“Hey,” Rob said. “You okay?”
Emily wiped the corner of her eye. “I had a miscarriage earlier this week,” she said, surprised that she’d said it but then immediately not surprised. There was still such an easy intimacy between them. And they’d been through so much together.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Rob said. He walked over from his side of the table to envelop her in another hug, this one tighter than the last. Emily pulled strength from it. It felt so good to have a pair of arms around her.
“Thanks,” she said, her mouth next to his ear. She could feel his hair flutter against her cheek.
“I’m a therapist now,” she added, ending the hug, leaning back slightly. “I have a doctorate in psychology.”
“Dr. Queenie,” he said, with a smile. “I found a paper you wrote with some other people about—what was it? Social—”
“Social cognition in college students,” she supplied.
“Interesting focus.” He took a sip of coffee, looking at her over the rim of the mug.
She laughed. “I guess so.”
Emily cut her corn muffin in half and lightly buttered one side.
“Remember . . .” Rob said, and then let his voice trail off.
“Remember what?” Emily asked, picking up her corn muffin.
“Remember when we went to that clinic before . . .”
“Yeah,” Emily said. How could she forget?
Rob drank some of his juice while Emily realized how his brain had gone from her recent miscarriage to them, back in college, talking about pregnancy and babies. “There’s a clinic like that not far from where I live, and years ago I asked them to give me a call whenever protesters show up. If I’m around, I head over with my guitar and my amp and I play so damn loud that the women can’t hear what the protesters are saying. It doesn’t help the signs, but . . .” He shrugged.
In the shrug, in the story, Emily saw the man she loved thirteen years ago. And she realized that their shared experience affected him, too. Maybe not to the degree that it affected her, maybe not the same way, but it changed him, too. It changed how he thought. It changed how he acted.
“That’s the best story I’ve heard in a long time,” she told him.
They finished eating soon after that, and Emily took out her wallet.
“Please, let me,” he said, laying a twenty on the table. “You hardly ordered anything. Plus you inspired my hit single, so the least I can do is thank you with a corn muffin and a coffee.”
Emily was going to protest, but instead simply said, “Thank you.”
As the waiter came to pick up the cash, Rob said, “So can I invite you and your husband out tomorrow night? My guests? It’s a secret, but I’m going to show up at an open mic night at Tony’s bar in New Jersey.”
“Tony our old drummer?” Emily asked.
Rob nodded. “Yeah, he’s got a kick-ass bar in Hoboken. And he made me promise I’d come by once he heard I’d be in town. I told my manager I needed another day here, and he worked it all out.”
“Huh,” Emily said. She really had never wondered what those guys had gotten up to. A deplorable lack of curiosity on her part. Or perhaps a defense mechanism. A form of self-preservation.
“I’ve gotta confess, I have an ulterior motive,” Rob said. “I’m not sure how many people will come and want to play. So I’m hoping I can convince you to get up there. You still play, right? You writing your own stuff yet?”
Emily felt bad admitting that she didn’t, that she hadn’t. Though she had played last night at the fund-raiser. So she settled on, “I don’t play often. And I told you I’m not a songwriter.”
He laughed at their longstanding argument. He’d always said that one day she’d write something herself, instead of just harmonizing his songs. “Well, think about it,” he said. “It’d be fun to hear you play again, even if it’s not your own stuff. And I’d love to meet your husband.”
When he said it, he genuinely seemed to mean it, but Emily wondered what it would be like for him to see her with someone else, especially after he’d just gotten divorced. Even though she was the one who ended things years ago, and even though she knew his marriage was over, she still felt a pang of jealousy that he’d loved someone else enough to marry her, to have kids with her. She knew she had no right to be jealous, but the feeling was there.
“I’ll talk to him,” Emily said, knowing that after their argument last night there was close to no chance that he’d agree to come. Or that she’d even ask. Once he got home tomorrow night, hopefully they’d be able to talk. Put things back to normal. She missed him.