"That's supposed to be my line."
"We can share. Royalty-free."
March came with mud and hope in unequal measure. Elena packed the red velvet dress and the white skates with the red wheels and the gold clip and a box of diner memories that were mostly receipts and one thank-you note from a regular. Jake helped load the U-Haul. Mikey gave her a paper snowflake that had survived somehow, soft at the folds, and made her promise to hang it where she could see it while making important restaurant decisions about soup and schedules. Claire hugged her and said, "Call collect if you need to complain about Ohio men. Also return my pan energy in cookie form." Elena drove north with Jake following in his truck as far as the highway junction, where they stood in a cold wind that did not care about plot and finally kissed like people who had been practicing restraint for the sake of pacing and were done with it. Nothing explicit, nothing borrowed from posters: just mouths and breath and the kind of held-on that says wait for me without turning it into a command or a chain.
"Keep up, satin," she whispered against his mouth.
"Satin's a classic," he whispered back. "So is writing letters. So is calling on Sundays. So is not pretending this is easy."
They wrote letters on lined paper and napkins and once on the back of a repair order Jake was supposed to file. They called on Sundays when the rates were kinder. Jake sent her a postcard of Mansfield's courthouse under late snow in April, which was cheating seasonally, but she forgave him because she missed the particular gray of Ohio skies. Elena sent him a cassette of songs the Cleveland restaurant played during close, plus one Motown Christmas track she had recorded off the radio in May because she was sentimental and unashamed and the holiday had refused to stay in December.
In May, Jake tried skating forward at Starlight alone on a quiet afternoon when the sun through the high windows made the wood look honest. He made it half a lap before his ankle and his fear convened a meeting and voted no. He stopped. He did not quit. He tried again the next week, and the week after. Dot watched from the counter and said nothing, which was her version of a standing ovation and a raised glass. On the fourth try he finished a full forward lap, then immediately skated backward for three more because celebration, for him, still lived in reverse. He wrote Elena about it in a letter that got grease on one corner. She wrote back: I am proud of your weird map.
Long-distance, they learned the textures of missing someone without turning missing into a contest. Elena's Cleveland apartment had a window that faced a brick wall and a fire escape where she sometimes sat with coffee and imagined Mansfield's mirror ball as a ridiculous sun. Jake's letters described the shop, Claire's shifts, Mikey's school play in which he played a tree and still managed to be orange somehow via interpretation. Elena's letters described the restaurant's temperamental oven, a server named Fran who could carry five plates and one grudge, the way Lake Erie wind taught you humility. They argued once, stupidly, about whether Jake should visit on a weekend when Elena had a double shift; they made up with a phone call that cost too much and was worth more. In the space between letters, Elena realized that love, if that was the name for it yet, was less like a couples skate and more like keeping a shared song in your head when the DJ was in another city.