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There’s a fragile air in the mailroom that morning, a quietness. The humming tension of something ready to snap.
It’s not helped by the Halloween decorations, still up from Friday, when Burt and Jimmy had hung them high on the walls: dollar-store orange streamers and white ghoul masks cut from spare sheets of copy paper. They look on thoughtfully, as if waiting to observe the breaking point.
The cautious atmosphere reminds Jimmy of another fragile morning, months ago—though back then it was less that Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill had changed, and more that he and Kim had. Returning to the mailroom after their trip to White Sands had felt like stepping out of a darkened movie theater and into the sunlit world, bright and too-real.
And too populated by memories of the dream-like film that had just played before his eyes: late nights and neon lights. On that Tuesday morning after the road trip, Jimmy had walked into the mailroom like so many other Tuesday mornings, and he’d seen Kim sitting at the breakroom table, constant as always. She hadn’t noticed him for a moment, her head tipped down and expression hidden; and beneath the wash of the fluorescents she’d seemed a screen onto which were projected so many other Kims: in novelty shirts or black bras or pooled with orange light, and he didn’t know which one was real.
But then she had looked up, and smiled, and shrugged, and he had shrugged back, and—
Jimmy tears a paper ghoul mask from the mailroom wall.
“Morning, Jimmy,” Burt says, wandering up behind him.
“Hiya, Burt,” Jimmy says. He rips off another mask then turns to Burt. “Did you see it?”
Burt just lifts his eyebrows and nods.
Jimmy makes a breathy noise like he’s blowing out steam. “Not good, huh?”
Kim comes out of the breakroom. “Hi guys,” she says, leaning against the doorframe. “Are you talking about the dog?”
“You bet,” Jimmy says, smiling at her.
Kim shakes her head. “Howard’s car was here when I arrived. The partners must be meeting already.”
The Westerbrook divorce case. Months of legal bickering had finally concluded last week, and Stan Westerbrook, HHM’s client, had lost. Just in time for Halloween, Jimmy remembers thinking, and he couldn’t have been more right, because the next evening while drowning his sorrows Stan left his dog locked in his sports car with all the windows rolled up, and the poor thing had whined behind the glass for long enough that some assholes managed to film it in there before they’d rescued it.
“You think the cameras will be back?” Burt asks.
Kim shrugs. “Any chance to re-litigate everything in the press.” She moves beside them and stares at the paper ghouls. After a moment, she reaches past Jimmy to tear one down, her sleeve brushing his wrist.
He moves his arm away unconsciously, but turns to look at her. “So how was the party, then?” he asks lightly.
“Filled with law students,” Kim says, meeting his eyes for a second.
Jimmy chuckles. “How many Erics?”
“Oh, you know,” Kim says. “Hundreds.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, pulling down more decorations.
“Nothing like networking with a bunch of Cheech and Chongs,” Kim adds, grimacing. She tears down the last mask and then scrunches the paper up and drops it in a nearby trashcan. “I did get to see two Travis Bickles drunkenly fight on the lawn, though.”
“Jealous,” Jimmy says, drawing out the word in mock awe as he follows Kim into the breakroom. “How’s this week look?” he asks, sliding into a chair as she turns on the coffeemaker.
Kim takes out a couple of mugs and sighs. “Not bad. But Geiger has us running the mock defense in pairs.”
“Ouch,” Jimmy says. “Who’d you get?”
“Christine.”
“Woof,” Jimmy says, accepting a coffee when Kim hands one to him. It’s in his favorite novelty mug—a little cactus and the words, Don’t be a prick—and he takes a sip, almost burning the roof of his mouth, then says, “Offer still stands, by the way.”
“Jimmy, you’re not getting one of my classmates expelled from UNM.”
“Just saying, some lightly-forged crib sheets in the right hands…”
Kim chuckles. “Shut up.” She opens one of her ever-present law textbooks and flicks through it idly then groans. “I wouldn’t say no to a real crib sheet if you’ve got one, though.”
Jimmy raises his eyebrows and, at his silence, Kim looks up.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” she says quickly. “Definitely don’t get me expelled for cheating.”
Jimmy shrugs. “I’ll do my best.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Kim says quietly. She sighs, and goes back to reading, brow pinched in focus. She worries at her lips as her eyes skim the paper, and a now-familiar feeling of sympathy bubbles up in Jimmy’s stomach—though so far Kim’s been a little more relaxed as a 3L, and she told him a few weeks ago that the step up to third year was not as extreme as the jump from first to second.
A little voice in his head thinks: so you might’ve actually had time for more, then, might’ve been able to weave me into your life more completely. A cruel voice, and very small, a voice that’s easy to quash when he contemplates another option: a mailroom, an HHM, an Albuquerque with no Kim in at all. A return to the city that had seemed to greet him on his arrival so many months ago. Vast and hard and empty.
So, as with so many other mornings, Jimmy drinks his coffee and says nothing, nothing that might change the fact that, now they’re back in Albuquerque, they’re back to being Kim Wexler, hyper-focused law student and Jimmy McGill, mailroom black sheep. Full time.
Mailroom black sheep. Because of course his own plans had fizzled almost immediately after he ignited them, snuffed by the stagnant basement air. Shortly after getting back from White Sands, Jimmy had spoken with Howard, had mentioned his interest in marketing, and the man had been encouraging—seemed excited, even—about the prospect of Jimmy moving up in the firm. “We’re a family here, Jimmy!” Howard had said then and has repeated on multiple occasions since, interspersed with other platitudes about keeping his head down and his nose to the grindstone and so on.
And sure, Jimmy thinks, he’s worked here less than a year yet, so maybe he hasn’t earned anything more than that. And he could push it. He could go to Hamlin Senior, or to Chuck—though the latter doesn’t bear thinking about too hard. Hey Chuck, thanks for getting me this respectable job in your respectable castle, can I move up out of the dungeons and into the towers yet? I promise not to steal the treasure. Jimmy snorts at the thought, and takes another sip of coffee, and then, when the others arrive, goes easily to work.
It’s quieter than usual, and, when Henry comes back down from the upper floors, he tells them something about a meeting with all the associates, all-hands upstairs in the conference room. And, sure enough, at the coffee cart over lunch, Jimmy sees a small news crew outside the building, and watches with amusement as they try to flag down anyone wearing a vaguely-professional suit and avoid any volunteers in get-out-the-vote shirts. He leans against a waist-high retaining wall and watches, sipping his coffee and crunching through his bag of chips until eventually the reporter and the cameraman just give up and wander back to their van.
Later that afternoon, winter sunlight golden on Hamlindigo blue pillars, Jimmy’s pushing his mail cart through a first floor corridor when a hand grabs his elbow—Kim.
“Jimmy,” she hisses, and she pulls him toward a small kitchenette, tugging at him with sharp fingers, and he follows dumbly as she hustles him inside and closes the door. “I just heard the partners—”
But then she stops short, staring at him. Jimmy’s backed up against the counter, his hip jutting into a drawer handle. He swallows.
Kim takes a small step backwards and holds up her hands. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Jimmy says.
“No, I know we said not to—”
“Yes,” Jimmy says quickly.
“Right,” Kim says. There’s a long silence. She glances away for a moment and then looks back at him, her eyes shining bright and a smile on the edge of her lips. “Listen: I heard some of the partners talking. Howard said he wants to get out in front of this.”
Jimmy blinks. “In front of what?”
Kim waves a hand dismissively. “The Westerbrook thing. He wants a big branding push for the company. Or next thing you know we’re just the firm who represented a would-be dog murderer.”
“Okay,” Jimmy says. “Sure.”
There’s a beat of silence. “You idiot,” Kim finally says, warmly, shaking her head. “So write up a proposal. Show them you’re serious about this.”
“Right!” Jimmy says, chuckling and propping his hands back on the countertop. “Right, okay. Okay, I got this. Uh, ‘Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill: We Won’t Kill…Your Dog’.” He grins broadly. “Yes?”
Kim scoffs, lips twitching. “Maybe give it another pass.”
Jimmy softens his grin and nods.
“Good,” she says, nodding too. “Good.”
He watches her, smiling gently. When she stills, he says, “Thanks, Kim.”
“Of course.” She stares at him for a long while, eyes intense, and for a moment Jimmy thinks he can see her pulse glimmering on her throat under her blue blouse—but then she breezily asks, “So, how was your weekend, anyway?”
“Oh, you know,” Jimmy says, his gaze returning to hers. “Went to a showing of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and a little kid spent the whole thing kicking the back of my seat.” He tightens his grip on the edge of the countertop behind him. Raises and lowers his shoulders. “It was good. It was no drunk lawyer party.”
“Yeah,” Kim says quietly. She glances over at a noticeboard and frowns, eyes skimming the various cards for local businesses and motivational print-outs, then looks back at him. “You’ll call if you want to run any ideas by me, right?”
Jimmy nods. “Yeah,” he says. “‘Course I will.”
“Okay,” Kim says, after a beat. She gives him a little nod and then leaves the breakroom, heading back out to the first floor and leaving the door open behind her.
Jimmy breathes out slowly. He runs his hand over his mouth, lips dry beneath the pads of his forefinger and thumb. Then he shakes his head and leaves the kitchenette, returning to the mail cart that waits for him haphazardly out in the hall.
At the end of the corridor, some of the partners are speaking closely, Chuck and Howard among them. Chuck glances over and holds up a hand when he spots Jimmy, half greeting and half direction—Wait there. The group converses for a moment longer, several of them nodding solemnly, then Chuck nods farewell and approaches Jimmy.
“Jimmy,” Chuck says, as he moves up beside the mail cart. “Taking a break?”
Jimmy opens his mouth to answer, but his brother is already distracted: looking through a gap between the cubicles to where Carl Vernon is standing talking to some younger associates.
Chuck’s lips purse, then he turns back to Jimmy. “Rebecca and I are going to visit Mom for Thanksgiving,” he says. “We’re flying up on Wednesday evening.”
Jimmy nods. “Okay,” he says. After a moment, he adds: “Yeah, sounds good. I can do that.”
Chuck nods, too, absentmindedly, then stares over at Vernon again.
“I’m sorry about all that,” Jimmy says, waving a hand in the same direction.
“Hm?” Chuck says.
“You know, Vernon’s asshole client leaving the dog locked in the car.”
“Ah,” Chuck says sharply. “Yes. Bad business.” His face twists a little, and then he straightens his cuffs and brushes some invisible lint from his jacket sleeve. “Well, we’d better get back to it, hm?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy says, and he grips the handle of the mail cart. “See you around, Chuck.”
But Chuck’s already moving on, glancing again to Carl Vernon as he strides down the corridor, shoulders pointed and tight. Jimmy watches his brother go, then he exhales and finally resumes his mail run.
“So what do you think?” Jimmy asks, handing Kim back her cigarette in the parking garage later that week.
“I don’t know,” Kim says, and she raises the cigarette to her lips, then blows out the next words along with the smoke: “Are you sure it has to rhyme?”
“Kim,” Jimmy says, shaking his head. “Kim, Kim, Kim. Of course it has to rhyme.”
Kim scrunches her face at him.
“People love rhyme!’ Jimmy says. He huffs. “Jeez, who has the marketing degree here?”
Kim flicks ash off the end of her cigarette. “Neither of us.”
“Okay, checkmate,” Jimmy says, chuckling. He leans back against the wall, palms flat on the concrete behind his back, and stares out into the darkened rows of cars. It’s cold in the garage today. The weather’s turned enough Jimmy’s started wearing long-sleeved shirts to work, but the cavernous basement seems even icier than normal, and he finds himself fidgeting, keeping his body temperature up. Shifting his weight between his feet and tapping the pads of his fingers on the rough surface.
Beside him, he hears Kim breathe out, and he turns to face her again.
“So considering it legally has to rhyme…” he begins, “do you love it, or do you love it?”
Kim’s eyes sparkle beneath the sharp light of the parking garage, and she shrugs. “You said you had more, what else have you got?”
Jimmy pats his palms arrhythmically on the pockmarked concrete. “Sure, okay, tough crowd. How about, ‘We’ll Get ‘Em at HHM’?”
“Hmm. It’s a little threatening,” Kim says mildly. “And who’s ‘them’?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy says, grinning. “Whoever you’re suing, I guess.”
“Right,” Kim says, and she waves her hand. “What’s next?”
Jimmy pulls a folded piece of yellow legal paper from his back pocket and unfurls it. “Uh…here’s one. ‘No Spills, No Frills, Just Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill’.”
“Nope.” Kim lifts her cigarette again and puffs out smoke. “Definitely not.”
“‘AM or PM, Call HHM’?”
“Yikes,” Kim says, chuckling.
Jimmy laughs, too. “Okay, okay. That one was a reach.” He reads over his messy scrawl, the work of the past few days. “How about, ‘Hamlin Hamlin McGill: We Fit the Bill’?”
“Hmm,” Kim says thoughtfully. She takes another smoke and leans back so that her eyes dip into shadow. “That’s slightly better.”
“Okay, great,” Jimmy says, and he pulls a pen from his shirt pocket and circles it.
“Have you talked to Howard yet?” Kim asks lightly, tapping ash off the end of her cigarette again then holding it out to him.
Jimmy plucks it from her fingers and takes a long drag. “Nah,” he says. He exhales smoke that glitters under the basement lights and watches it dissipate before continuing. “Every time I go up there, Julie says he’s out lunching with clients. Damage control, you think?”
Kim nods. “Try first thing tomorrow?”
“I’ll bring an overnight bag,” Jimmy says, handing Kim back the cigarette. “Blanket, maybe a camp chair. You know, stake him out.”
But it takes until Monday for Jimmy to speak with Howard. He spends the weekend scribbling in the yellow legal pad, throwing his ideas onto the page haphazardly, words like passion and integrity and family hovering around core values, buzzwords long buried that start re-emerging in his mind. It’s easy to lose himself in the work, to doodle new logo ideas and silhouettes around the paper until he’s filled sheet after sheet, until, early on Monday morning back at work, he finally spots Howard leaving his office, and manages to catch up with him on the lobby stairs.
Howard nods politely as Jimmy speaks, then holds up a hand and says, “Tell you what, Jimmy, come and see me Thursday and we’ll see what we can do, my friend. Shall we say ten o’clock?”
“Ten o’clock, sure,” Jimmy says, and he’s left standing there as Howard gracefully continues his descent. The glow of blond hair vanishes out the front doors, and Jimmy shakes his head and chuckles to himself then turns around, heading back up to where he abandoned his mail cart mid-run after spotting the elusive younger Hamlin leaving his office. Julie nods at him when he passes, and Jimmy shoots her a thumbs up.
For the next few days, Jimmy oscillates wildly from dumbly confident to dumbly terrified. He starts to realize that everything he knows about pitch meetings comes from movies: a man in a nice suit walking back and forth in front of a flipchart with squiggly lines and numbers on it, or slick executives dueling it out across the boardroom table. Tom Hanks playing with a transforming robot-building or Robert Duvall saying, I suppose we’ll have to kill him. Jimmy thinks briefly of buying a new suit: something single-breasted, grey flannel, ventless with three button fastening and notched lapels, because Cary Grant was an advertising man in that movie, right—
But then he steels himself, and gets back to it, chewing the end of his pencil above yellow-lined blank pages.
The night before the meeting, Jimmy lies on his covers with his fingers laced over his stomach, staring unseeingly at the ceiling, so awake he can’t even bear to close his eyes. His thoughts hum through his mind like electricity down a livewire, crackling, until eventually he hops out of bed and pulls his jeans back on and just heads out, boarding an empty bus and finding an all-night print shop that lets him hunker down over a table beneath harsh, flickering fluorescents for a while—cutting and pasting ideas and then photocopying them again, hand cramping from printing neat annotations beside each faux magazine ad or billboard mockup.
When he crawls back into bed, he pretends he doesn’t see the faint light of day at the edge of the sky, and he pretends the forty minutes of sleep he snatches before his alarm blares is enough. He retreads the same route to the bus stop as he walked last night, his hands tucked into his windbreaker and binder of papers beneath his arm, his shoes fast on the sidewalk as he breathes the cool morning air.
The beep of the copy machines seems louder than usual that morning, the coffee weaker, and Jimmy spends his first few hours of work with most of his brain tucked away alongside the neat papers in his locker, mindlessly prattling to Kim and Burt and anyone who’ll listen about things that don’t matter—the weather, pizza toppings, how to ride the ‘L’ for free—his hands stained with ink as he fumbles the job of changing the printer toner and then leaves faint fingerprints behind him for the next hour.
Until eventually he’s waiting outside the door to Howard Hamlin’s office.
Jimmy squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them. He doesn’t even need to knock. He just stands, looking at his shadow, squaring its shoulders and lifting its chin, and then Julie buzzes on the intercom, and he hears Howard’s voice through the crackly speaker: “Send him in.”
The elevator returns to the mailroom, doors opening with a piercing trill. Jimmy lingers for a brief moment inside the cabin, his head tipped back against the wall. The wood presses hard on his skull.
It feels as if only his body has stopped descending, as if the buzz and hum of his adrenaline has continued downward past the basement level, slipping out through the soles of his feet and into the earth. He can feel his shoulders sinking into his chest like a weight’s on them. But he exhales, and pushes himself forward, and hopes the momentum will carry him out of the cabin and through the rest of the day, moving one foot in front of the other into the mailroom—
The space is empty, the usual hum of machines absent and half the lights switched off.
Through the open door, Jimmy can see that the breakroom is completely dark, too. Only the blinking red light of the coffee machine gives any texture to the void beyond…and then for a moment he swears he hears something in there. A shuffling noise, a gentle thud. Jimmy breathes out slowly and laughs a little to himself, then walks towards it, footsteps muffled on the carpet.
He flicks the lights on.
“Happy Birthday!”
A chorus of loud voices: Burt and Henry and even, somehow, Ron, all standing around the table. Bottles of soda and a square chocolate cake sit among paper plates, cups, and an open bag of chips, and there’s a couple of leftover orange Halloween streamers hung from the kitchenette cupboards.
Jimmy laughs buoyantly, and then he feels a hand over his eyes, soft fingers on his skin, and he reaches up to touch it for a moment, then spins around.
“Happy Birthday!” Kim says brightly, smiling broadly as she lowers her hand and grips him by the shoulders.
“Hey,” he says, grinning at her, touching his palms to the backs of her hands lightly. “What—”
“Happy Birthday, Jimmy!” Burt says, patting him on the back and leaning in between them.
Kim lets go of his shoulders and raises her eyebrows at Burt. “So, who did I hear move? What happened to stealthy?”
“You were supposed to give us the signal!” Burt says. “Where was signal, Kim? The elevator went off and I panicked, I was right by the door!”
Kim tilts her head at him. “Oh, I gave the signal,” she says dramatically.
Burt holds his hands up innocently and walks away, only to be replaced by Henry, who’s holding out two plates of cake.
Jimmy accepts one, and laughs again. “I don’t get it; how d’you know?”
“It’s on the wall, Jimmy,” Henry says mildly, pointing to the corkboard in the breakroom, where a little piece of paper has all the workers’ birthdays written beside their names. “And here, hang on,” Henry says, and he goes back to the table to retrieve a little gift bag. “There’s a card in there.”
“And socks!” Jimmy says, peering in and glimpsing a pair of vibrantly-striped socks.
“And socks,” Henry repeats. He gives Jimmy a fatherly pat on the shoulder, then hands Kim the other plate of cake and moves back to the table to get some for himself.
Jimmy picks up his slice with his fingers and leans against the lockers to eat it.
“So how’d it go with Howard?” Kim asks, leaning beside him.
“Good, I think,” Jimmy says around a mouthful of cake, then he swallows it and laughs. “I don’t know. It’s a bit of a blur, to be honest.” He takes another bite, then, voice slightly muffled, says: “Felt good.”
“That’s great, Jimmy,” Kim says.
“Yeah.” He watches Burt enthusiastically fill plastic cups with Coke, the soda bubbling and fizzing over the lip. “I just laid out all my ideas, you know?” he says. “Probably wasn’t the most conventional thing Howard’s ever seen, but hey.” He shrugs.
Kim shrugs too, the fabric of her shirt shifting against his shoulder. “I bet you sold him,” she says softly, and then, after a moment, in her normal tone: “Some of those rhymes were pretty convincing…”
Jimmy chuckles. “All right, stop it.”
“What was it, uh…” Kim taps her lips. “‘Say It Again, We’re HHM’?”
“Wow, Kim, you had that up your sleeve the whole time and you didn’t tell me?” Jimmy says. “That definitely would’ve cinched it.”
“What can I say? It’s my cheerleader roots,” Kim says dryly.
Jimmy twists to face her, his eyes wide, but Kim just gives him a withering look, and he snorts. Burt brings them each a cup of Coke, and Jimmy drinks his slowly, the bubbles tingling down his throat and into his stomach. He tips his head back again and closes his eyes, and it feels like his body is drifting, his blood slow and lifeless beneath his skin.
“You look half dead,” Kim murmurs, and he opens his eyes to squint at her. “Maybe even eighty per cent,” she adds, raising her eyebrows. “Pushing ninety.”
Jimmy shrugs. “I’m okay. I’ll get through.”
Kim’s mouth is tight at the edges. “You up for something after work, though?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, ‘course!” he says brightly.
Kim’s expression relaxes. “Okay,” she says.
A smile grows on his face. “Do I get to know what?”
“Nope,” Kim says crisply, and she pushes off from the lockers and wanders away. Jimmy laughs after her, and she turns around to face him, walking backwards and calling, “So, do you want another coffee, or what?”
A blast of hot air from the air-con in Kim’s car hits Jimmy and he yawns, holding a fist in front of his mouth. They’re idling in the parking garage of HHM, headlights spilling across the concrete to where other cars are pulling out of their spots and leaving the office for the day.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Kim asks, hands on the wheel.
Jimmy nods through a second yawn, then chuckles. “Yeah,” he says, and when Kim frowns he adds, “I’m good, Kim. Besides, it’s either this or sit at home and watch the new Wings.”
“Wow, you think you could make it through a full episode, huh?”
“What can I say, I’m hooked.”
“Well, all right then,” Kim says, and she reverses out of her space and drives out of the building.
It’s gone six and the sky's already almost dark. Jimmy watches the familiar buildings go by, scratching his cheek idly. The sidewalks are empty, and all the restaurants have their doors closed, warm yellow shining invitingly within.
They draw to a stop at a set of lights, and the traffic flashes past before them. “We’re not fleeing into the night again, are we?” he asks, watching the blur of headlights.
Kim turns to him, eyes softening into a look that seems to silently say, Would you?
He shrugs. Of course he would, he thinks.
But—“Keeping it in Albuquerque for tonight,” Kim murmurs instead.
“I can live with that,” Jimmy says, nodding. "Yeah," he adds quietly. "Sounds good."
The traffic light shifts to green and they drive on, slow with the busy evening traffic for a couple more blocks, until Kim turns off the road and pulls up outside a liquor store.
“Okay, hang on,” Jimmy asks, leaning forward to peer around as if there’s something he’s missing. “You getting me drunk?”
“I’ll be three secs,” Kim says, turning off the ignition. “Wait here.” She hops out of the car, leaving him alone.
Jimmy watches her vanish through the doors to the store then breathes out. He studies an old man hobbling along the sidewalk for a while, and then his eyes are drawn between his feet to where his birthday gift bag from earlier rests. It’s now filled not only with the socks and the card from the mailroom staff, but also some napkin-wrapped slices of cake and another envelope—white, and unaddressed. Jimmy pulls this last out and runs his thumb over the seal. He exhales.
A minute later, Kim comes back with a six pack of Shiner Bock. She tucks it over into the back seat, then faces him. “What’s that?” she asks, looking at the envelope in his hand.
“It's from Chuck,” Jimmy says, turning it over. His brother had handed it to him in the corridor that afternoon, with a murmured greeting and a pat on the shoulder. At Kim’s raised eyebrows, Jimmy goes for it, sliding his fingernail under the seal and tearing it, then slipping out a card. The stock is heavy, expensive, and three colorful balloons are printed on the front.
“Cute,” Kim says.
Jimmy laughs lightly. He opens the card. Happy Birthday Jimmy, says his brother’s familiar neat cursive. All the best for the coming year. “Hah,” Jimmy says, smiling. “That’s nice.”
Kim looks at him thoughtfully.
“It’s been a while, you know?” Jimmy says.
Kim’s face grows soft, and she gives him a small smile.
“He wasn’t usually home for my birthday,” Jimmy says, and he gestures with the card. “But he always sent something. Not that they’ve ever been great novels, but that’s Chuck for you, right?” He huffs out a breath, smiling, his stomach tight. “Man of few words.”
Kim nods, but doesn’t say anything.
Jimmy slides the card back into the envelope and puts it back in the gift bag, then tucks it safely back between his feet as Kim drives on, heading out onto the main road and towards downtown. They talk idly for while, Kim venting about the law student she’s been paired with this week, and then Jimmy notices her glance at the dashboard clock for the third time in as many minutes.
“We late for something?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“No,” Kim says, just as she flicks on her turn signal. They pull off the road into the drive-thru.
Jimmy glances up at a sign then back at Kim. “We late for Lotaburger?”
Kim shushes him. “Jimmy. D’you want anything, or not?”
“Of course,” Jimmy says, and they order. He watches Kim as she speaks into the intercom and smiles, and Kim flashes her eyes at him enigmatically when she's finished.
They make their slow way through the drive-thru. He taps his palms on the seat lightly until Kim takes their burgers from the woman in the window, and twists around to put the bag over on the backseat near the six-pack of beers.
“Beers and burgers,” Jimmy muses, staring back at them. “What’s the plan here, Kim? We gonna drive up to the make-out point in the woods? Get attacked by some vampires? Get attacked by the Blob?”
Kim chuckles. “Just be patient.”
“All right, all right,” Jimmy says, nestling deeper into the seat. “Wake me when we’re there, okay?”
But he doesn’t close his eyes. He watches the yellow-lit buildings drift past the window, curved and earthen, winking fondly at him through half-open blinds. Kim drives on steadily, crossing over the river, over the lights of houses reflected in the slow-moving water, past the trees on the banks that are shadowed in dusk. The suburbs beyond the Rio Grande are quiet, the traffic thin, and Jimmy hums a little under his breath as they pass half-filled restaurants and closed shops, the roads wide and flat.
And then eventually the car slows for a final time before a bright red sign that reads, Sunset Drive-In. It's old but illuminated, and Jimmy grins at the sight of it. Beneath it in smaller uneven black letters are the words, Cool Hand Luke, the final 'e' spaced awkwardly far from the 'k'. Kim peels off the road beside the sign, and the car hums over the dirt driveway leading up to the theater. They pull through the ticket gate, not speaking yet except to the attendant inside, Kim following the signs and coming to a stop amid a scattering of other cars. An enormous white screen waits before them, empty.
“Okay,” Jimmy says, finally, nodding. “I can get behind this.”
“Good,” Kim says, laughing a little. “Because you know I already paid the man at the gate.”
Jimmy chuckles, and he takes the bag of burgers and the six-pack of Shiner as Kim passes them over to him. He fishes for his keys and pops the caps off two bottles then sets them in the cup holders.
Kim’s still rifling for something, twisted completely around, fishing through the seat pocket behind the driver's seat. When she turns back, she’s holding another paper bag, this one misshapen and lumpy.
Jimmy takes a sip of beer and widens his eyes expectantly.
After a beat, Kim holds the bag out to him, and says, “It’s no stolen library book, but…”
“Oho,” Jimmy says, grinning, and he sets his bottle down and takes the paper bag from her. Whatever’s inside clinks, and he unfurls the top and pulls out…two shot glasses. A familiar skyline is etched into them, and above it in orange, the words, Chicago. Jimmy bursts out laughing. “Oh my god,” he says, glancing to Kim, “did you get these at that travel center?”
Kim nods, chuckling along with him. “Yep. Nestled in between the Amsterdam and Sydney glasses.”
“Wow,” Jimmy says softly. “That place really had everything.” He turns one around in his hand, hiding and revealing the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Center, then he looks back up at her.
Kim smiles. “Happy Birthday, Jimmy.”
He sets the two shot glasses beside each other on the dashboard, then grins at her. “Thanks.”
“You know, I almost got you a poncho,” Kim says lightly.
Jimmy laughs and holds up his hands. “Hey, I wouldn’t say no to a poncho. Get one in red and blue stripes, match my new socks.”
Kim snorts, and then the theater screen flashes. A Bacardi ad starts rolling, bright tropical colors. Kim rolls down her window and grabs the speaker box from the stand beside the car, clipping it inside just in time for them to hear the smooth jazz of the advertisement, and Jimmy finally digs around for the burgers and fries, passing Kim’s over to her. He unwraps his burger, and the two of them eat, chatting a little as more advertisements play.
Then the screen goes black, and they watch together while Paul Newman drunkenly dismantles parking meters, completely silently, just like them.
As the film runs, Kim slips off her shoes and sits cross-legged in her seat, leaning back, smile playing on her face. She cradles her beer, holding the neck with her left hand, rocking it back and forth slightly on her knee.
Jimmy rubs his thumb over the label of his own bottle and takes a sip, settling in, leaning his head back against the headrest. It’s been a long time since he’s watched this movie, and it’s more beautiful than he remembers: bright blues and yellows and enormous fields.
The nostalgic twang of the soundtrack plays over the chain gang. He tries to remember when exactly he last watched it. With Marco, probably, round Marco’s dad’s place. He can remember arguing with Marco as they watched—they were each sure they could eat fifty eggs, and each sure the other definitely couldn’t. Jimmy gives a soft little laugh that has nothing to do with what’s happening on screen, and Kim glances over at him. He smiles, and she returns it, before looking back at the film.
It’s quiet in the car, and Jimmy's seat is soft, and there’s a pleasant warmth settling over him. He feels all the tiredness of the day pressing like fingers on the back of his eyes—but there’s something comforting about it. Like nights as a kid, out somewhere he shouldn't be, alive with the lateness of it.
Some time into the film, Jimmy looks over at Kim. Maybe she makes a noise, or moves, or maybe he just feels compelled to look, because he finds himself turning at her as the sound of banjo strings emerges from the silvery speaker inside the car. Her gaze is fixed on the screen, and her eyes are shining, mirrored lakes.
If this were a novel he’d say he could see the reflection of the movie in them: Paul Newman sitting on his bunk, strumming his banjo and singing ‘Plastic Jesus’.
He can't. He can only see the dark pools of her eyes.
She doesn’t move at all, and her gaze doesn’t falter, but somehow Jimmy knows that Kim can feel him looking at her. The blue-white light of the prison dormitory shadows her face, and her eyes glimmer, and he doesn’t look away, and Kim doesn’t look to him.
He just watches her, and she watches the film—so still.
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