He sighs. “I should have guessed she’d be back,” he replies. “Where?”
“How about some Pho?” I ask him. I indicate the station closest to where I can get a bowl of Vietnamese hot beef noodle soup.
“Okay, in an hour?” I tell him I’ll leave after I shower and hang up. I spend about ten minutes in the shower washing my hair and body because I smell like sweaty cage dancer and I’m still grimy from last night’s run at the beach. After I step out I wrap a towel around me and wrestle with a comb to get the snarls out of my hair. It never does what I want it to do, but it acts like a curtain and falls midway down my back in a shiny brown sheet. As long as I can detangle it sufficiently, I don’t need to really do anything else besides let it air dry. In the winter, that would be insane, since it freezes in stiff strips but it’s a warm night. I should buy an air conditioner soon, I have a feeling it’s going to be a hot summer. For now I let the open windows air out the staleness that’s pervaded my environment all winter long. I look around at the clutter of shampoo and lotions and makeup products in my bathroom and realize it extends throughout the entire place and mentally note to spring clean as soon as I’m up for it. But tonight I’m going to see Devin and tomorrow I will be at my father’s funeral. At least it will be the last time I have to see Jack.
*
I’m dressed in faded skinny jeans and a cap sleeved sheer white top with some light blue embroidery that I’d deem a “hippie top”. I got it from a little shop that sells dashikis, incense and nitrous oxide if you know how to ask nicely. I slip on some white flip flops and grab my purse and phone and a fresh pack of smokes before I lock up and head over to the El. Kate follows me. I smoke on the way to the Morris station, walking past college kids who are out drinking too late on a Sunday evening, young couples who haven’t yet figured out that they should really leave East Riverview and move to the suburbs before they begin to breed, and the occasional drunk and/or crack head. I got mugged once walking down Morris and was out a cell phone, so I’m glad it’s early, still somewhat light out and a short walk from my apartment. The station is empty and I ascend to the platform and light up again. As a general rule, the train comes faster if I am just starting a cigarette, and lo and behold, it’s crawling up from the previous stop just as I do. I pitch the half smoked cigarette off the platform onto the street and Kate and I get on the train.
Devin is parked by the El and leaning against his motorcycle. I wave, walk over and give him a tentative hug. Kate hangs back. “I wish you’d wear a helmet,” I say to him.
“I wish you’d quit smoking,” is his retort as I pull out my pack and begin to light another one. He takes one for himself. Devin never buys cigarettes, but he’ll smoke them if they’re available to him. We walk together to Saigon Noodle, which is this weird Vietnamese place that appears to simultaneously embrace and ignore the Vietnam War by having their wait staff wear camouflage shirts and serving large bowls of Pho from menus decorated with tanks and machine guns to white people and Vietnamese people alike. We sit and Devin and I order food. Kate disappears to give Devin and me some time alone. “Jenna, I thought you had ended things with Kate.”
“She comes when I need her,” I tell him, unable to meet his eyes.
“You should get back on meds,” he replies.
“Devin,” I plead. “I don’t want to fight tonight.” He leans back in his chair and scrunches up his face in the weird way he does when he disagrees with me. Devin isn’t what most people would call handsome or good looking. He’s got a face that’s almost feminine and looks a lot like me in some ways, but it doesn’t necessarily work on a boy…or man, I guess I can call him nowadays. He’s older than I am by fourteen months. His hair right now is short in back and long in the front, which I kind of like on him, but he resembles a skinny punk rock lesbian. It’s the same color as mine naturally, though he has it dyed black right now. The last time I saw him it was blue. People always thought we were twins because we were so close in age. “Irish twins!” was something we heard a lot growing up in a south side Irish neighborhood.
“Kate will be there to help you through whenever things get tough,” he says. “Jenna, you need to be on meds. I don’t like this.”
“Devin, let me handle it.”
He shakes his head. He looks like he might cry, which will make me leave and he knows it. “Devin,” I say again. “I don’t even have a health insurance policy that will cover them. I get bare minimum coverage through Appleseed. Those pills aren’t covered. I can barely make rent. Just let me get through tomorrow and we can talk.”