It Takes Two, page 18
“That’s good,” Glen tells her, his arm reaching around and pulling her close, away from the breeze. “Because it is.” A blast of warmth goes through her as she tucks her head against his shoulder and soon feels his fingers stroking through her thin strands of short hair that flutter in the heavy breeze.
“Have you told your mom about us yet?” he asks her after a moment.
“I did actually. Just the other week.”
“Can I meet her soon?”
She gives him a funny look, turning her head against his hand that drops away from her hair and down to her shoulder. “Well, I think that would be a bit difficult since she does live in another state.”
“I know, I mean when she comes to visit.”
“She doesn’t really come to visit.”
Glen’s brows furrow. “Well… I mean, when are you going to see her again?”
“I don’t… I don’t really know for sure. I was going to call her again once school’s over.”
Still, Glen looks thrown off. “So you just… you don’t talk to her that much?”
“She’s not a very talkative person,” Jazzy explains. “We never really talked much when I lived with her. We didn’t really need to, I guess. We both knew what was going on and just went about our business. But now… I don’t know; it’s just so weird. It’s difficult to hold conversations for too long over the phone.”
“So you don’t talk at all?” he questions, his face still riddled with disbelief and concern.
Jazzy huffs in frustration as she tries to think of a way to describe this to him as she sits up, turning to face him.
“Look, it’s sort of hard to explain. It’s always been like this; this is just how we work together. Besides, what about your parents?” she points out to him, her voice changing to a more offensive tone. “I don’t see you contacting them every day. Or at all.”
“That’s different,” he answers, apparently casting the issue off. “My parents don’t like me.”
Jazzy is quiet at first, jolted at his words. “Why don’t they like you?”
“Lots of different reasons,” Glen answers without hesitating as she assumed he would. “We never agree on anything, we always fight, they don’t like the kind of person I am. And I don’t much care for them either. Therefore, no contact needs to be made.”
He blinks at her as she gives him a look.
“Unless they want to send me money. Which I gladly accept.”
She wants to be annoyed with him, but she suddenly can’t help but laugh. Glen’s stoic expression melts into an amused grin as Jazzy’s head collapses into her hands.
Still, an undeniable tension lingers between them on the subject. And she doesn’t like it. So they move on to talking about something else.
***
Hello Jazmine,
Hope you had a good weekend. If you are still interested, I would love it if you could come back in sometime this week so we can work out scheduling for the part-time page position we discussed. If you have any internship paperwork from your school, you may bring that along as well so that we can…
Jazzy nearly jumps up and down in the elevator Monday morning, only barely stifling a cry of triumph as she tries not to let her phone slip from her trembling hand. She’s thankful no one is in here with her, but at the same time, she doesn’t think she’d be able to contain herself even if the entire elevator was full.
After her classes and after attaining the necessary papers she needs for the internship, Jazzy immediately takes a bus back over to the library to meet with the manager. After everything is worked out, she tells Jazzy to be back here at nine o’clock on the first Tuesday of her summer break to get started with her orientation.
Friday arrives after a semi-stress-free week, filled only with the excitement of finally feeling at least somewhat secure in something, and Jazzy is soon on her way to a bar not far down the street to meet up with Liza and her friends once the evening arrives.
Liza had texted her to ask her to go out for drinks a couple of nights ago, telling her that Amanda would be buying. Jazzy has no idea how Amanda is going to act toward her, given that she had been the one to essentially rat her and Glen out to Liza. But obviously Liza and Amanda are speaking again, so that's maybe a good sign.
Liza greets her like an old friend after she’s entered the mellow little bar. Amanda and her two friends are sitting up at the polished-wood counter and seem to be giving her pleasant expressions as she sits down.
“Good God, girl,” Liza huffs as Jazzy settles herself in, “I haven’t seen you in ages. How’ve you been?”
“Things are… going better and better every day,” Jazzy answers honestly.
“Good good.” Liza takes a sip from her drink as her eyes remain on Jazzy. “And things with Glen?”
Jazzy’s mouth hangs open for a moment at the question, and it seems the other girls are surprised by it too, given the loud silence that follows.
“They’re… good,” Jazzy slowly answers.
This is when Amanda, who had previously been sitting quietly furthest from Jazzy, now speaks up, leaning forward onto the bar as she gazes across at her. “So, everything’s cool between us, right?” she asks, her tone friendly and completely un-bitter. “Because I just want you to know I am completely not harboring any anger or resentment over all the drama, and I just wanna move past it all, if you’re cool.”
While trying to decide if maybe she should apologize for something or not, Jazzy quickly just nods and smiles over at Amanda.
“Of course,” she assures her. “That’s what I want too.”
“Great!” Amanda beams at her, raising her glass. “Well, now we can all drink and talk the night away without any worries.”
Jazzy orders a random drink on the menu she’s obviously never tried, and Liza seems impressed.
“Damn. The last time I went out with you, you were too young to have anything.”
“A benefit of turning twenty-one.”
Gasps resound from the other girls and Jazzy looks to them in puzzlement.
“You turned twenty-one and you didn’t tell any of us?” Amanda asks in an amazed voice.
“We could have thrown you a huge party,” one of the two other girls whines in disappointment. “That’s such a momentous occasion!”
Jazzy doesn’t know if she should be flattered or befuddled. She’s pretty sure she’s only seen the other two girls once and hardly even remembers their names. In fact, she’s kind of embarrassed that they weren’t re-introduced to her because she is not going to be able to recall either of them.
“What did you do for your big day?” Amanda asks her, taking a sip from the thin black straw of her bright-pink-colored drink.
“Oh, just went sightseeing around town,” Jazzy answers, staring down at her drink placed before her. She wonders if it’s safe to take a sip without having the reaction she had to the wine.
“By yourself?” one of the girls asks, her eyes narrowed and her lips forming a suggestive smile. Liza speaks up when Jazzy fumbles with the answer to that question.
“It’s okay, you can talk about Glen around me,” she reassures her. “Though I can’t imagine why anyone could stand being around him for more than five minutes.”
“Ugh, I agree,” Amanda groans loudly before giving a wide-eyed look to Jazzy. “I completely respect your life choices, don’t get me wrong. But I have to admit, he’s such a buffoon. Way too overbearing, like you always say, Liza.”
“I don’t think so,” Jazzy disagrees, her voice clear and firm, to her surprise. “I haven’t found anything overbearing about him.”
Amanda and the other two look toward Liza, as if waiting for her to respond. But Liza just shrugs and takes a sip of her drink, not saying anything at all. So the others go back to their drinks as well.
After taking a sip, Jazzy finds she quite likes the fruity drink she chose.
“So have you and Glen had sex yet?” Liza suddenly asks in the most casual tone. And then Jazzy does choke on her drink, only this time not due to the taste.
The girls all giggle as they watch Jazzy’s horrified expression.
“Oh, don’t be so prudish,” the dark-haired girl (Amber, she thinks?) says to her, leaning forward slightly. “It’s okay to talk about this sort of stuff with girlfriends.”
Jazzy just answers yes, quickly and shortly before looking away and back to her drink, while they all look at each other knowingly.
“Does he intentionally try to tickle your collarbone with his nose?” Liza asks, rolling her eyes. “He did that all the time with me.”
“Oh, my God,” the short-haired girl exclaims, “I had this one guy who used to make the weirdest hand motions when he tried to massage my boobs…”
The conversation quickly derails into laughing and trading stories about weird things guys would do during sex. Usually Jazzy would be uncomfortable, but she could not be more relieved at the change of spotlight. But the discussion soon turns back to Glen.
“Seriously, Liza, you are so much better off being single,” the tall, short-haired girl, whose name Jazzy catches is Julie, says with a pointed look before setting her glass down onto the bar and grabbing a handful of chips from the basket in front of them. “I’m seriously regretting this thing I got myself into with that guy from Bumble.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. Guys are the worst.”
Jazzy can admit Liza does seem very happy and self-sufficient as a single woman. And she certainly has no idea what the others’ experience with guys is compared to her own incredibly-limited ones. But she does also feel a sudden strong need to defend her boyfriend.
“Glen’s working as a production assistant on a movie,” she speaks up, her tone once again clear and confident. “He got me hired to be an extra and I got to see a professional film set. It was pretty cool.”
This seems to get them intrigued, or at least to cease their teasing.
“We filmed it on location too, not just a movie set,” she says, reaching into the second chip bowl the bartender sets down before her. “It was a big deal; they had to shut down a huge chunk of the entire area so regular people wouldn’t be in any of the shots. Glen was really professional too. His job is to help keep things running smoothly and everyone really loved working with him.”
Noting their continued shocked silence, she grins to herself as she munches on the lightly-salted tortilla chip. She’s never really been one to brag about things before. But it actually feels pretty good.
After picking up her drink, she turns to look casually over at Liza.
“Did Glen take you to any film sets when you two were together, Liza?” she questions before taking a prominent sip.
The girls are silent as they all turn to stare at Liza now. Liza narrows her hazel-toned eyes for a moment before she gives Jazzy a knowing and respecting grin. And soon, after a short lull of weighted silence, all five of them burst out laughing.
“I like your bitchy-mode,” Amanda tells her as Jazzy tries not to blush through her laughter.
“I told you guys!” Liza insists, slapping her palms against the bar top. “We just need to get this girl riled up. Another round, please!”
Chapter 20
“Hey, did you ever get that internship you were looking for?”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” Jazzy answers slowly, impressed that Zoey even cared or remembered.
“Oh wow.” Zoey gasps, her eyes brightening as she hands her the next stack of returned textbooks that Jazzy places on the table next to her in preparation for another round of marking and labeling to count in all the used books. “Nice! It’s gonna be so fun, I promise. It’ll go by so fast, you won’t even have time to stress. Are you staying and working here at the store through the summer?”
“Only part-time,” Jazzy answers, beginning to sort through the gathering of receipts. “Are you going to stay through the summer or just come back when next semester starts?”
“Actually, I’m quitting. Officially, once this semester ends. I just got a job at a research firm back home in Washington.”
Jazzy is actually stunned for a moment, amazed at how grown up and official and honestly scary that sounds. She also feels a pang of sadness. She hadn’t really realized how she had come to rely on Zoey’s guidance and company over the past few months.
“Oh… well, that’s great! I’m going to miss you.”
“Ah, don’t worry,” Zoey grins at her encouragingly. “Eugene is gonna stay through the summer and it isn’t quite as busy. And I hear they’re gonna hire on a few more people when next semester starts.”
Jazzy almost wants to tell her that isn’t what she meant, but she lets it go.
“So you’re not staying in San Francisco after graduation?” she asks instead.
“Oh, heck no. Way too expensive. I just wanted to come here for school; the plan was always to head back home.”
Jazzy quietly thinks to herself as she begins to look up each of the order numbers on the computer in front of her to check the textbooks back in.
She recalls once again how she never considered a plan beyond school. But moving out of the house, away from her mother, away from her town, had seemed so final. The official next step in her life. Though she never solidly planned to stay in California for the foreseeable future, she realizes she never once thought about going back to Washington.
“How did you get a job back in Washington?” she asks as she hears Zoey sorting through boxes of returned books in the back to prepare to put into the many storage shelves that fill almost the entirety of the backroom of the store.
“Just applied online. Interview and all. It’s so weird how much you can do over a computer lately, don’t you think?”
“Um… yeah,” Jazzy answers, unable to take her mind off its current train of thought. After a moment, she supposes Zoey can ascertain what she is thinking.
“What?” she asks with a ring of amusement, walking up beside her at the table, hefting up another box of sorted books. “Horrified at the thought of returning to the old Evergreen State?”
Jazzy is about to answer no, because of course she isn’t, but after she hasn’t found the words to respond with for a few seconds, she doesn’t know what to think.
“Hey, look,” Zoey says, making Jazzy turn back to face her where she is standing beside one of the shelves after placing the box down on the ground beside her. “I know your first couple years of college are a mess. And you don’t know what to do or think or where to go or how you’ll end up where you want to go, and all that. And… jeez, I’m probably not even the right person at all to be giving advice, but… I guess what I can leave you with is, just don’t try to base yourself off what anyone else is doing, you know? Don’t worry if other people look like they have it figured out and they’re miles ahead of you. Maybe they are, but they got there in their own way. And you will too, you know?”
Zoey doesn’t look overly impressed with herself at the speech, but Jazzy gives her a warm smile of gratitude at the somewhat comforting words all the same.
“Thank you.”
Zoey gives her a nod before they both turn back to their tasks, Jazzy still being unable to imagine herself ever leaving this place, in a weird way. Unable to see a future where she moves beyond the same role of student she’s played adequately all her life and actually achieves something close to what she has always hoped to be able to do one day. A dream that always seemed like nothing more than any other wish children make about what they want to be when they grow up, but that grows with more alarming proximity every day.
But there was also a time when she used to be unable to imagine herself ever graduating high school. And definitely a time she would never have imagined living by herself in an apartment in a city like San Francisco. And she remembers what Glen had told her back in the restaurant on the pier, words that accompany Zoey’s within the sudden whirlwind of her thoughts.
Imagine how much can still change in the future.
***
Glen arrives at the front of the building and can see the bus pulling away from the end of the street. Jazzy sees him as she’s walking back from the bus stop, and they run into each other’s arms.
“How did it go?” he asks as he looks down at her, relieved to see she looks so smiley.
“Fantastic!” she cheers. “God, it feels so good to finally breathe again.”
Today was the due date of her big research project she has been working on and stressing over pretty much ever since he met her. Thankfully she’s seemed to not be quite as stressed ever since securing her job at the library, but he knows she was still nervous this morning when she left for school about presenting the big final project to her class.
“I bet you were amazing.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I stuttered a couple times, and I’m sure I left a bunch of stuff out that I should have talked about, but…”
“But it’s over,” he reminds her, holding her close against his side as they walk back to the lobby. “And now you don’t have to worry about it ever again. And I get you all to myself for a little bit.”
“Not entirely,” she replies as they get into the elevator, and he hits the button to his floor. “What time do we have to leave?”
“In an hour, I guess. Shouldn’t take that long for the bus to take us across town.”
Filming for the movie, sparse as it has been, has unfortunately not returned to any place as exciting as the pier as of late. The last few scheduled days have been spent filming at various parks around the city, including today, the second-to-last shoot where the extras will be needed.
They get up to his apartment, where Glen begins to gather up all the papers and folders he needs to bring for today and Jazzy goes to change into the cute summer dress she laid out on his bed before she left this morning.
