She called Jack that night from the studio after everyone else left. “I’m terrible at this,” she said. “You’ve been doing it three weeks.” “I was competent in New York.”
“You were miserable in New York.” “I was efficiently miserable.” “That’s hard to give up.” Claire sat on an equipment case and looked at the dark windows. “What if I’m not good enough?”
Jack paused. “Then you’ll find out honestly.” “That is not comforting.” “No. But it’s better than spending ten years being good at something you don’t want.”
She hated that he was right and loved him a little more for refusing to lie. They did not say love yet.
That word hovered for weeks as if both suspected naming it might turn a promising thing into a responsibility. They said everything around it. I miss you. Call when you get home.
I wish you were here. I saw something today you would have liked. Jack mailed Claire a sketch of the library reading room with a woman sitting by the window whose hair looked suspiciously like hers. Claire sent him a photograph she took of two strangers holding hands on an elevated train platform, their faces outside the frame.
In March, Jack flew to Chicago for three days. Claire met him at the airport wearing a red coat and holding a cardboard sign that said MR. EIGHT HOURS in block letters. Jack stopped in the concourse and stared at it.
“I hate you,” he said. “No, you don’t.” He kissed her before she could put the sign down.