Tilly
THIRTY-TWO
Curing: Lime mortar and lime plaster harden by taking carbon out of the air, and they go on doing it for months and then for years. There is no method for hurrying it. Every attempt ever made has produced a weaker wall.
The Boot is packed with people who are pretending finals are over because nobody wants to admit there is still one more day before break.
I tried to veto coming here when Jo dragged me along.
Since she and Ford got serious, she’s somehow inherited all of his New Orleans friends while he lives and works in Biloxi.
She also reminded me it’s a public bar, nobody gets to claim it, and, more importantly, Rhodes hasn’t been around in months.
That was enough to win the argument.
Jo wedges herself sideways between two guys at the bar and comes back balancing three beers and a sparkling water against her chest.
“You owe me ten dollars,” she says, setting a beer in front of Deuce, another in front of Nash, and my sparkling water with lime in front of me. “And you owe me twelve because apparently you drink something brewed by monks.”
Deuce looks at the label. “This is domestic.”
“It cost sixteen dollars. I don't care what it is, Venmo me.”
I pick up my cup and squeeze the lime latched onto the edge into it. “You're nicer than I am. I would have gotten the same as everyone else.”
“I'm a regular patron saint.”
Jo drops into the booth beside me and immediately starts digging through her purse. Her hair is pulled up in a messy knot that has been falling apart since dinner, and there is still a smear of blue ink down the side of her hand from the exam she took this morning.
“What are you excavating for?” I ask.
“My phone.”
“You had it five minutes ago.”
“I had a lot of things five minutes ago. I also had optimism.”
Deuce reaches over and plucks it out from under her napkin.
“You’re welcome.”
Jo stares at him. “How did it get there?”
“You put it there.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You literally did it while you were telling us Ford’s mother bought you pajamas for Christmas.”
Jo grabs her phone from Deuce. “A pajama set is cute. Pajamas are what your grandmother buys you at Costco. Plus, Christmas is in three weeks. This was just a surcie.”
“I happen to love all clothes from Costco,” Deuce says.
“That tracks,” I tell him.
He lifts his beer to me, and we clink our drinks together.
Across the room, somebody feeds another ten dollars into the jukebox, and the music changes from something country to something loud enough that half the bar shouts in protest. The front door keeps opening, letting in the rare New Orleans cold air before somebody shoulders it closed again.
This city has spent the entire first week of December changing its mind about winter. This morning I needed a coat. By lunchtime, I was carrying it. Tonight it's cold enough that everybody came in complaining and then immediately started sweating once the place filled up.
Jo looks down at her phone and smiles. I don't have to ask.
“You've seen him every weekend for the last month,” I say. "Don't y'all ever get sick of each other?"
She turns the screen face down. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You were smiling at the phone. I know that means Ford sent you a lovie message and you're swooning.”
“You're crazy.”
“Admit it. You were reading something from Ford.”
She puts her phone away and doesn't answer.
Deuce leans forward. “There’s a Ford face?”
“I do not have a Ford face.” She turns to me. “And for the record, I have not seen him every weekend for the last month. He had duty two weekends ago.”
“You drove to Biloxi anyway.”
“For dinner.”
“You drove an hour and a half each way for dinner.”
“It was a very good dinner.”
Deuce snorts into his beer.
Jo points at him. “You don't get an opinion. You spent three hundred dollars flying to Nashville for twenty-seven hours because some girl from your accounting class invited you to her birthday.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“She had a rooftop reservation.”
I laugh into my drink. This is what most of the semester has turned into. Classes, the reef on Fridays, studying somewhere too loud because Jo claims silence makes her sleepy, and nights like this when somebody sends one text and six people eventually end up around the same table.
Normal. I used to think normal would feel boring once I got it, but luckily it doesn't.
It feels like knowing where I'm sleeping tonight and what I have to do tomorrow. It feels like Jo stealing my charger and Deuce complaining about professors and a glass in my hand that nobody is checking.
Jo bumps my shoulder. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“After my lab. I should be done by ten and hope to be packed and on the road by 10:05.”
“I thought your lab was today?”
“No, your lab was today. Mine is tomorrow, and then I'm done."
She squints at me. “I hate this week. I can't remember if it's Monday or Wednesday, which way is up or down.”
“Your suffering is almost over.”
“My suffering will be over when I am in Biloxi in Ford’s apartment eating takeout, with no homework or exams hanging over me.”
Nash looks between us. “Wait. You’re going to Biloxi from here?”
“Yeah, for a few days, then home for Christmas. I'll come check on our reef work over the holidays, so it won't be completely neglected for three weeks.”
Deuce reaches for the basket of fries in the middle of the table. “What exactly do you two do out there every Friday? I know you’ve explained it, but every time you say ‘reef work,’ I picture you both scuba diving.”
“I've known you for what, close to a year, and I've told you at least five times what we do. How do you not know? We don't do anything remotely close to scuba diving.”
“That's good, because the Mississippi water is pretty murky. I'd be worried about you.”
“You're ridiculous,” Jo says. “No wonder you're a fifth-year senior.”
"Easy, tiger. Jeez. I was trying to show interest in what you're doing."
I take a fry before Deuce can empty the basket. “We monitor the restoration sites, check placement, record recruitment, make sure nothing shifted where it shouldn't, and deal with whatever decided to break that week. Essentially, we're restoring decades of damage to the shoreline.”
He thinks about that. “Thank you, Tilly, for taking the time to talk to me like a decent human being.”
“I've said almost the exact same thing to you, Deuce,” Jo says, exasperated.
Nash laughs.
Jo pulls her phone toward her again. “Speaking of the job, Marco texted me this afternoon. He says the fan in the bagging shed finally died for real.”
I groan. “He said that fan was going to make it through winter.”
“He also said duct tape was structural.”
“Marco believes a lot of things.”
“I told him not to touch it until I can go out there over the break with my uncle. He will know what we should do for a long-term solution.”
“Good.”
Deuce looks at me. “You work on oysters, and somehow there is still a bagging shed involved.”
“There are bags, and there are lots of oysters. I'm not sure I understand your confusion.”
Someone shoves into the back of our booth hard enough to shake the table, apologizes without looking at us, and disappears into the crowd.
Jo checks the time. “Eleven fifteen. If I leave now, I could be packed by midnight.”
Nash says, “I haven't packed anything.”
Deuce points at him. “That is because you own four shirts.”
“I own nine.”
Jo turns to me. “Are you packed?”
“Basically. I will throw my toiletries in after my shower in the morning. So, yeah.”
Her mouth drops open.
“What?”
“I'm just impressed with your preparedness. Who are you?”
“I have matured.” I grin, finish my sparkling water, then dump an ice cube into my mouth and chew it.
The bubbles sting the back of my throat. There is too much lime because Jo always puts two wedges in my cup, even though I only ask for one.
Deuce starts talking about a trip his family is taking after Christmas, and Nash argues with him about whether skiing counts as a vacation if you have to exercise during it.
Two girls from my environmental science class stop at the table on their way out, and I stand to hug them goodbye.
One of them, Sally Martins, is going to London for the semester and has spent the last three weeks pretending she isn't terrified.
She promises to send pictures and makes me promise to keep her updated on Professor Fink, who she hates.
By the time I sit again, Deuce has stolen my seat. Jo is yelling at him, which I appreciate.
“Move,” Jo says, cutting an eye at him.
“There are other seats.”
“That is Tilly’s seat.”
“Tilly can sit here.” He pats his knee. I give him the death stare. He stops patting it.
“Never mind,” he says, then slides over. Then his entire face changes. “Well, look who decided to remember where his friends live.”
Something in my stomach drops before I even turn around, because in my gut I know. Then he walks up to the table, his hands resting on the edge, and smiles as he greets his friends.
For half a second, my brain refuses to put him there. This side of town belongs to a version of my life I haven't thought about much lately, and seeing him inside it is like somebody took an old photograph and dropped a living person from my past into the middle.
He looks good. His hair is a little longer on top than it was in the spring, and he's traded the college uniform of jeans and a T-shirt for dark pants and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
The veins along his forearms stand out when he pushes against the table, and the top two buttons of his shirt are open just enough to show a strip of skin at his chest. His jaw is rough with the start of a five o'clock shadow.
He's not wearing a tie or jacket, but his expensive shoes and watch tell me he probably does during the day.
Then his eyes land on mine, and we both freeze for a nanosecond.
“Hey, Tallulah.”
Oh, God. I didn’t think him saying my full name like that would still get me. This is not good.
“Hey, you.”