
Sophie put the book back. The stallholder told her she could have it for half the marked price, and she nearly bought it anyway before Jesse took her hand and led her past the end of the table.
It began raining while they were still three streets from the car. They waited beneath an awning with the lamp between them, trying to keep its shade dry, and Sophie opened her coat to tuck the end of it beneath the lining. Jesse moved closer to help, and she caught his cold hand against her waist.
“You’ve got half the rain down your sleeve.” She tried to dry his wrist with her scarf.
“I know.” He watched her hands, then lifted her chin with his dry one. “You’ll ruin that.”
She went up on her toes to kiss him. He had to put the lamp down to pull her close enough, and it leaned against the window while Sophie forgot why they’d been sheltering there.
Someone knocked on the glass behind them. The shop assistant pointed at the lamp and then at the door, which they were blocking, and Jesse moved it while Sophie tried to look as though she regularly kissed men outside hardware shops on Saturday afternoons.
“We can go in,” he said, collecting the lamp. “I need batteries.”
The shop was warm enough to sting her wet fingers.
Jesse found the batteries, added a packet of screws she hadn’t known he needed, and went back for something else while Sophie waited beside a display of mugs with names on them.
There was a Sophie and a Jesse on different shelves, and she moved them together before taking them apart again.
He came back with a bulb for the lamp. “You’ll want to see whether it works,” he said, and set everything on the counter before she could remind him she was capable of buying one herself.
Outside, the rain had eased. They walked with their shoulders touching, the bulb in Sophie’s bag and the lamp awkward between Jesse’s elbow and his coat. She found herself wishing she’d parked farther away.
At the car he tried the lamp on the back seat, then took it out again because the shade touched the door. Sophie stood beneath the raised tailgate while he worked out how to fit it in the back, offering suggestions he ignored until the base finally lay flat.
“There.” He closed the tailgate. “You can get through the drive without wearing it.”
She kissed him again before he could step away. This time she pressed him against the car, her hands beneath his open coat, and felt him hold his breath when her fingers reached his belt.
“Come out of the rain,” he said against her mouth. He was looking at the passenger door, and Sophie reached behind her for the handle.
They sat with the engine off while the windows began to mist. Jesse touched the wet ends of her hair, moving them off her neck, and Sophie leaned across the handbrake to kiss him until the hard edge dug into her ribs.
“This was easier in your old car,” she said. She shifted sideways, trying to find somewhere to put her knee.
“Everything was a seat in that car.” He caught her waist before she pressed the horn. “Come here.”
She managed to get closer without climbing onto him. They sat for several minutes with her head against his shoulder and his hand beneath her coat, and Sophie listened to a car starting beside them and the sound of somebody putting a shopping cart away.
“I should let you go,” he said, sounding as though he hoped she’d argue.
“I don’t have to be anywhere.” She lifted her head, then looked at the clock and remembered he’d said something about a job before they bought the bread. “Do you?”
“At three.” He kept his hand where it was. “I can make it if I leave now.”
Sophie wanted him to say he’d cancel. It was a small job, he’d said so himself, and she could feel the beginning of an offer she hadn’t made yet slipping away while he found his keys.
“Go, then,” she said. She moved back into her seat and began looking for her phone.
He stayed turned toward her. “Come out with me next Saturday,” he said. “Lunch. I’ll keep the afternoon free.”
She agreed without looking up from the phone.
He kissed her once more before getting out, and she watched him walk away through the rain, irritated that he’d gone and relieved she wouldn’t have to decide where else to take him.
The bulb in her bag knocked against the seat when she reached for her keys.
The third Saturday went badly. They were waiting for lunch when Jesse said he could help with the garden the following morning. Sophie said Kelly was coming, and he asked whether her sister would mind him being there too.
“She might.” Sophie looked at the menu. “We haven’t talked about it.”
“You tell her everything else,” he said. The words came out lightly, but Sophie heard what sat beneath them.
“What does that mean?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Nothing,” he said. “I know she hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” Sophie wasn’t certain, and he seemed to hear that.
“She certainly doesn’t want you sitting here,” he said. He glanced toward the window. “Does she know we kissed?”
“Why? Would that get you into the garden?”
“Come on,” he said. His face reddened. “I’m trying to find a way to be in your life without having to ask permission for every hour.”
“Then ask me. Leave Kelly out of it.”
He leaned back. “I did ask you,” he said. “And you told me what Kelly might think.”
Sophie reached for her coat. Jesse caught the menu before her sleeve knocked it from the table, then put it down between them without looking at her.
“Sophie.” He sat forward as she stood. “Don’t leave. Please.”
“I haven’t decided about tomorrow,” Sophie said. She pushed her arm into the sleeve. “And now I don’t want to spend it arguing about whether you’re coming.”
“What about next week?” His hurt turned to anger. “What are we doing?”
The server arrived with their water as Sophie pulled on her coat. “Cancel mine, please,” she said, pointing at the menu she’d left on the table. “We haven’t ordered. Sorry.”
He stood and followed her outside. The cold hit her face hard, and she walked halfway down the block before stopping because she couldn’t bear him calling her name again.
“Will you stop for a minute?” Jesse asked. He caught up without touching her. “I shouldn’t have said that about Kelly.”
“I’m going home,” Sophie said. Jesse waited beside her, close enough that she had to turn away to look for her car.
“We were having a good time,” he said. “Last week. I thought you wanted more of that.”
“I did. I came today, didn’t I?”
He looked back toward the restaurant. Sophie waited for him to ask again, and when he didn’t she told him to go back and eat.
He stepped toward her and stopped when she turned to the car. She got inside, set the keys on her knee because her hand was shaking, and waited until he went back toward the restaurant. At the first red light she began crying and had to pull over to find a tissue.
He called that evening. Sophie listened later, sitting on the stairs with the phone beside her. He apologized for the argument, then began explaining that anyone would want to know what was happening with his own marriage. She stopped the message before it finished.
He sent a message in the morning saying he wouldn’t come to the garden. Sophie answered that she wanted the next Saturday to herself, then spent the afternoon with Kelly waiting for him to find another reason to ring.
Kelly asked whether Sophie was expecting a delivery. Sophie put the phone in the kitchen and went to help her carry the bags of leaves to the gate. When they finished, she went back to check it before making the tea.
She spent the next Saturday with Haley. They went to a matinee neither enjoyed, then sat in a nearly empty restaurant talking about the film because it was easier than discussing Jesse. Eventually Sophie asked whether Haley thought she was an idiot.
Haley put down her fork. “For which part?” she asked. She winced at Sophie’s expression. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
Sophie told Haley about lunch. She described Jesse’s questions twice, then found herself defending him when Haley said it sounded as though he’d got used to things going his way again.
“He said he was sorry about Kelly.” Sophie moved her plate so the waiter could put down the water. “I hadn’t even asked her. About the garden.”
Haley ate another mouthful before answering. “He called me after the dinner at Lorraine’s,” she said. “We ended up having a row too.”
“He said he was sorry he went after me like that at the wedding,” Haley said. “Then he said he still thought I was a reckless pain in the ass.”
“What did you say?” Sophie could almost hear Jesse saying it.
“That I still thought he should’ve taken his mother home for another dress. We had another fight. Then we managed about thirty seconds of being civil.”
Sophie began smiling, then stopped when Haley shook her head. Her friend pushed the bill out of the damp ring beneath the water jug.
“I meant the apology,” Haley said. She found a card in her bag. “I know you know that. I still wish he could’ve heard it without telling me off first.”
They paid and went outside. Haley had to return a pair of pants before the shop closed, and Sophie went with her, sitting outside the changing room while her friend rejected every replacement. She thought about ringing Jesse twice before they reached the car.
That evening Sophie called Jesse. He answered on the first ring, then said hello twice because she had begun speaking over him.
“You can come Tuesday,” she said. “For dinner. Just dinner.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked what he should bring, and she told him bread because he always bought too much of everything else.
“Tuesday. I’ll be there.” She could hear the smile he was trying to keep out of his voice.