Read Online Lemon Reef by Robin Silverman - Free Book Online Page B

giving guys blow jobs to get rides home from the beach and waking up at the bottom of empty pools without a clue how she’d gotten there. I was expected to show unqualified support and keep her confidences as if I’d sworn in blood. But my being in love with Del was something Katie did not feel the least bit obliged to try to understand. She didn’t take the relationship seriously, and she neither protected me from nor helped me with the judgments of others or my pain around the loss. I had never forgiven her for that.
    â€œNorma called me. She said you were coming home to go to Del’s funeral.” Katie laughed a little, shrugged sheepishly. “What can I say? She’s worried about you. She didn’t say it directly, but I think she’s hoping Gail and I will look out for you around Del’s family.” Katie’s face fixed curiously as she mumbled, “Not sure who’s gonna look after me and Gail.”
    In the background fresh coffee was brewing. The expanding aroma pushed aside the otherwise sterile smell of recirculated air and synthetic carpet. Magazines and newspapers lining the coffee-stand shelves hurled headlines of Bush’s lead in the primaries as the Republican nominee. On the other side of the dense glass walls, nimbus clouds gathered, and the August Miami air was thick with moisture. The atmosphere was daunting—a huge, invisible, saturated sponge. I began walking to the baggage claim, signs in both English and Spanish pointing the way.
    Katie fell in gracefully beside me. She held her wallet and keys in her hand, and her sunglasses were propped strategically on her head, serving simultaneously as an adornment and an incidental hair band. “You look great. You’ve lost weight?” She was referring to the thirty pounds I’d gained after Del and I broke up. “I don’t think I’ve seen you this thin since tenth grade.”
    â€œI lost it a long time ago.”
    â€œWell, we haven’t hung out since high school. I hear about you from Gail, but I should have called you or something.”
    â€œI haven’t been back much.”
    â€œNo, I know. Norma tells us your visits to Miami are basically layovers on your way to other places.”
    I laughed appreciatively at my mother’s pithiness. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but it was true. My body was stiff from the flight, and my backpack felt heavier than usual. As I rotated it to my other shoulder, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass wall. My light hair fell in crescents to my shoulders. My face was thinner, my cheeks more hollow. Seeing us side by side, I was surprised to realize at five foot six, I was almost as tall as Katie. She’d always been a lot taller than me. My jeans were bundled loosely at my waist and straight at my ankles, and I was wearing a fitted T-shirt with a long-sleeve button-down open over it. Although I characteristically looked younger than I felt, in that moment, it seemed unusually so. I looked as young, I thought, as Katie did.
    â€œSeems like you talk to my mother more than I do.”
    â€œShe comes into the deli where we work. And she knows I’m always glad for news about you.” She said this lovingly, and with a tinge of sadness.
    When I heard her regret, I stopped and waited.
    Katie pressed her lips together and stared at the ground, as if thinking about what to say next. “I’ve missed you, Jen Jen.” Both she and Gail called me that sometimes, and hearing her say it reminded me of how close I had been to her once. “I know you’ve been mad at me for a long time. I’m sorry I wasn’t more there for you.” Her blue eyes fixed on me from under long lashes, the earnestness of her apology making it seem as if we’d had the fight yesterday, as if nothing more important had happened in the last fifteen years. “Truth is, I didn’t know how to help you. I