Chapter 2

I woke up later than usual on Saturday morning and decided to do a load of laundry. One silver lining of the new work schedule was that the company put me up in a studio apartment rather than a boring hotel room. Not that I really used my kitchenette for much other than to heat up leftovers, but the extra space and appliances were a welcome addition.

I was just finishing up the folding around 11am when my phone rang. The display showed Jillian’s name.

“Jillian! Welcome to Tulsa!”, I answered.

“Georgie! How are you?”, I heard an excited voice respond.

“I’m good. Going a bit stir crazy in this town but surviving. Where are you at now?”

“We just checked in at the hotel. Are you coming to the show tonight?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. What time does it start?”

“Curtains at 630pm but I need to be there by two to run through the sets and all the other stuff. You remember the drill I’m sure.”

“Haha yes. Good times.”

“Hey what are you doing for lunch? Wanna grab a quick bite?”

“Sure, are you up for Chipotle? There’s one just down the street from your hotel and it has a nice outdoor patio.”

“Oooh yes. It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to eat out again, what with the kids and the pandemic and everything.”

“Great. See you in an hour!”

“Can’t wait.”

I arrived at the Chipotle a few minutes early and found a nice table outside on the patio. It was the early days of summer, so the weather was pleasantly warm but not overbearing. I busied myself checking sports scores on my phone as I waited.

I spotted her out of the corner of my eye from about 100 yards away. Jillian never really walked anywhere casually - she was always striding with purpose. That had not changed. I watched with amusement as this bundle of energy bounded up the steps wearing a blue and white striped blouse with a pair of mom jeans.

I held out my arms and she hugged me tight. It felt good to hold her again after so long. The pandemic had really helped me better appreciate the small pleasures that basic human contact brought to my life.

“Oh Georgie, it is so good to see you again. It’s been too long!”, she finally spoke after nearly a minute of crushing me with her embrace.

“You too Jill, have you lost weight?”, I asked. I couldn’t actually tell if she had, but I know this is almost always a safe ice-breaker.

She gave me a raised eyebrow as she giggled.

“You couldn’t tell even if I had”.

“Guilty!”, I confessed. “But you do look good though.”

“Enough flattery, I’m starving. The stuff on the plane was absolutely inedible. Can we go order?”

We went inside and placed our orders. Carnitas for her and Barbacoa for me, both in burritos. We collected the orders and sat back down on the patio to dig in.

“So how have you been keeping?”, I asked between bites. “How are Rick and the kids?”

She hesitated for a second before answering, as if trying to decide how to respond.

“They are doing good. Well, physically at least.”

I could sense something more.

“But?”, I prompted.

She put her burrito down for a second and sighed.

“But Rick is really stressing me out. He’s become one of those hardcore anti-vaxxers. I’m constantly worried about him getting sick, and now about him losing his job too. And it really stresses out Lauren too - she wants to get her shots when she turns 12 next month but she’s worried what her dad will say. So yeah...”, she trailed off.

I shook my head gently.

“That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Ah well, it’s what it is. What about you? How’s Amanda?”

“Oh she’s fine. A bit stir crazy after having me underfoot at home for a full year, so I guess she’s glad I’m back on the road now!”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you guys”, she said with a tinge of wistfulness.

We ate for a bit in silence, enjoying the gentle breeze and the company. I looked up and saw she had a smudge of sauce on her cheek.

“You’ve got something on you...”, I pointed out.

“Oops, where?”, she asked as she pawed at the wrong side of her face.

“No, the other side!”

She moved her hand further up still on the wrong side.

I laughed and reached out to wipe the spot with my finger, holding it up in display.

“There we go, got it!”

She looked at me for a second and then gently pulled my finger towards her. She looked me straight in the eye, stuck out her tongue and then licked the sauce of my finger.

I laughed a bit awkwardly.

“Haha, that’s one way of doing it I guess.”

She blushed slightly but quickly grinned.

“Didn’t want to waste a drop of the delicious sauce!”

“You know, I’m a real stick in the mud. I always get the Barbacoa even though I’ve been tempted to order Carnitas a few times. Is it that good?”

“You’ve never had the Carnitas? Here, try some...”. She held out the burrito to me and gestured for me to take a bite. I hestitated for a brief instant, but then leaned forward and took a big bite. It was indeed pretty damn good.

We eased back into our old ways as we ate, as if the intervening years had just not happened. We chatted, we laughed and we teased like only old friends who have no pretensions between them can.

A while later, Jillian looked at her phone.

“Shit, I need to go. The bus is leaving for the theatre in 15 minutes. Can we continue this chat after the show?”

“Of course. I’ll have the rental with me so maybe we can head out to dinner directly from there?”

“Perfect!”, she exclaimed as she jumped up from her seat. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek quickly and then turned to head out. I watched her stride away, her butt bouncing around at the back of her jeans, and for the first time in many years felt a pang for what might have been.

The show went well. It was a charity event of some sort, so there was a reasonable crowd and I was pleasantly surprised by the production quality for this semi-professional production. It wound up around 8pm and I took a seat in the foyer to wait for Jillian to finish with everything backstage.

She emerged a few minutes later, having changed back into the same outfit she had been wearing at lunchtime.

“Did you enjoy it?”, she asked excitedly as she approached me.

“It was excellent”, I replied sincerely. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to watch you on stage.”

“You flatterer”, she laughed as she punched my arm gently. “I’m starving though, have you decided what we’re doing for dinner?”

“How does Chinese sound? There’s a place not too far away.”

“Yes! Rick hates Chinese so we never order it at home. I’m definitely up for that.”

We headed over to the restaurant and ordered our meals, deciding to share family style for convenience. We also ordered a bottle of wine between us, which arrived quickly. We clinked glasses and took our first sips.

“So back home tomorrow?”, I asked.

“Yeah. Flight in the early afternoon. Too short a trip unfortunately”, she replied.

“Well, it’s always good to be home though”, I countered.

She gave me a strange look, as if weighing up what she wanted to say.

“Honestly, I don’t know about that. It’s been difficult for the last few years anyway, ever since we lost little Charlie, but Rick has gone more and more right field with his conspiracy theories and now the anti-vax stuff. We all have to walk on egg shells around him, and I can see that Lauren struggles with that. She was such a bright and inquisitive girl, but between the pandemic and her dad she seems to have withdrawn somewhat into her shell. And as a mom, that really breaks my heart.”

She sniffed and wiped away the beginning of a tear with her napkin. I squeezed her other hand in support.

“I hope it’s not anything like, uh, the stuff you had to deal with, uh before?”. I struggled to find the right words to refer to the incident with the abusive ex-boyfriend.

To my surprise, she giggled and took a big sip of wine.

“No, absolutely not. Rick isn’t capable of anything physical like that. He’d rather just be miserable to everyone and channel his frustrations that way. Not like Darren who just needed to be violent to compensate for his tiny dick!”

“Yikes!”, I said. “Strong words!”

She giggled again and took a big gulp of her wine.

“I’m serious Georgie. It’s always the guys with the tiny pricks that are the real fucking assholes. Tiny dicks are not something you have a problem with though if I recall some of our teenage activities”, she joked.

I blushed.

“Well, I can’t claim to be anything above average, but I don’t recall any complaints!”

She giggled again and drained her glass, pouring herself another one.