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What do you do when the unthinkable happens? When that one in a million chance comes through, how are you supposed to react? Is there even a proper response, or are the vagaries of the human soul such that anything which gets you from that initial moment of shock into the next can be taken as acceptable?
Gene has to hope so, because there's no other possible scenario where the right reaction to Kim, his Kim, Jimmy's Kim, walking right into his cinnamon-scented purgatory is to make note of how much older she looks. It's uncharitable at best, and hilariously, unfathomably shallow at worst, especially considering how they last parted.
She's still beautiful, of course, the years having evidently been much kinder to one of them than the other, but after so long holding a certain image in his mind, to be suddenly faced with fresh lines around her eyes and a wearier set to her shoulders is jarring, and even though neither his tinted glasses nor her obsessive dying regimen would ever allow it, it would be all too easy to imagine seeing a streak or two of white in her hair.
He wonders when she changed her hair.
He feels like he freezes up in the instant his eyes land on her, but in truth, it takes a few seconds for the message to make it all the way down his arms and still his hands as he reflexively separates dough for a fresh batch of buns. By then, she's made it to the counter and Courtney's taking her order, Kim's low voice, even now more familiar than his own, cutting through his stunned (and surprisingly judgemental) fugue state, bringing him back to the real world.
The one where this can't be happening.
The one where the man she knew is dead and buried.
The one where Gene could very well follow suit if his secret ever gets out.
This could undo everything.
(finally)
He tries not to stare, fails, finally forces himself to look down at the counter before she takes note of the studiously unassuming presence just a few feet to her right. How could she not, though?
Don't notice me, Kim. Don't see me. Just pay and turn around, it'll only take a few seconds.
It's been nearly a minute since he's drawn a breath, but he can't do it, can't move a muscle for any reason lest he give himself away, like he's an animal hiding from a predator in plain sight, relying on his natural camouflage to save his life.
But it's Kim. The only one who could always see right through me.
As if on cue, he feels suddenly stripped to the bone, laid bare right there in the mall, and he can't help flicking his eyes up for a glimpse without turning his head.
Time stops. The moment--
s
She's looking right at him. Her expression is blank, hard to read, not that he'll have time before the recognition sets in and he's lost.
t
How is this going to go, Kim?
r
Will she be angry? Relieved? Too stunned to speak?
e
How will she carry herself from that crucial initial moment when everything changed to the next? Better than Gene did, almost certainly, but that still leaves a lot of options.
t
The last time they spoke there were tears (of anger, obviously, she's never been a weeper). Will they come back? He hopes not.
c
There'll be a scene no matter what, that much is for certain. But he'd rather it not be a rehash of anything he's put her through before. He's probably not in a position to be picky, he realizes.
h
I'm right here.
e
He's been here the whole time.
s
--out for an eternity and is gone as soon as he dares to blink. Because when he does, Kim's not looking at him anymore. She's taking her order with a smile and a nod, she's dropping her change in the tip jar, she's walking away, and she's gone.
She didn't notice him.
The day is saved.
And somewhere, a dead man is screaming.