“The salmon will be ready in a few minutes and I made a salad.”
“Dear God, no.”
“No what?”
“I cannot eat another piece of salmon for dinner. Why can’t we just have cereal?”
“Because we don’t have cereal in the house. Because we’re not teenagers.”
“I’m tired of being so virtuous. We don’t even have kids – we can do whatever we want! But somehow we’ve become the “Salmon & Netflix” couple – it’s depressing.”
“Are you in perimenopause? Is this like a peri-meltdown?” Keith asked with full sincerity.
Staring at him incredulously, Jessica grabbed the car keys and bolted, returning home twenty minutes later with three boxes of cereal, a container of 2% milk and an expensive bottle of white wine.
Keith had already finished eating and watched as Jessica combined equal parts Froot Loops, Lucky Charms and Captain Crunch into a large bowl.
“Do you want a glass of wine? It’s from British Columbia, it’s insanely good.”
“No thanks. That looks revolting by the way.”
“Really? I was just thinking how fun this bowl looks. How colorful, like a bowl full of joy” said Jessica, crunching her cereal.
“I’m going to watch Anderson Cooper.”
She gave Keith a thumb’s up and continued eating. Her last memory of eating sugary cereal was a little hazy, but the more she thought about it the more the memory returned in saturated colors:
It was the early 1990’s, she and Adam were sitting cross-legged on his purple futon, eating Count Chocula from bright orange bowls, while listening to Pearl Jam.
“Have you noticed that we always eat cereal after having sex?”
“I know, we’re such weirdos,” Jessica answered.
“I don’t trust people who don’t eat cereal, know what I mean?”
“Totally,” Jessica agreed, nodding her head.
“Should we plan our next break-up? Maybe send out Save The Date cards to all our friends?” Adam suggested.
Laughing hard, Jessica almost choked on a piece of cereal. Their relationship had been on again off again for the last six months, with dramatic fights & the most amazing make-up sex.
“You almost killed me! Imagine if I had died on your futon eating Count Chocula?!”
“I can think of worse ways to go. Can you look at my philosophy paper? I feel like it’s either really really good or total crap, I can’t tell anymore.”
“Sure, no problem. Do you miss my editing skills when we’re in a break-up phase?” Jessica asked, making her way to Adam’s desk where his giant computer sat.
“I do actually,” he answered honestly.
As Jessica sat down Adam stood behind her, making sure his paper entitled, “The Myth Of Sisyphus: A Guide to Living in the 1990’s,” was up on the screen.
“I’ll make some coffee” he said, kissing Jessica’s neck as she started reading. She mumbled something, already deep in editor mode.
Jessica’s memories of this period of her life and specifically of Adam, flooded her with emotions and bad ideas.
I bet he’s on Instagram, he always was an amazing photographer.
She grabbed her phone and within a few minutes had found him: @adam74photos, he lived in Vancouver. His account was public, so she clicked Follow. He had almost ten thousand followers. Wow. As she sipped her wine she scrolled through Adam’s feed. His main grid was a perfectly curated assortment of arresting street and travel photos, funny quotes and #throwbackthursday pics of him throughout the years. No mention of family, kids, a wife…
Then, there it was: a #throwbackthursday photo of them together, circa 1993. Adam in his favorite plaid shirt and Doc Martens, Jessica wearing a tattered sweater over a slip-dress, with sequinned flats she’d bought in Chinatown. For privacy Adam had covered her face with a purple heart emoji. But it was definitely them and Adam’s face looked madly in love. She took another sip of wine.
What was the harm in leaving a little comment?
“I 💯 remember that outfit” #90sgirlforever, Jessica typed.
Within minutes Adam had liked her comment and replied:
“You had the best style, always the coolest girl in the room…”
Jessica’s cheeks flushed.
“Do you want to watch that new Netflix series – the political thriller?” Keith yelled from the living-room.
“Okay, be there in a minute,” Jessica yelled back
Looking down at her phone Jessica saw that she had a private message:
“Hey, glad u found me on IG. How are u?! I just found a box of old college photos, so many good ones of us. You’re in Toronto, right? I’ll be out there in a couple of wks for work, can we grab a drink?”
OMG.
“Would love to,” she answered.
“Jess, are you watching this show with me or not?” Keith yelled again.
“Coming!”
Girl chill. You’re not doing anything wrong. It’s just one drink with an old college friend. Or make that probably two drinks with an old college boyfriend, but still. It’s no big deal.
She took her wine glass – and the bottle – into the living room.
It’s no big deal.
sparkledame 