“I had the weirdest hour of my life this afternoon.”
Jennifer and Zach were walking down 14th, not far from Les and Christopher’s place, heading for ice cream.
He smiled indulgently. “I’ve heard that one before.”
“Well, this time really was. A 112-year-old billionaire hit on me, big time.”
Zach laughed, “Go for it!”
They reached the ice cream shop and joined the line.
She added, “He looks about thirty-five. Nicest laugh you can imagine. He was naked.”
“Uh, mind if I ask what you were doing naked with this guy?”
“I wasn’t naked, silly.”
A woman and two men, lined up in front of them, turned and shot not-at-all-surreptitious looks at Jen.
Much more quietly, Jen briefly told Zach what had happened, ending with, “I have to say, though, he was pretty impressive.”
Jen watched Zach sample three flavors, but all the while she was thinking about Richard. In spite of his arrogance, his obvious attempt to charm her, and his bullying, she hadn’t been able to exile him from her mind.
They sat outside at one of the small tables, and she watched him eat quickly before his ice cream melted.
He held out the cone. “Want a taste?”
She shook her head.
He said, “You’re the only person in the world who doesn’t like ice cream.”
“I worry I’ll freak out.”
He laughed. And then saw she was not laughing.
She said, “Something my mother did when I was a kid.”
“Wh—”
She shook her head. “Another time.”
Jen wiped the memory from her thoughts, just the way she had been doing all her life.
“So,” she said when enough time had passed, “what weird or not-weird things happened to you today?”
“Absolutely no one of any age or financial bracket hit on me.”
“Poor baby. I could check if my pal Richard is interested in guys.”
“But I am thinking of turning my business into a co-op.”
“A co-op. Like …”
“Yeah, kind of. I’d have partners who’d own it with me. We’d share the work. And we’d look after each other. What do you think?”
“I think you should take out some good fire insurance.”
After finishing at the ice cream shop, they went next door to the supermarket.
“What do you think of this cauliflower?” he said.
“I would say it has three florets too many.”
Jen rarely went into a grocery store, and if she did, she was in and out in four minutes. Zach could fritter away an hour in there.
“I’m so glad you’re getting into this,” he said. He continued to poke through the stack of cauliflower. “You’ve never really told me what’s wrong with your mom.”
“Of course I have. Early onset dementia.”
“No, I mean when you were a kid.”
She became absorbed, Zach-like, in the green beans.
“She was awful, cruel, judgmental, and controlling,” Jen replied.
He stopped fondling vegetables. “Those are just adjectives.”
“Aren’t you clever today. Just adjectives. Zach, we’re in a damn grocery store and you’re asking about the most traumatic stuff in my life.”
And so Zach abandoned the nearly fully cart of his carefully chosen everything, grabbed her hand, and said, “Then let’s find a place where you can tell me.”