Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“Eh … more like street fairs and methadone clinics, but yeah.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“Only a little bit. The rest was me being impressed.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t be.” Amina shook her head. “Anyway, I’m kind of on a break. I’m doing events now — weddings, anniversaries, quinceañeras. So do you just teach, or do you …” Jamie looked at her oddly. “I mean, not just teach,” she corrected hurriedly. “I’ve always heard that teaching is really hard. I just meant, do you work in the field too or something?”

He took a sip of beer, and it left a little foam wake on one side of his mouth. “It’s part of the reason I moved back, actually, to study the effects of the Sandia Casino and gaming culture on the authority of tribal elders.”

“Is that as sad as it sounds?”

“Not always. You’d be surprised. Either way, I try not to let it get to me.”

“And does that work?”

He leaned in and whispered, “I’m a trained anthropologist, you know.”

Soap and saltines. That’s what he smelled like, and something else, something she couldn’t quite name, but wanted to, the want itself such a persuasive force that she found herself guzzling half her bottle of beer to keep her face away from his neck.

“So what does it mean, you’re on a break from photojournalism? Was it a planned thing?”

“Uh, no.” Amina shifted.

“You got fired?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, I kind of fired myself.”

“What do you mean?”

What did she mean? Amina looked at the grass beyond his shoulder, surprised by the foreign feeling of wanting to tell him the truth. Like many people whose lives had formed around a particularly painful incident, she had grown used to providing ellipses around the event of her brother’s death to keep conversations comfortable. At some point, the subconscious logic of this had spread to the rest of her life so that she rarely talked about things she had been deeply affected by. It wasn’t hard to do. She’d certainly never felt bad about it before. And yet sitting here with Jamie, she had a pressing feeling she would miss out on something important if she didn’t at least try.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “Or, at least, I didn’t think it would be such a long time. I just took a picture … some pictures … they were hard for me. I guess I needed a little bit of a break afterward, but then the longer I didn’t do it, the harder it became to start again, so, you know.”

“But you’re still taking pictures.”

“Yeah, but they’re …” Amina stopped herself. He did not need a catalogue of her disappointments. “Yes, I am.”

“You seemed like you really enjoy it. The other night, at the wedding, I mean.”

“Oh, that was just relief. I think by the time you saw me I was pretty much done.”

“I saw you at the church.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. “You didn’t say hi?”

“I didn’t know if it was cool.”

There wasn’t a ton of light in the park, something that was only obvious now that night was settling in. A warm yellow, domestic glow emanated from some of the houses, but other than that, there was just a lone street lamp that buzzed on and off intermittently, casting Jamie, when she looked at him, in a sharp silhouette. He looked nothing like his sister. The thought sneaked up on Amina, and with it, the faintest flicker of Paige’s face, those cheeks that held the curve of stone fruits, Ming vases. She was on a date with the brother of the girl Akhil had loved.

“I can’t believe you’re a professor,” she said.

“My dad was a professor.”

“I know. But you hated teachers in high school.”

“ Hated is a strong word.”

“Mr. Tipton?”

“Oh yeah, I fucking hated that guy.”

They laughed. It felt good to laugh. It pushed the pressure from her head out into the cooling night, where it rose up through the branches to the two stars that had just become visible. Amina finished her beer and stared at it a second before deciding to lie back on the blanket.

Jamie bent over the bag. “You hungry yet? Want some corn nuts?”

“I’m good.”

“Okay.” He rustled through what seemed like the entire contents of the bag, while Amina prickled beside him. What was he doing? She should sit back up. She would count to five and then sit back up.

“I guess I don’t really want any either.” Jamie glanced back at her and then lay down, too. A cottony field of heat emanated from his forearm, pulling at her like gravity. She imagined herself rolling over, on top of him. She imagined the heat from him moving under her.

“So is it weird for you that I’m divorced?”

“What? No. Why?”

“You seemed a little freaked out earlier.”

“No! I mean, I haven’t been married before, so I don’t know. I guess it just seems really grown-up or something.”

“More grown-up than getting married?”

“Definitely.”

Jamie laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Is it weird being divorced?” What was she doing? Amina bit her lip too late.

Jamie paused, thinking. “I guess sometimes it’s weird. I don’t know. A lot less weird than being married to the wrong person.”

“How did you know she was the wrong person?”

“Wow, you’re really just sticking to the easy questions tonight, huh?”

Amina sat up, embarrassed. She was killing the moment. And for what? She needed to get ahold of herself.

“Do you want some M&M’s?” she asked.

“Sure.” Jamie stayed flat and she reached over him, feeling around the damp bottom of the paper sack and staring inadvertently at the zipper of his shorts, which protruded slightly. A pale seam of skin peeked between his waistband and T-shirt. Jamie cleared his throat. “We didn’t fight well.”

“What?”

“Me and Miriam. We were too mean.”

Amina tried not to smile. She did not like the name Miriam. She held up the M&M’s. “Hold out your hand.”

“What about you?” Jamie asked.

She wiggled a few candies through the wrapper into his palm, then her own. “What about me?”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

Amina felt herself blushing in the dark. “Not really.”

Jamie popped the entire handful of candy into his mouth, crunching loudly. “You ready for another beer?”

“Yeah, sure.” She didn’t actually want another beer, but it didn’t matter. She took the cool bottle he offered, setting it in the grass. They lay back at the same time, and this time their shoulders touched. Above them, the stars were soft and plenty.

“Hey.” Jamie’s voice vibrated through her collarbone. “How’s your dad?”

She had forgotten she had told him. “We don’t really know yet.”

“Tests?”

“Yeah.”

“I went through that a few years ago with my mom.”

“Oh yeah? How is she doing now?”

“She had stage-four breast cancer when we found it. She died a few months later.”

“Oh God, Jamie, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I mean, I hate that she got it, but I don’t mind that she went fast.”

There was something in his voice — a brittle tidiness — that made her uncomfortable. “My dad’s not really sick that way. I think it’s more of a depression thing with him.”

“So does that mean you’ll need to stay awhile?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Got it.”

Did he? Amina did not know and then it did not matter, because in the next second, Jamie propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her, the park light fanning around him like a halo. He pushed a strand of hair off her cheek, and in a blink she finally recognized him, the boy who used to sit across from her in English class, scowling into a paperback every time she opened her mouth.