to hear it from her. I’d find out later, from Ronni, from Alexis. Instead I just nodded toward my car, and for the first time since she dumped me, Jamie climbed into my passenger seat.
As soon as I turned the car on, a song from my Moving On—I Mean It This Time, 2.0 playlist blasted through the speakers. I grabbed my phone to turn it down, and scrolled through my music for alternatives for a second before landing on the obvious choice. I tapped my screen, and Sweets’s Type Two took over.
“You’re allowed to listen to other things,” said Jamie.
“This is what I want,” I said.
Jamie nodded and looked out the window. I used to joke she was like a dog, craning her neck out in summer to smile into the sun and wind.
“I’m worried about Triple Moon,” Jamie said to the window.
“Me too.”
“I wish there was something we could do.”
“You don’t think they’ll close, do you?”
Jamie turned to look at me and suddenly I felt naked, like a helpless, clueless baby. Somehow, until I said it aloud, the thought that Triple Moon might not always be there hadn’t really occurred to me. Because I had eyes and ears I knew business wasn’t exactly booming, but I assumed it was a rough patch that would mend itself in time. They’d start advertising more, maybe debut some new drink, and the norm would return to half-full from mostly empty.
“I think it’s a miracle they’ve been in business as long as they have,” Jamie said finally.
I remembered then the links she’d texted to me: news articles about lesbian bars closing across the country, and the think pieces that followed, wondering why. I remembered feeling like it was, in some way, my fault, even if I didn’t live in those places and wasn’t old enough to go inside if I did. Meanwhile, Triple Moon—a safe place to drink lattes and do my homework and read gay books and laugh and cry and fall in love with girls—was right here, and I had taken it for granted.
We sat in silence, and I listened to Ruby singing through my speaker. I’ve held this person’s hand, I thought. She’s practically famous. Then I had an idea.
“What if we got Sweets to help us with a fund-raiser?”
Jamie didn’t say anything, which was how I knew she thought it was a good idea.
“It could be like a benefit concert,” I continued. “We charge more, like ten bucks or something, and then instead of the band keeping part of it, all the money goes to the shop.”
“It’d have to be twenty at least,” said Jamie. “Maybe more.”
“People pay thirty dollars for a concert all the time. They pay a lot more than that.”
“Usually the band is, like, famous, but yeah.”
“Sweets is thirty-dollar famous for sure,” I said. My head was buzzing now, my free leg bouncing against my seat.
“Um, my exit?” said Jamie.
“Shit.” I looked over my shoulder and sailed into the turn lane I’d almost blown past.
Turning off the exit, I braced myself, expecting to feel something about seeing Jamie’s house for the first time in months. Not that it felt like more than a few days had passed. Every turn was automatic, and every house that led to hers was put there to remind me where I was. In twenty years I’d come home from wherever I was living (San Francisco, or Mexico City, or London, maybe Brussels) and I knew this route would feel exactly as familiar as it did now. I snuck a glance at Jamie, mentally tracing the profile I’d memorized the first time I saw her. I still knew every freckle, and maybe I always would. When we were together I’d thrilled at every private look and every inside joke and every piece of Jamie trivia I could recite as my own. I’d been so proud of how well I knew her, like that made her mine to keep. But now all that knowing felt different, like lyrics to a song I didn’t even like