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“I can’t sleep if it’s too quiet.”
Jane pauses, and says, “Sometimes I wonder if I fell out of time because I never really belonged where I started and the universe is trying to tell me something.”
It’s offhand, casual, and August watches her pull off another orange segment and eat it unceremoniously, but she knows Jane. It’s not easy for her to say things like that.
She figures she can give something back.
“When I was a kid, after Katrina—you remember how I told you about the hurricane?” Jane nods. August goes on, “There was this year I got moved around to different schools until my old school reopened and we could go home. And my anxiety got… bad. Like, really bad. So, I convinced myself that, because the statistical likelihood of something happening in real life exactly the way I imagined it was so low, if I imagined the worst possible things in vivid detail, I could mathematically reduce the odds of them happening. I convinced myself that my brain had power over the probability projections of the universe. I’d lie awake at night thinking about all the worst stuff that could happen like it was my job, and I don’t know if I ever really broke the habit.”
Jane listens silently, nodding. One of the things August loves most about her is that she doesn’t go chasing after unspoken words when August is done talking. She can let a silence settle, let a truth breathe.
Then she opens her mouth and says, “Sometimes I like to have my ass slapped during sex.”
August squawks out a laugh, caught off guard. “What? You’ve never asked me to do that.”
“Angel, there are a lot of things I’d like to do with you that can’t be done on a train.”
August swallows. “Point.”
Jane raises her eyebrows. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you gonna write that down in your little sex notebook?”
“My—” August’s face is instantly hot. “You weren’t supposed to know about that!”
“You’re not that discreet, August. One time I swear you whipped it out before I even got my pants buttoned.”
August moans in dismay. She knows exactly what entry Jane is talking about. Page three, section M, subheading four: overstimulation.
“I have to die now,” August says into her hands.
“No, it’s cute! You’re such a nerd. It’s endearing!” Jane laughs, always so amused about making August suffer. It’s despicable. “Your turn.”
“No way, you already exposed a thing I didn’t think you knew about me,” August says. “I’m feeling very vulnerable.”
“Oh my God, you’re impossible.”
“I’m not going.”
“Then we’re at an impasse. Unless you wanna come over here and kiss me.”
August lifts her face out of her hands. “And get electrocuted? I’m pretty sure if I kissed you right now, it would literally kill me.”
“That’s how it always feels, isn’t it?”
“Oh my God,” August groans, even though her heart does something humiliating at the words. “Shut up and eat your orange.”
Jane sticks her tongue out but does as she’s told, finishing off her half and licking her fingertips when she’s done.
“I missed oranges,” she says. “Really good ones, though. You gotta start grocery shopping in Chinatown.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, back home, my mom would take me to all the markets every Sunday morning and let me pick out the fruit because I always had this sixth sense with sweet stuff. Best oranges you could find. We used to get so many, I’d have to carry some home in my pockets.”
August smiles to herself as she pictures a tiny Jane, chubby cheeks and untied shoes, toddling through a fruit stand with her pockets full of produce. She imagines Jane’s mom as a young woman with her hair tied up and shot through with premature gray, haggling with a butcher in Cantonese. San Francisco, Chinatown, the place that made Jane.
