“You know I’m not on social media.”
Opal’s face softened. “You’ve got to get out there, buddy.”
“Just because Aubrey ate up your life with her stupid Instagram feed,” Nina added, “doesn’t mean you need to get off social media forever. Insta will always take you back.”
Aubrey’s dreams of being an influencer had replaced Sullivan’s life with a fake, glittering facade. Everything staged. Everything filmed a dozen times until Sullivan’s smile was sexy enough, her shoulders were straight enough, and any finger cotsshe’d incurred in the process of chopping through the hard skins of butternut squash were hidden.
“I hated social media, even before Aubrey.”
“Just because you fumbled at the line-out doesn’t mean you can’t get back on the pitch,” Opal said gently.
Nina fluttered her fingers in Opal’s direction in affectionate dismissal. “No one knows what that means.”
“I mean go out. Have fun. Maybe meet someone at a bar,” Opal said. “Skip that HOA meeting and come to the Tennis Skort tonight.”
“The Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting is a nice way to connect with people.” Sullivan regretted the statement the moment it left her mouth.
Opal wanted her to meet someone, but Sullivan didn’t need that. She just needed to get out, see a few people, make small talk. That was as close to dating as she needed to get, even if sometimes her body ached for a person’s touch and the house echoed with emptiness. She was lonely at night, but that meant there was no one filming a carefully constructed version of her life, a life where Sullivan and Aubrey had always been happier than other couples. And if Sullivan did tear up, it was carefully edited for maximum pathos. After all, one of Aubrey’s biggest influencer rivals got ten thousand comments when their parakeet died. You could sell sadness but only in small doses in the right lighting.
“Connect with people,” Nina groaned. “The Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting is where your sexuality goes to die. Remember you took me once? Said we just had tostop by. It was two hours before they got to your agenda item. What was it? Moss abatement?”
“Do you know how many species of beneficial insects die if they use Moss Out!?”
“If you think the neighborhood meeting is where you meet people,” Nina said, “your vagina will suck back into your body, close its doors, and die.”
“I have to go tonight. They’re reconfirming the Bois as green space for another two years.”
The Bois (French for forest) was the undeveloped land at the center of the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood and directly between Sullivan’s house and her restaurant. Every morning and every evening she followed a narrow path through the woods. As a child, she’d explored the Bois under her grandfather’s loving eye.Did you know that a newborn opossum is the size of a jellybean? Doesn’t the stairstep moss look like a tree in a Japanese painting? An epiphyte is a plant that grows on another plant without hurting it. That’s how we should all be, Alice.(Only her grandfather called her by her first name.)
“Is something going on?” Nina got that gleam in her eye that said,Can we sue someone?
“It’s just a formality. They’ll confirm its status for two years. By then the Oakwood Greenbelt Land Trust will have enough money to buy it and make it green space permanently.” That was Sullivan’s promise to her grandfather. He had protected the land for fifty years. She would protect it forever. “It’s slow, but we’re getting there.”
“Your grandpa would be so proud of you,” Opal said.
“But you’re not thinking of thisformalityas your social life.” Nina wasn’t asking. She was commanding.
“You two are my social life.”
“Dating life,” Opal amended for Nina. “Hey, I know! My cousin’s coming in from Savanah. She’s queer. Why don’t you take her out.” Seeing Sullivan’s look, Opal added, “Just as friends. Or that nice guy who comes into the restaurant and eats alone. He likes you.”
“No cousins. Definitely no customers.” Sullivan laughed. “Ifyou keep it up, I’m going to makeyougo to the neighborhood association meeting. After they approve the green space, we’re talking about on-street parking and storm drains.”
Nina put her arm out in front of Opal as though protecting her from an attack.
“Opal’s our girl. You can’t do that to her.”
And the three of them were off, bantering back and forth about Sullivan’s bread dough and the trays of microgreens in her windowsills, Opal’s rugby team, and Nina’s latest divorce case in her life as attorney to the rich and dysfunctional.
An hour into their banter, Sullivan’s phone rang with a Miriam Makeba song, “Pata Pata.”
“Miss Brenda,” Opal said, recognizing the familiar ringtone.
Miss Brenda was Sullivan’s grandfather’s friend. The two of them swore they’d never been anything other than friends and fellow activists fighting for the earth and running their respective restaurants. They were still so perfect for each other, everyone put “friendship” in quotation marks when they talked about them. Or they had. When her grandfather was still alive.
Sullivan took the call on the porch. A moment later she returned.
“Speaking of storm drains, Miss Brenda’s green roof is leaking again.”
