The woman looked up at her. “Lisa.”
“Nice to meet you,” Emma said, helping her to her feet. “Can I see your phone for a second? Unlock it for me? I want to see if Samantha is almost here.” When Lisa gave it over, Emma slipped it into my hand. “Justin, can you make a call for me?” she whispered. “Let Samantha know Lisa is having coffee with us?”
I found Samantha in her contacts and called.
Ten minutes later a tearful twentysomething woman ran through the restaurant to our booth to get her mother. Emma had sat with Lisa the whole time talking about an imaginary day at the beach she was going to have in a city two thousand miles from here.
“How did you know?” I asked, once we were alone again. The woman seemed perfectly normal to me. At first glance anyway.
“Her shirt was buttoned wrong,” she said. “I used to work in memory care. She seemed off. Disoriented.”
“Was it dementia? She seems too young.”
“Dementia can happen young. Could be early-onset Alzheimer’s, head injury. Could be a lot of things.”
The waitress stopped by and filled our coffee cups. Emma grabbed some sugar packets, tore them, and spilled them into her mug.
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth? That we’re not in California,” I asked.
“It’s too confusing. The truth scares them. Sometimes the best way to show love or be kind to someone is to meet them where they are.”
“Literally? Or figuratively?”
She paused with the spoon in her hand. “Both.”
I watched her while she stirred her coffee. I liked that she helped. I liked that she noticed she had to.
We ordered our food, then we went to go check out the games.
“What about chess?” I asked.
“I like chess,” she said, looking the game shelf up and down. “You don’t want to do one that’s more fun though? Uno or something?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You think we’re ready for Uno? That game has torn entire families apart.”
She laughed. “Okay. Chess then.”
We brought it back to the table and set it up. I knew ten minutes in that this wasn’t going to go well for me. I was good at chess, but she was better. A lot better.
“So, why travel nursing?” I asked, watching her take my rook.
“The money is nice,” she said. “We want to see the US. We take an international trip once a year too.”
“So you fly a lot,” I said, studying the board.
“I do.”
“Do you clap when the airplane lands?” I asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“Do you run on the fasty-fast moving sidewalks at the airport?” I slid my bishop over.
“I walk fast on the fasty-fast moving sidewalks. Do you run on the fasty-fast sidewalks?”
“No. Why? Did someone say something?”
She laughed with a hand on her queen. “I bet you’re that guy that stands in the walking lane and I have to clear my throat really loudly to get you to move.”
I made eye contact with her. “Do I strike you as the kind of man to obliviously impede the flow of traffic? I am a very considerate person,” I said. “I will have you know that I do not monopolize the armrests and I help little old ladies get their bags down from the overhead.”
Her expression was an amused one. “Wow. And I suppose next you’re going to tell me that you wash your dishes before there’s mold on them?” She knocked out my knight.
“Of course I wash them,” I said.
“And when’s the last time you washed your pillowcase?”
“Wait… you have pillowcases??”
“And there it is.”
I was chuckling over the board game and she was smiling. Big time.
“What kind of men are you going out with?” I asked, managing to get one of her pawns. “I take pride in my apartment.”
“I could see that about you.”
“Why? Because you’ve cyberstalked me and you’ve already seen all the pictures of it?” I grinned at her.
