Page 108 of Meet Me in the Garden

“What kind of man has Clément grown into?” Marty asks.

“He’s serious,” I say. “Always has been. And thoughtful and kind. Crazy about pigeons, just like Lionel. And you? What’s your life like? Where do you live now?”

“We’re in Bozeman.”

“Montana still?” I ask. “What’s that like for the two of you?”

“We’re stealth,” Marty says. “We’re at the center of it all. I play poker and drink whiskey with the husbands while Rose cooks and gossips with the wives.”

“Hey, we drink whiskey, too,” Rose says, pushing Marty with her shoulder.

“Are you terrified, all the time?” I ask.

“No,” Marty says.

“Sometimes,” Rose says. “We sound like we’re joking but they’re our true friends. There’s a lot that we could lose.”

“But you aren’t lying,” Ginny says. “You aren’t pretending to be something you’re not.”

Jeremy cocks his head. “Not sure the good people of Bozeman would agree.”

“We’re very careful,” Rose says. “All Marty’s doctors are still here, in LA. He won’t even see a dentist back home.”

“It seems like a lot of effort,” Elise says. “When you could move back here without as much risk.”

“We love it in Montana. And Rose’s job keeps us there.”

Rose nods. “It’s nearly impossible to find tenure as a woman.”

“You work for the university?” Elise asks.

“I’m a film professor.”

“Oh no! And here I was talking about the polka-dot dress!”

“I agreed with you!” Rose smiles. “The costumes are very important to the film. They do so much character work. And they’re fantastic to look at.”

“I’ll have to find a screening,” Jeremy’s date says. She’s holding the Tarot cards again. “So how do we use these? Does anyone know?”

“I can do it,” I say, my hand outstretched, surprising even myself. Ginny smiles. I have no idea what I’m doing. I open the box, the deck slides into my hand. “Who’s going first?”

“Celine,” Jeremy says.

“Celine,” I say to his date, and she takes in a breath. Fragile, I see now. She’s going through something. I do an overhand shuffle, fan out the cards. “Pick one to start,” I say.

She picks one, sets it on the crate. We gather round it to see. A naked woman with blond hair, pitchers in each hand, water spilling out. She’s at the edge of a green field studded with red flowers. “All right,” I say. “You’ve been spending a lot of time mourning things you’ve lost. Watching parts of your life slip away, unable to do anything about it. Does that resonate?”

She glances at Jeremy. “I got out of a long relationship a few months ago. A boy I’d been with since just after high school. It was for the best, but it’s still an adjustment.”

I turn back to the card. “That’s a lot of time that you were together. So many experiences and years that you’ll need to come to some kind of peace with. But look closely at the flowers, blooming all around. Do you see them? You’ve probably shed some tears during all of this. What’s going to grow? What might alreadybegrowing?” I flash a wink at Jeremy. Celine giggles. I place my finger on the card, a wave of feeling traveling through me. I take my time, let myself feel all of it. And then I say, “Look here. There’s a whole blue sky. All these stars above her. Aboveyou. Right now, you’re looking at what you’ve lost, and that’s all right. There’s a lot to be found in reflecting. But when you’re ready to look up? Just imagine.” I tip my head. Around me, hushed, everyone else does, too, and then we’re all gazing at Ginny’s stucco ceiling, at the glass light at the center, at possibilities so vast we can’t even name them.

THIRTY-FIVE

ACOUPLE WEEKS LATER,I follow Ginny home from work after her final shift. The days are getting warmer, longer. She pours chilled tea from a jar she brewed last night. We sit at her table, fan running, careful not to touch each other. I feel her protecting her heart. I want to protect it, too. She tells me about her childhood in the restaurant. Peeling garlic bulbs with her brother after school, heavy blocks of cheese and jugs of cream, slabs of meat hanging in the walk-in, sauce cooking on the stove for hours. She’d clear invoices and time cards off the desk in her parents’ office, make just enough room to do her homework until she was called out to help.

“My favorite waitress was named Esme,” she says. “She had a very long neck, carried a pencil behind her ear even though I never saw her write down an order. She was quick and knew all the regulars by name. She’d offer me puffs of her cigarettes out back sometimes. Gave me cuts of her tips when I helped bus her tables. My first crush, probably.”

She sips her iced tea, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.