He nodded.
“It was close,” he said.
14
I got back to the house after dark. I’d left Griffin at the restaurant to finish up for the day, took the car, and went to find myself a coat. I felt like I was in no position to wrap my head around all the new information that seemed to be insistently coming at me—from Jesse, from Griffin, from Gia—but a new, warmer coat: that I could handle. But as I drove though Williamsburg’s quiet streets—incredibly quiet, it seemed, only a handful of people outside—the only clothing store I could find was a small vintage shop, the lights already dimmed, looking mostly closed.
The saleswoman—sales teenager, more accurately—gave me a crazy look when I even walked inside. Or I thought she was giving me a crazy look, at least, but it was a little hard to make out her expression beneath her enormous, purple hat. Matching purple glasses.
“Hi there,” I said.
She nodded.
“It’s sleepy out there today, isn’t it?” I said.
“Well, it’s after five,” she said.
“Right, of course . . .” I said. Then I shook my head, confused. “Wait, what do you mean that it’s after five?”
She shrugged. “It’s the rule of five.”
For a minute I thought she too knew there was a new person in town (me) and was making a joke at the new girl’s expense. But then, when I started to giggle—trying to be a good sport—she didn’t join in.
“Why’s that so funny? It’s just the rule.”
She rolled her eyes, as if in complete disbelief that this didn’t clear up the entire situation for me.
“After five P.M., from November through March, you rarely see more than five people on the streets around here.”
“That’s a little like people walking around in Los Angeles, any time of the year,” I said.
I started to laugh. She, on the other hand, wasn’t at all amused. “Can I help you with something?” she said.
“Would you mind just pointing me in the direction of the winter coats?”
She nodded toward the back of the small store, and the only two coats she had left: a floor-length black wool coat with red and green sequined rhinestone hearts plastered all over it. In a small. And the same coat in an extra large.
When I walked into the house a little while later—in the cruel and enormous extra large version—I found Jesse at the kitchen table, still dressed in his suit. He was making his way through two six-packs of beer, and eating Chinese food straight from the array of take-out containers littering the table.
“Nice coat, lady!” he said.
I sat down across from him. “Not a good moment to start with me about it,” I said.
“Who’s starting with you? It’s badass.” It took me only half a second to see that he was serious. “Completely badass.”
Then he held a container in my direction. “Shrimp lo mein?”
I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m not hungry.”
“You sure?”
I looked in the container, the shiny, colorful noodles staring back at me.
“You’re right, I am.” I sighed. “I’m always hungry, apparently, even when I’m totally depressed. Which is why between the small coat and the extra-large one there wasn’t much of a contest.”
Jesse gave me a confused look. “I’m just going to pretend I followed that,” he said.
“Probably for the best,” I said.