Spoonbenders

Johnny’s had just opened for lunch. She wasn’t hungry, but she ordered fries to be sociable. He ordered the combo and carried it back to the table in wonder.

“I can’t believe this is allowed by state law. You can’t just put a pile of shaved beef—”

“Italian beef,” she said.

“Italian beef on top of a sausage—”

“Italian sausage.”

“Right, and then they just let you eat it?”

“In Chicago,” she said, “meat is a condiment.”

Food was a safe topic. As were weather, traffic, air travel, and everything else they didn’t want to talk about. She wanted to ask him if he’d spent as much time picking out his clothes this morning as she did; if she looked like, sounded like what he expected; if he was as nervous and giddy as she was. But all that was off the table, by her own decree. When Joshua finished the combo (and he did finish it, sopping up the juice with the last of the soggy bun and popping it into his mouth like a born Southsider), she realized that even with the drive back and the walk through security, they had an hour to fill and nothing to fill it with.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done this.”

“What are you talking about? I’m glad—” He stopped himself. No feeling words.

“See?” she said. “I’m a basket case.”

He thought for a moment. Then he reached across the table and put his hand over hers.

“No talking, then,” he said. “Let’s just look at each other. And later—”

“Later we can say everything online,” she said.

“Like good online Americans,” he said, and she laughed.

“You can keep holding my hand, though,” she said.

“I should really go wash off the grease.” And that was the truth.

They drove back in a silence that was thoroughly drowned out by the roar of blood rushing through her. There was something she needed to tell him before he went, something that could end the relationship before it started. After shuffling through the metal detectors, they walked hand in hand through the terminal to his next gate.

“I have to tell you about who I am,” she said. “About my family.”

“I know all about the Amazing Telemachus Family,” he said.

She stopped, let go of his hand. “You do?”

“I asked around, and a friend of mine knew all about you. I figured you were waiting for me to look you up. When you finally told me your last name, you made it sound notorious.”

“I did not.”

He gave her an amused look. “Am I lying?”

He wasn’t. She felt a hot dread, nine-year-old Irene stepping before the cameras.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“Without using feeling words?” His voice was amused, his eyes kind. She couldn’t see a hint of the disdain she’d imagined.

“Right,” she said. “Rules.” She put her arm through his, and they resumed walking.

“I do have a lot of questions, though,” he said.

“Let’s talk about it later,” she said. Everything was easy in front of the screen, their words zipping effortlessly between the satellites. They’d talked about his divorce, her near-marriage to Lev, his stressful job and her mind-numbing one. Mostly they’d talked about their children. He had joint custody of his ten-year-old daughter, Jun, and worried about the effects of the divorce on her. Irene fretted about Matty, master of sulking and secrecy, who was spending an inordinate amount of time alone in his room.

LAST DAD STANDING: You can’t worry about it. Kids are like that.

IRENE T: You have a daughter who tells you everything.

LAST DAD STANDING: Matty’s a teenage boy. I never told my parents anything, and look how I turned out. Divorced, in therapy…Oh wait. You should worry.

IRENE T: You’re in therapy?

LAST DAD STANDING: Was. I’ve kind of slacked off lately.

IRENE T: Maybe I should get Matty a therapist. When I talk to him, I feel like it’s a cross-examination.

LAST DAD STANDING: Permission to treat teenager as a hostile witness, your honor.

IRENE T: Exactly!

Her family’s history in the psi business had been the only topic she hadn’t had the courage to bring up, and now that he’d hauled it into the light she couldn’t believe she’d held on to the secret so long. The thing about skeletons was, you never knew how much space they were taking up in the closet until you got rid of them.

Right now she needed to walk without words, arm in arm with a handsome man who was inexplicably willing to put up with her insane demands, who was not freaked out by her history as a pint-size mind reader.

A man who was about to leave her.