Eat A Peach: An Excerpt from Jen Michalski's THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS
Lynn always waits near the far end of the farmer’s market in West Hollywood, in the food court. That way, she can see the women before the women see her. If Lynn gets a bad vibe, or just a case of bad nerves, she can slip out to the parking lot and drive away. Her sister Lucy thinks it’s strange that Lynn treats these outings more like drug deals than the blind dates they actually are, but given Lynn’s bad luck, it’s the only way she can get herself (halfway) out there.
“She doesn’t sound like a catch,” Lucy said on the phone last night of Rachel, the woman who Lynn is meeting today. Lucy is married and lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and children in a five-bedroom house, the kind you see on cable shows, clean but soulless, with quartz countertops and en suite master bathrooms.
Lucy is usually right about most things, and as Rachel enters the food court and navigates the maze of tables, both hands gripping the strap of her purse, eyes squinting, body closed, like a tourist in a Tunisian marketplace, Lynn presses her sandaled feet on the ground, ready to bail into the throng of Saturday shoppers. Rachel’s online profile was full of red flags—widower, young daughter, not necessarily ready to date but feeling like she should wade back in a little. But then again, Lynn’s own life on paper—massage therapist, maxed credit cards, barely affordable studio apartment in Echo Park—is nothing to crow about, either.
Lynn watches as Rachel scans the faces of those in her immediate area, her lips slightly parted, and something about her expression, the soft glassiness of her green eyes, the haphazard way her hair curls over her ears and a little in her face, makes Lynn stay a minute longer. She knows this is a mistake—but this private moment of Rachel’s vulnerability tugs at her. She lets Rachel find her, watches her face lock into a smile, one hand unattaching itself from her purse to give Lynn a quick, enthusiastic wave.
“I was just coming to meet you,” Lynn lies, standing up. She leans over and hugs Rachel with just her fingertips. “You look exactly like your picture.”
“You too.” Rachel holds onto Lynn’s forearms. She keeps her close for a second. “Your hair’s even redder in person.”
“It’s the sun,” Lynn says. The picture she used for her profile was taken indoors, her face shadowy, lit by candle. Her friend Michael said it made her look mysterious and artsy.
Then, she doesn’t know what to say. It’s been a long time since she’s let it get this far. There was Yuki, who she slipped out on, fearing she was too trendy and possibly shallow, and Kim, who had too many tattoos. And Sandra, who she simply stopped talking to on the dating site because she’d discovered a sixth degree of separation between Sandra and her ex.
“Something came up, by the way,” Lynn lies. Even when she lets it get this far, she always builds herself an out. “A last-minute appointment—so I only have about forty minutes. I hope that’s okay.”
“Well, we’ll just have to make do,” Rachel says a little too brightly, and Lynn can’t tell whether she’s disappointed, whether she knows Lynn is lying. “So, do you have time to grab lunch, or just walk around?”
Rachel wears real perfume and not essential oils. Her makeup is so bare Lynn can see a light smattering of freckles, the faint lines of crow’s feet around her eyes. She’s definitely in her late thirties, as listed on her profile, five years older than Lynn. Her TOMS look like she’s walked a thousand miles in them, and Lynn gives her bonus points for thinking ratty canvas slip-ons were fine to wear on a first date.
“We can do both, I think,” Lynn reassures her. Maybe she should have given herself an hour. She has aborted so many trips to the Farmer’s Market she’s never actually shopped here. That, and Ralphs is more her price point. She puts on her straw hat and sunglasses and walks beside Rachel toward the Littlejohn English Toffee stand. The girl behind the counter offers them hard, flat, sample squares of toffee. As Lynn bites into hers, she watches Rachel wrap her sample in a napkin and slip it in her purse.
“For my daughter, Maggie,” she explains. “I always feel guilty, going out without her.”
“How old is she again?” Lynn asks. She hears Lucy, slightly nasal, on the phone. You’ve never wanted children, Lynn. You’re going to take care of someone else’s?
“She’s seven,” Rachel answers. Her skin is pale, like Lynn’s. She hides it under a faded denim button-up, her neck swaddled in a scarf. “She was five when Deborah passed away, and she still worries when I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“Why?” Lynn’s throat is still thick with sugary toffee. “It’s your life.”
“So, you’re a massage therapist?” Rachel glances at a text on her phone before dropping it into her purse. She smiles at Lynn. “You’re a healer.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Lynn laughs. “More like a body mechanic.”
She did a semester at community college in North Carolina, then massage therapy school in Studio City. She was surprised that she liked massage, touching stranger’s bodies, kneading their pressure points, freeing them from pain, their own self-imposed stresses. She was worried she’d have to offer words of comfort, of understanding, but most people don’t want her to talk at all, only listen. Most of the problems—cheating spouses, budget overruns at the studio, the actor who is a liability—she wouldn’t know how to solve, anyway. Her friend Michael, who she moved here with, says the only problems people have in LA are the ones they make for themselves.
“You’re the healer,” Lynn says after a moment. “Working in oncology.”
“I always thought I’d be a concert pianist,” Rachel answers. “But life took some detours. I would have never met my partner if I’d been a concert pianist.”
“Was she an oncologist, too?” Lucy is almost screaming into Lynn’s ear now. Run, don’t walk, away.
Rachel looks straight ahead. “She was my friend.”
“I’m sorry.” Lynn touches Rachel’s wrist lightly. She doesn’t have to date Rachel, she thinks, but she can be sympathetic. She understands loss. She understands things being ripped away from you.
“I knew she was terminal.” Rachel says the word ‘terminal’ like ‘left-handed.’ “And I thought at the time there was no way I would get involved. I mean, what did I think…but I wouldn’t have had Maggie if I hadn’t.”
Rachel stops in front of a produce stand.
“Want a peach?” She holds one in each hand. “First of the season.”
Editor’s Note: “Eat a Peach” was originally published in Chicago Quarterly Review.
