It had become a ritual, having coffee or tea while they Skyped or talked on the phone. Anything to make it feel more as though they were in the same room.
Jaimie sighed. “You’re right. Let me get something. Maybe a glass of wine…?”
“Excellent. I’ll get one, too.”
Emily put down the phone, hurried to the kitchen alcove, opened the joke of a fridge and peered inside.
Yogurt. Cottage cheese. Milk. Leftover Chinese. Leftover Thai. Leftover something that looked like a biology experiment gone bad.
Wine. Wine…
There. Half a bottle of cheap Chardonnay. She grabbed it, bumped the fridge closed with her hip, snagged a water glass from the drainer on the sink and poured an inch—what the hell, poured two inches of the pale gold liquid, hurried back to the sofa and grabbed the phone.
“James?”
“Yes. What took you so long?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Emily took a healthy swig of the Chardonnay. “So, how’ve you been?”
“Emily. You called me.”
“So?”
“So, something’s up.”
“Why should some
thing be—”
“Because it is. I can tell. You just called me ‘James.’“
“It’s your nickname.”
“It only became my nickname when you or Lissa had a math problem you couldn’t handle.”
“That’s not—”
“Remember the year you took calculus? I was James before every exam.”
Emily sat down, sighed and drank a little more wine.
“OK. I have a problem.”
“Somehow,” Jaimie said dryly, “I’d bet it doesn’t have anything to do with math.”
Emily laughed. “See? That’s one of the reasons I called you. You’re so smart!”
“That’s me, all right. Smart.”
“Jaimie? Is this a bad time? You sound, I don’t know, weird.”
“Just tell me your problem. Let the genius go to work.”
“OK.” Emily cleared her throat. “I have a—a decision to make.”
“About?”
“I got a job.”