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They meet at a bar, some nowhere place off the highway, dust in every direction. They’re propped up there for the night, lights low, less hidden and more ignored, where they can come alive, just for a second. The cameras are pointed elsewhere.
“Oh,” says Jess, not really surprised; offscreen, in the limbo of the gutter, all knowledge is forefront. “It’s you.”
“Oh,” Lisa mirrors. “Hi.”
There’s nothing, really, for them to say—no space in cardboard for original thought and less in paper, just sheets slid into narrative as a road from A to B—but here between the cracks they can fold over themselves until something begins to take shape.
“He’s not a very good writer, is he?” says Jess. She never owned this nightgown, but it is her blood.
“Mm,” agrees Lisa. “Let’s not talk about him.”
There’s not much else to talk about. There are other people, probably, in the bar, if you focused hard enough. There are shapes, at least. Impressions.
“You know,” says Jess, starting over, “I was an artist.”
“Yeah,” says Lisa. “You still are.” She taps the napkin Jess has been doodling on, has always been doodling on.
“Well,” says Jess, smiling a little. “A real one, I mean. Paintings on huge canvases.” She holds her arms out to demonstrate.
“I’d like to have seen them,” says Lisa, and smiles, real.
“Yeah,” says Jess wistfully. “Me too.”
They’re offscreen, but the screen is still real, still looming. It’s hard to think about what was never written—brains slip around it.
“I remember my mom,” offers Lisa. “She’d sing into the spoon or whatever when she cooked dinner and I hated it. I used to scream at her to stop.”
“You were a kid,” says Jess; Lisa’s teared up, just a little. Or maybe she just looks sad.
“No,” says Lisa, “She’s an awful singer.” Is, was. “I complained so much, but I’d do the same to—” she starts, looks around desperately. “Ben’s not here.” Pauses, thinks. “Was he ever?”
“Twenty-one plus?” Jess suggests.
“Hm,” says Lisa, still unsettled.
“I had a little brother,” says Jess, attempting a subject change. “He was so annoying, but I spoiled that kid like crazy. He’d remind me of him sometimes.”
“Who?” asks Lisa, not following as close as she might have otherwise.
“Well,” says Jess; it’s enough. They said they wouldn’t talk about him, them, same difference. They’re just a subsection.
“Do you think that was on purpose?”
“Who knows? Honestly, I’m not sure if he does.”
Lisa laughs, a joyless, dead noise. “I miss them,” she says. “My family.”
“The real one or the fake one?”
“Ben is real,” Lisa says, sharp. “I had him before. He was just, you know. Adapted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know if it’s worse.”
“Yeah,” says Jess. They breathe for a second, not quite looking at each other. “I miss my family too.” Like how there’s nothing outside the United States; if you can’t see it, it’s not real.
Lisa reaches out, an insurmountable distance, and takes her hand, somewhere between a lover and a mother. Jess squeezes. There are no windows in this bar, and no people, no real ones anyway, but there are TVs, high on the wall. They watch together.