high school, out a couple of times since he met her at a party, but he hadn’t said much more than that. Now he grinned. “She’s fun. We went to the movies, to that thing with the French guy who was in the other one, the one with Jessica Chastain that you didn’t like.”
“Right, yes. It was Bryce Dallas Howard and the guy is Canadian, but yes.”
“Whatever. Anyway, we saw that, and we had dinner at the Fontaine. It was nice. I like her. You’ll like her.”
“That’s good.” Evvie could see them in her head, sitting at one of the tables in the corner of the restaurant, walking into the movie theater, sitting together. It felt so intrusive to imagine it down to the dinner forks and where they’d sit in the theater, but she didn’t know how not to. “It sounds nice.”
“You know…you could do that someday.” Andy cocked his head at her. “If you decided you wanted to, you could.”
“What, take out Monica Bell?” She knew. She knew it was unfairly glib, and it was a stalling tactic, and it was snotty, and it sounded like she was making fun of his new friend. He rolled his eyes, and she held up one hand. “Sorry. I know what you meant. I’m not even thinking about that. At all.”
“And you don’t have to. I’m not saying that. There’s nothing worse than the guy who starts dating somebody and all of a sudden, everybody else has to do it. I promise you, I am not that guy.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think you were.”
“I’m being your friend.”
“I know you are.”
“I’m saying you could.”
“I know I could.” She was almost sure she couldn’t. She knew he meant it in two ways—that dating was possible and that dating was something no one would judge her for, because enough time had passed. She was quite sure he was wrong about both. In the immortal language of the baseball sex metaphor, she couldn’t even imagine getting into uniform, let alone making it to first base. “I’ll think about it. It still feels wrong.”
“Why?”
“You know. The…widow thing. The other day, I was working on this interview—it was that guy Jason I sometimes work for? He interviewed a professor about women immediately after World War II, and they talked about this soldier’s widow, and I realized that the whole time since Tim died, I’ve never called myself a widow. Or his widow. I don’t walk around introducing myself, ‘I’m Eveleth Drake, Dr. Timothy Drake’s widow.’ I’m the Widow Drake.”
“I’m not sure people really do that outside of the BBC.”
“I started thinking about it as a word, you know? ‘Widow.’ It’s strange that there has to be a word for ‘a lady who was married to someone who died.’ But it’s real. It’s me. I am a widow right now, right this minute. And honestly, I’m a widow all the time. I’m a widow everywhere I go, which explains why I feel like one, constantly. I looked it up in the dictionary, though, and if I get married again, I’m not a widow anymore. Even though I still married him and he’s still gone.”
He frowned. “That’s weird.”
“Isn’t it? It’s like the comatose princess who can only wake up if somebody kisses her.”
“Well, she’s sleeping,” Andy clarified.
“Who’s sleeping?”
“The princess. Whose name is Sleeping Beauty, not Comatose Princess. I’ve read fairy tales more recently than you have, so you can trust me, she’s just sleeping. But I see your point.”
“It’s weird,” Eveleth told him, “having this thing about me that’s because I was married before, and I can’t ever get rid of it unless I get married again. Do you realize I can’t ever just be single? I can only be married or be a widow, ever.”
Andy thought for a minute, then held up one finger. “What would you be if you got remarried and then you got divorced?”
“Huh,” she said. “I think then I’d be divorced.”
“What if you got remarried and then it got annulled?”
“Then I think I’d go back to being a widow.” She stared down at the table. “I’m horrible. I have to get myself a project or something. When it’s cold and I’m not working, I sit around and it’s like I can feel all my bones.”
“What does that mean? Feel all your bones?”
“I feel my bones. I mean, I get very aware of the fact that I’m lucky I have them, because if I didn’t, I would basically be a suitcase