Your supervisor know? Marcus asked. She knows I run long on follow-ups. Olivia said she hasn't asked me to define that. You do that for a lot of them.
The ones who don't have anyone else. She looked at her water. It's not a policy. It's just I can't not. Marcus looked at her across the table.
I'm trying to figure out how you're not already taken, he said. And I genuinely can't figure that out. It came out before he caught it. He watched it land on her face. Not offense, not embarrassment.
Something more careful than either. A woman recalibrating in real time. I got careful, she said. After everything. It's easier to pour yourself into other people's problems.
At least those have solutions. My own problems don't have a clear end point. What are your problems? Marcus said. She looked at him.
You want the list? I got time. She laughed real and sudden hand coming up to cover it and then looked at him differently like she was deciding something. Like she was standing at a door and deciding whether to open it. Daniel told me you were a good man, she said.
Daniel's biased. Daniel's not wrong, she said simply. On the sidewalk outside, she had to right and he had to go left. They stood there in that specific unresolved way. Two people who hadn't figured out yet what they were to each other.
Both feeling it and neither one of them saying it. "I'll talk to you soon," she said. It wasn't a question. "Yeah," Marcus said. "You will." She went right.
He went left. He drove back to the shop and sat in his office chair and stared at the wall for a while. That night, his phone buzzed. Daniel, hey man, you and Olivia have lunch today. Arcus put the spatula down.
He looked at the message. He looked at Maya, who was doing homework at the table 10 ft away and was definitely listening even though she looked like she wasn't. He typed back, "Yeah, she said she was near the shop." Three dots then. Cool. She texted me.
Said, "You were good people." Three more dots. Then she hasn't said that about anybody in a long time. "Bro," Marcus read that twice. Then he set the phone face down and turned the stove down because something was burning. "Dad," Maya said without looking up.