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August has decided, in what she believes is a show of extreme maturity and dedication to helping Jane, to pretend the kiss was completely unimportant. Did it get the information they needed? Yes. Did she lie awake that night thinking about it for three and a half hours? Yes. Did it mean anything? No. So, no, she’s not sitting around, picturing Jane dropping her jacket on August’s bedroom floor and pushing her down onto the bed, breaking the bed, putting the bed back together—God, not the stupid bed-assembly fantasy again.
No, that would be extremely impractical. And August thinks, as she spends seven of her last dollars on a container of to-go dumplings for Jane, that she’s very practical, and everything is under complete control.
“My hero,” Jane swoons when August boards the Q and hands the bag over.
She’s looking particularly bright today, soaking in the sun that pours through the windows. She told August last week how thankful she is to at least be stuck on a train that spends a lot of its route above ground, and it shows. Her skin glows a golden brown that reminds August of humid summer afternoons in the Bywater—which, August realizes, is something they’ve both felt. What are the odds?
“Anything coming back to you?” August asks, climbing into the seat next to her. She perches her sneakers on the edge, tucking her knees up to her chest.
“Gimme a second,” Jane says, chewing thoughtfully. “God, these are good.”
“Can I–?” August stomach growls to finish the sentence.
“Yeah, here,” Jane says, holding a dumpling up on the end of a plastic fork and opening her mouth, indicating August do the same. She does, and Jane shoves the entire overstuffed dumpling in and laughs as August struggles to chew, reaching over to wipe sauce off her chin. “You gotta eat it all in one.”
“You’re so mean to me,” August says when she manages to swallow.
“I’m showing you how to eat dumplings the right way!” Jane says. “I’m being so nice!”
August laughs, and— God. She has to stop picturing what they look like to every other commuter: a couple laughing over takeout, ribbing each other on the ride to Manhattan. There’s a couple down the car, a man and woman, wrapped around each other like they’re trying to fuse by osmosis, and August hates that part of her wants to be them. It’d be so easy to slide her hand into Jane’s.
Instead, she pulls a notebook from her bag and a pencil from her hair, where it’s been holding a frizzy, half-assed updo in place all morning.
“Let me know if anything comes to you,” August says, shaking her hair out. It falls down her shoulders, her back, everywhere. Jane watches her try to contend with it with a bemused expression.
“What?” Jane says vaguely.
“Like, if you remember anything.”
“Oh,” she says, blinking. “Yeah.… It was this tiny place on Mott, my favorite dumplings in the city—I went there once or twice a week, at least. I think I was in Chinatown a lot, even though I lived in Brooklyn. It was easy to just take the Q to Canal.”
“Okay,” August says, taking a note.
“But I fucked up. I slept with a cook’s ex-girlfriend, and she found out and let me have it next time I came in, and I couldn’t go back after that. But, shit, it was worth it.”
The detective side of August contemplates a follow-up question, but the side of her that wants to live to see tomorrow decides against it.
“All right,” August says, not looking up from her notepad. “A restaurant in Chinatown that serves dumplings. There are only, like… five million of those.”
“Sorry,” Jane says, returning to her to-go box. “You can narrow it down to the ones that were open in the ’70s?”
“Sure, assuming they’re still operating, and have employment records going back that far, I could maybe get a name for that employee and maybe track her down and maybe she’ll know something.” August puts her pencil down, looks at Jane finally—who is staring at her with cheeks stuffed full of dumpling and a startled expression—and prays she survives this. “Or, we could get you to remember this girl’s name.”
“How’ll we do that?” Jane says through a mouthful of pork and dough.
August looks at her puffy cheeks and swoopy hair and blows right through every piece of mental caution tape to say, “Kiss me.”
Jane chokes.
“You—” Jane coughs, forcing it down. “You want me to kiss you again?”
“Here’s the thing,” August says. She’s calm. She’s totally calm, just doing casework. It doesn’t mean anything. “It’s April. The Q shuts down in September. We’re running out of time. And the other day—when we kissed—that worked. It brought back something big. So, I think—”
“You think if you kiss me, it’ll bring this girl back like it brought back Jenny?”
“Yeah. So. Let’s…” August thinks back to what they said last time. “Do it for research.”
“Okay,” Jane says, expression unreadable. “For research.”
