SHMAC: STC is grasping. Everyone knows you have no financial interests and are supporting #FairGraduateAdmissions because you believe in it.
MARIE: I hate what they said about fair admissions being impractical. Who cares? We can and must do better.
SHMAC: Orally.
MARIE: ???
SHMAC: *Totally.
SHMAC: Sorry, speech to text. I’m driving.
MARIE: LOL!
MARIE: Where are you going? And, does it have to do with your best-then-worst-then-best weekend? And does that have to do with The Girl?
SHMAC: I’m taking her out for dinner.
MARIE: djhsgasgarguyfgquergqe
MARIE: (That was a keyboard smash, in case text-to-speech is failing you)
SHMAC: It was, thank you.
MARIE: I’m soooo happy for you, Shmac!
SHMAC: I am, too. Though she’s still a bit skittish.
MARIE: Skittish?
SHMAC: For valid reasons. But I don’t think she’s quite ready to admit it to herself.
MARIE: Admit what?
SHMAC: That I’m serious about this. That I’m in it for the long haul. Or at least for as long as she’ll have me.
I frown. Wait—isn’t the girl in a relationship? There’s no long haul unless she divorces, is there? I want to ask, but I wouldn’t want Shmac to think that I’m judging him for taking up with a married woman—I really don’t, especially since her husband sounds like someone I wouldn’t mind pushing down the Eiffel Tower stairs. I consider telling him that I, too, am going out for dinner—with Camel Dick, no less—but I hear a soft noise.
A little ball of red and gray is hovering in midair around the feeder, pretty wings beating happily at a fluttering rhythm. The first hummingbird of the year. “Hey, beauty.” He sticks his thin beak into one hole and leaves before I can take a picture. I watch him fly over the parking lot and notice Levi’s truck pulling up.
I run downstairs like I’m eleven and heading to the splash pad. “I got my first hummingbird!” I say excitedly, climbing into the truck. Levi has barely finished parking. “Red throat! I didn’t get a picture but they’re territorial, so he’ll be back. And I’ll have the coconut-ginger chickpea soup! My sister says that it’s uncool to read restaurant menus online, but I fully embrace my obsession with food....” I stop. Levi is staring at me open-mouthed. “I have hummingbird shit on my face, don’t I?”
He keeps staring.
“Do you have a tissue?” I look around the cabin. “Or even a piece of paper—”
“No. No, you don’t...” He shakes his head, lost for words.
“What’s wrong?”
“You...” He swallows.
“...I?”
“The dress. You wore... the dress.”
I glance at myself. Oh. Yes. I did wear my Target dress. “I thought you said you didn’t really hate it?”
“And I don’t.” He swallows. “I really don’t.”