Jane gently traced the letters lightly with her finger. Teddy was ticklish, and he squirmed and giggled.
In order to avoid asking about St. Louis, Jane talked more than usual about her job. She told him about Bert and Julie Robin—Teddy was Teddy, so the NDA could be ignored—and how their love had been sustained over fifty years and was still going strong, in spite of Julie’s decline.
“That’s great. I want that,” Teddy said.
Jane could tell Teddy was genuinely moved by the story—he had an inherent sweetness that she loved. Yes, loved. It was scary to admit, but there it was.
“Teddy, I don’t want you to go.” Jane blurted this out, then looked at him apprehensively, trying to gauge his response.
“Yeah, a part of me really wants to stay.”
“So why don’t you?”
“I don’t know—if I was to stay, I was thinking maybe I’d geta full-time job in postproduction, but that’s such a ladder, and I’m in my thirties, can I deal with that? What do you think?”
Under the table, Jane nervously twisted the napkin on her lap. “I think you should do whatever you want to do, we’re still young, you should still try pursuing the stuff that interests you.”
“So you don’t think I should look for a full-time gig?”
“You should do what makes you happy.”
“Wow, Jane, who are you?” Teddy punctuated his incredulous look with a belly laugh.
“Just me. Same Jane as always.”
“Same Jane, only completely, totally different. Anyway, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels here and maybe it’s time to really, you know, get my shit together.”
“You could do that here, though. Maybe I could help?”
“That’s the thing, Jay, I don’t want you to help me get my shit together. I want to do it on my own. And I sometimes think maybe you’re more into this idea of who you want me to be, who you think I should be, than who I already am.”
“Teddy, I know—I know I can be hard on you, and I know it’s not good, but I’m really trying to change.”
“Ah, Jane, we’re both trying.”
“Teddy, I love you.”
“I love you, too, Jay.”
“I want to give us a real shot. I want you to move back in.” It was both terrifying and freeing to state this so plainly.
Teddy was silent, pensive. Whatever languor Jane had felt earlier had been supplanted by an aching, electric need.
“I love you, too, Jane, I really do. It’s great that you say this, it’s really nice to hear—I only wish you had said all that a lot sooner.”
Jane looked down at her plate. “So do I.”
“Maybe it’s too late, you know? It’s a new decade, time to reboot. If I leave, that’s not necessarily forever, either.”
Jane couldn’t think of anything more to say, so she reached over, grabbed his hand, and held it tight.
When she returned home, alone, Jane went to the detached garage.
Earlier, she had placed Julie Robin’s album on a shelf, displacing a stack of sweaters. Julie’s tender gaze was haunting. Jane looked at all the artifacts in the room: the clothes, the accessories, the carefully curated objects. Jane imagined what it would feel like to light a match and burn all of it to the ground.
She realized she was pacing in small circles, constrained by the footprint of the garage. She didn’t need to burn it down—that was binary thinking, either/or. She could enjoy this stuff without being subsumed by it. In fact, weren’t some of them talismans that she could study to guide her going forward? She could cull, perhaps more importantly, she could stop acquiring new stuff, but she could also keep the things she wanted to keep—and she could even let herself enjoy them.
She took Julie Robin’s album off the shelf.
