“Then there was this week I thought I was pregnant,” Immie went on. “Jule, imagine. I’m an adopted kid. And there I am, pregnant with a kid I think I might have to put up for adoption. Or have aborted. The dad is a guy my parents met once and wrote him off as a party person—because of his color and his hairstyle the one time they met him—and I have no idea what to do, so I spend all week skipping class and reading people’s abortion stories on the Internet. Then one day I finally get my period and I text Isaac. He drops everything and comes over to my dorm room—and he breaks up with me.” Immie put her hands over her face. “I have never been as scared as I was that week,” she went on. “When I thought I had a baby inside me.”
—
That night, when Forrest came back from the fireworks, Imogen had already gone to bed. Jule was still awake, watching TV on the living room couch. She followed him as he rummaged in the fridge and found himself a beer and a leftover grilled pork chop. “Do you know how to cook?” she asked him.
“I can boil noodles. And heat up tomato sauce.”
“Imogen’s really good.”
“Yeah. Nice for us, right?”
“She works hard in the kitchen. She taught herself by watching videos and getting cookbooks from the library.”
“Did she?” said Forrest, mildly. “Hey, is there crumble left over? Crumble is necessary to my existence right now.”
“I ate it,” Jule told him.
“Lucky girl,” he said. “All right, then. I’m gonna go work on my book. Night is when my brain works best.”
One night, after Forrest had been staying with Jule in London for a week, he bought the two of them tickets to see A Winter’s Tale at the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was something to do. They needed to leave the flat.
They took the Jubilee line to the Central line to St. Paul’s and walked toward the theater. It was raining. Since the show didn’t start for an hour, they found a pub and ordered fish and chips. The room was dark and the walls were lined with mirrors. They ate at the bar.
Forrest talked a great deal about books. Jule asked him about the Camus he had been reading, L’Etranger. She made him explain the plot, which was about a guy with a dead mother who kills another guy and then goes to prison for it.
“It’s a mystery?”
“Not at all,” said Forrest. “Mysteries perpetuate the status quo. Everything always wraps up at the end. Order is restored. But order doesn’t really exist, right? It’s an artificial construct. The whole genre of the mystery novel reinforces the hegemony of Western notions of causation. In L’Etranger, you know everything that happens from the beginning. There’s nothing to find out, because human existence is ultimately meaningless.”
“Oh, it’s so hot when you say French words,” Jule told him, reaching over to his plate and taking a chip. “Not.”
When the bill came, Forrest took out his credit card. “My treat, thanks to Gabe Martin.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah. He pays the bills on this baby”—Forrest tapped the card—“till I’m twenty-five. So I can work on my novel.”
“Lucky.” Jule picked up the card. She memorized the number; she flipped it over and memorized the code on the back. “You don’t even see the bill?”
Forrest laughed and took it back. Pushed it across the bar. “Nah. It goes to Connecticut. But I try to stay conscious of my privilege and not take it for granted.”
As they walked the rest of the way to the Barbican Centre in the drizzle, Forrest held the umbrella over them both. He bought a program, the kind you can buy in London theaters that’s full of photographs and gives a history of the production. They sat down in the dark.
During the intermission, Jule leaned against one wall of the lobby and watched the crowd. Forrest went to the men’s room. Jule listened to the accents of the theatergoers: London, Yorkshire, Liverpool. Boston, General American, California. South Africa. London again.
Damn.
Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone was here.
Right now. Across the lobby from Jule.
He seemed very bright in the middle of the drab crowd. He had on a red T-shirt under a sport coat and wore blue-and-yellow track shoes. The bottom edges of his jeans were frayed. Paolo had a Filipina mom and a white hodgepodge American dad. That was how he described them. He had black hair—cut short since she’d seen him last—and gentle-looking eyebrows. Round cheeks, brown eyes, and soft red lips, almost puffy. Straight teeth. Paolo was the type of guy who travels around the world with nothing more than a backpack, who talks to strangers on carousels and in wax museums. He was a conversationalist without pretension. He liked people and always thought the best of them. Right now he was eating Swedish Fish from a small yellow bag.
Jule turned away. She didn’t like how happy she felt. She didn’t like how beautiful he was.
No. She didn’t want to see Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone.
She couldn’t see him. Not now, not ever.
She left the lobby promptly and headed back into the theater. The double doors shut behind her. There weren’t many audience members in there. Just ushers and a couple of elderly folk who hadn’t wanted to leave their seats.
She had to get out as quickly as possible, without seeing Paolo. She grabbed her coat. She wouldn’t wait for Forrest.
Was there a side exit somewhere?
She was running up the aisle with her jacket over her arm—and there he was. Standing in front of her. She stopped. There was no getting away from him now.
Paolo waved his bag of Swedish Fish. “Imogen!” He ran the last length of the aisle and kissed her cheek. Jule caught the whiff of sugar on his breath. “I am crazy glad to see you.”
“Hello,” she said coldly. “I thought you were in Thailand.”
“Plans got delayed,” Paolo said. “We pushed everything back.” He stepped back as if to admire her. “You’ve got to be the prettiest girl in London. Yowza.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. Woman, not girl. Sorry. Are people following you around, like with their tongues hanging out? How did you get prettier since I last saw you? It’s terrifying. I’m talking too much because I’m nervous.”
Jule felt her skin warm.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll buy you tea. Or a coffee. Whatever you want. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” She didn’t mean to say it. The words came out and they were true.
Paolo grabbed her hand, touching only her fingers. He had always been confident like that. Even though she’d rejected him, he could tell right away that she hadn’t meant it. He was supremely gentle and yet sure of himself at the same time. He touched her like the two of them were lucky to be touching each other; like he knew she didn’t very often let anyone touch her. Fingertip to fingertip, he led Jule back to the lobby.
“I only didn’t call because you told me not to call,” Paolo said, letting go of her hand as they stepped into line for tea. “I want to call you all the time. Every day. I stare at my phone and then I don’t call because I don’t want to be creepy. I’m so glad I ran into you. God, you’re pretty.”