“Yeah,” he said, setting the jar on the counter and fanning it with his right mitt. “Want one?”
Zadie gagged slightly. “No. I’m good.”
Joel shrugged and retrieved one of the warm, limp pickles fromthe jar and took a bite. It didn’t so much crunch as squelch. “Wanna watch TV or something?”
Zadie could feel bile rising in her throat. She tried breathing through her mouth. “Actually, I might go down to my car and listen to music for a bit.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Sure. But you have to leave the pickles.”
Joel didn’t object, but when Zadie turned toward the door, he grabbed one for the road.
“Blue hair looks rad on you.” Joel was holding a photograph inches from his nose. It was of a teenage Zadie and her mom jumping on a motel bed, their matching lapis-blue hair branching out around their heads like coral.
“Yeah. Not sure I could pull it off now.” Zadie was sitting cross-legged next to him in the back of the station wagon, thumbing through the box of Nora’s cassettes.
“I think you could.”
Zadie gave him side-eye, then plucked a cassette from the box and held it up for Joel to see.
He nodded approvingly. “Good with me.”
Zadie climbed over the console, popped the tape into the player, then settled next to him.
Joel flapped the photo as if he were waiting for it to develop. “I think me and your mom would have gotten along.”
“Why do you say that?” Zadie laughed.
“We’ve both got cool hair. Good taste in music. Magnetic personalities.”
“Inflated egos.”
“That, too.”
A piano began to play over the speakers. A few bars later, a voice joined it.
Hush, darling, hush
It’s almost dawn
The birds are singing
I must move on
“I love this song,” Zadie said. “Mom used to sing it to me all the time when I was young.”
“A little depressing for a kid, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think it’s depressing.”
“Isn’t it about a woman leaving her husband?”
“Well, yeah, but not because she doesn’t love him. It just isn’t working out and they both know it.”
“That’s depressing.”
“No, it’s sweet. Listen…”