Page 98 of What Happens at Nightfall

“So when she was throwing urns at me she really was trying to help?”

“I can’t answer any questions from beyond the grave,” Kimmy said around her mouthful of pastry. “I can only tell you what the documents say.”

“You’re really good at this,” said Jess quietly. She’d seen her best friend in book talk mode, expounding—Kimmy had never found a podium she didn’t like—but she’d never seen the behind-the-scenes bits before, how the information got put together.

“This is what I do,” said Kimmy, swallowing her croissant. “I sift through evidence and try to reconcile conflicting narratives in a responsible way. I know what you think I do isn’t a real job, but this is actually my profession.”

“I never said it wasn’t a real job.” Jess resisted the urge to cross her fingers under the table, as if they were ten again. She’d never said it, but she’d thought it. Dabbling in writing books, a rich woman’s hobby.

Kimmy gave her a look. “I’m not stupid, Jess. You’ve never made any secret of what you thought about my dropping out of grad school.”

“I didn’t want you to sacrifice your career to Jeremy’s. But, hey. I was wrong. I can admit I was wrong. I’m happy it’s worked out for you. Really, I am.”

“I would have been miserable as a professor,” said Kimmy defensively. “Sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith. Like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

They’d both been obsessed with that movie in fifth grade. “Yes, but there was a bridge there. He just couldn’t see it.”

“Exactly,” said Kimmy.

Jess plucked at a loose thread on her old black pants. “There was a bridge for you—but what if there isn’t for me? Kimmy, I’m almost forty. My back hurts when I get out of bed the wrong way. What if I’ve lost my chance to leap?”

“You don’t need to tell me how old you are. I’m just three months behind you. And we’re still only thirty-seven, thank you very much. Lots of people don’t find their path until late in life. Look at Vlad the Impaler. He didn’t start impaling until he was in his mid-thirties.”

Jess folded her arms across her chest. “You stole that from a Facebook meme.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re thirty-seven and you’ve got three books and four kids. I’m thirty-seven and I’ve got a rapidly shrinking bank account and a dead orchid.”

“It wasn’t dead when I gave it to you.”

“I killed the orchid that you gave me.”

“Oh, stop wallowing.” Kimmy cocked her head, examining the dead plant on Jess’s radiator. “The orchid looks very nice, actually. Artistic.”

“You mean dead.” Jess looked at her hands. She’d spent so long pretending. To herself, to Kimmy, to her mother. Pretending everything was fine. Pretending she had it all under control. Pretending she knew what she was doing. She was so tired of pretending. “I don’t know what to do. No one’s hiring—and even if they were, no one’s hiring me.”

“Jeremy says that when you win your whistleblower suit, you might be able to get damages not just for lost wages but for lost future wages,” said Kimmy encouragingly. “There was some case last year.”

“I know. That’s what my lawyer says too.” But lawsuits were unpredictable things, and even if she did get some sort of settlement, it was no substitute for an actual career. “But what do I do? It’s not like I even liked my job. I only went into finance because I thought it was safe and steady and I’d never have to worry about how we were going to pay the rent.”

The constant soundtrack of her childhood, the ping of bouncing checks. There’d been a reason they’d eaten so much cheese and crackers. Jess had grown up with her mother urging her to follow her dreams and her grandfather telling her dreams were nice but a regular paycheck and a 401(k) was better.

“So if no one’s hiring and you never loved it anyway, why not do something else? You could go to art school. You always wanted to go to art school.”

Jess didn’t love it but there was a satisfaction in having a marketable skill—or what had been a marketable skill. And, unlike Kimmy, she didn’t have a rich spouse there to pay the bills if her gamble failed. “I’ve spent fifteen years doing this—nineteen if you count college. It feels late to be starting over with something else.”

“I’m not sure it has anything to do with age.” Kimmy picked up a Danish, regarded it critically, and put it down again. “Didn’t your mom have that one protégé who had her first show at seventy?”

“Yes. Also, if you’re not eating that Danish, I’ll take it.” She just knew, her mother said. When the work was good, it glowed. Jess had always assumed her mom was speaking metaphorically, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Kimmy? Have you ever noticed anything different about my mom?”

“You mean, like everything?”

Jess licked icing sugar off her fingers. “No, not like that. Adam has this theory about—hereditary talents.”

“Talents, eh?” Kimmy waggled her eyebrows.

“Stop that,” said Jess sternly. This was how Kimmy had wound up with four kids. “Not like that. Like . . . supernatural talents.”