Page 124 of ClickBack

Mom watches me smile at it.

“Have you talked to him?” she asks.

“About the hat?”

“Jarrett.”

“Not about this.”

“He’d listen.”

“I don’t need him worrying about me right now.”

She reaches for her glass. “He might prefer hearing from you to guessing.”

I put the phone down. I have heard enough versions of that sentence this week to stop trying to beat it.

Mom lets me eat a little more before she asks, “What’s she like?”

I look up.

“Giselle. I can find out her age without you driving down here.”

“She’s funny.”

“That tells me very little.”

“She beat me at an arcade basketball game in front of a bunch of kids. Still brings it up.”

“By how much?”

“One.”

Mom smiles into her glass. “All she needed.”

“Apparently.”

I cut another piece of chicken. I could tell her Giselle has a business, a daughter, a grandson, all the information people have already pulled apart. Instead I tell her about the CD at the night market and the car Giselle defended like I had offered to have it crushed.

“Paid for, all-wheel drive, reliable,” I say.

“Sounds like she gave you a complete answer.”

“She also has an iPod.”

“So do I.”

“Since when?”

“Since I bought one. You think I threw away everything you stopped using?”

I laugh, and it feels strange enough that she notices. She doesn’t interrupt it.

“She has these little things she buys and saves,” I say. “For later. For somewhere she might go. Then she talks herself out of using them.”

Mom listens while I try to explain without telling her anything Giselle trusted me with in bed. I tell her about the skates instead. How good Giselle was once she stopped worrying about falling. How she laughed when I nearly took us both out.

“You took her skating?”