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Lukas couldn’t afford to lose both of us, but he could lose one of us My heart gave a lurch I needed lanced at Jackie, as sucking again on her unfiltered cigarette
They say a wos to the hairstyle she hen she was happiest Jackie must have been ecstatic when Jon Bon Jovi and Van Halen rocked the charts, her thin blonde hair parted down theit layered didn’t do it justice) and highlighted and sprayed to the crispy, fragile texture of spun sugar She wore jeans to work, sometimes with pleats, and topped them ashed-soft Henleys in various shades of pink The photo atop her box was froht of her life, when she scored VIP tickets to a Def Leppard show and got someone to snap a shot of her with the band The dru his one arh he’d just told her a delicious secret
With Jackie Everett, all of your assumptions were correct Frank never tried to push her fro in for three decades Her as always good, and anyway, he liked her style Ittold ht
And under which light did he see ht my reflection in thebeside me Blonde helmet bob, dated power suit, makeup applied to conceal the evidence of interrupted sleep and too much coffee Neither of us fit into that sleek office with its neon brightness Only youth could handle its scrutiny
Jackie yanked a s out of her backpack and unwrapped her sandwich She paused, waiting for h my purse for my bento box "Shit," I said "I ran out of the house so quickly I forgot to bring sohtly when she caught the harshness in her tone We’d shared lunch plenty of ti more I’d always joked that Jackie was ht brought on a wave of sadness Not the Big Kahuna of grief, but a breaker that drewto counter the uneasiness between us "Thanks, but I’ll just buy so toward the white tents "Can’t be too bad, right? Fresh, local--"
"Expensive," Jackie finished
"I’h my purse and thankfully found my wallet "Wish me luck," I said, but she just nodded, her mouth full
The view fro with vitality, healthy-looking, sun-kissed vendors conducted brisk business with the hordes of doorkers on lunch breaks Cheese, oods-- seeave the i lives that were better, richer,
"What are you looking for?" called a wohtly colored housedress over a pair of destroyed jeans She’d piled her bright enta curls atop her head and secured thehtly "Just browsing"
"You can be browsing with purpose," she said, grinning back She wasan eyetooth, and I felt shairl went on in a singsongy voice "We’ve got every little thing you need"
Oh, yeah? I wanted to shout You’ve got e son who doesn’t seethe with unexpressed anger? You’ve got all that hanging out with the asparagus and early onions?
She separated out a bunch of vibrant greens, tied theth of raffia, and tossed them on the table between us "What about these?"
"What are they?" I snapped