Page 33 of And Now, Back to You

Delilah waves in acknowledgment and yanks on my wrist again. I continue to pretend my feet are planted in the cement.

“It’s okay,” she says. She turns back to look at me, hair whipping across her face, her brown eyes lit up gold. I wonder what it’s like to feel that easy. That comfortable.

“You have nothing to worry about,” she says. Her hand is still around my wrist. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

JACKSON CLARK: Evening, everybody. I’m—um. Filling in for a second while Aiden—while Aiden does something. He’s getting water? I think? Either way, he asked me to sit in, so. Here I am.

[awkward laughter]

JACKSON CLARK: What should we talk about?

[pause]

JACKSON CLARK: Has anyone ever told you about the difference between snow and sleet? Snow forms directly from water vapor as ice crystals, but sleet starts as snow, then partially melts in a warmer layer of air before refreezing into small ice pellets as it falls through a colder layer. It’s sort of like—sort of like the meatloaf leftovers of the meteorological world, if you can believe that.

[pause]

JACKSON CLARK: I’m not sure when Aiden will be back? But I could tell you about snow lightning, too, if you wanted? It’s—

CHAPTER 7

DELILAH

Jackson was not exaggerating.

As soon as we enter the building, it’s like his soul departs his body. He stares unseeingly at some mysterious spot in front of him, only offering one-word answers to the questions I continuously lob in his direction in an attempt to distract him.

Did you notice where my sandwich wrapper was from? The one I wrote your note on? Silence. It was from Chaps Pit Beef. Have you ever had Chaps? More silence. My grandpa took me to the one that’s in the parking lot of the Gold Club when I was six and I’ve been hooked ever since. I don’t think he even realized it was a strip club until like 1998 when they put up that giant billboard for the Golden Rods. Have you been?

That had finally garnered a reaction. Jackson turned halfway toward me. “Are you asking if I’ve been to the strip club?”

“No. I’m asking if you’ve been to Chaps. That specific Chaps. The one in the parking lot of the strip club.”

“Ah,” he said, reaching up to squeeze at the back of his neck as he led us through the radio station hallways. “No.”

“You should go sometime.”

That was seven minutes ago and the very last thing we said to each other before a pretty woman with dip-dyed box braids handed us each a pair of headphones and ushered us into a window-lined booth.

Now, Aiden is at the long table in the middle of the room, hastily trying to clear various cookie boxes, chocolate mint wrappers, and half-empty mugs of coffee. Lucie spins herself around in Aiden’s chair, tossing tiny paper airplanes in the middle of the mess, her feet tucked up underneath her and one of Aiden’s sweatshirts draped around her shoulders. He stops her mid-spin with his hand against the armrest and ducks down for a firm kiss against her smiling mouth.

My chest squeezes.

They’re happy here, at the radio station. Everyone I’ve seen. People greet each other by name and ask about weekend plans and talk about kids’ birthdays. At the news station, I’m constantly walking on eggshells, trying not to anger Keith, trying not to be a nuisance.

But here, everyone revolves around one another in a perfectly choreographed dance of productivity. It’s a humming hive of activity as everyone sets up for the show, laughing and shouting and tossing boxes and cables back and forth.

And Jackson floats through the middle of it, straight into the booth where he sits down in a beanbag chair in the corner, his knees practically to his chest. He scoops up a heart-shaped pillow and holds it in his arms.

I’m not entirely confident he’s breathing.

“Delilah. Hey. Thank you again for doing this.”

Maggie appears at my side, her phone in her hand and a white earbud wedged in one ear. She’s just as sleek and professional as she was at the news station, while I’m wearing a purple sparkly parka I dug out of a lost-and-found bin.

A short man wearing suspenders appears at her side, his chin tucked to his chest as he runs his finger down a list on his clipboard. He has a headpiece that looks like a Britney Spears concert replica and a cellophane-wrapped box of chocolate mints. He startles when he looks up, then grins so wide his earpiece jostles.

I like him immediately.