Jade
by Jef Coburn
When Neil meets Jade, he is struck by her exceptional personality. But Carly is a long-time friend who becomes available for more than friendship. Suddenly, Neil has to decide whether to pursue the promising relationship or the surprise romance. He has to adjust when he learns there’s more to someone than he had thought. In the absence of a sure thing, how shall he gamble?
Chapter Four: Timing is Everything
I don’t know why I told Brad. I guess it’s because he’s honorable enough to keep a secret. Mind you, I didn’t care who knew about Jade, but Jade might. I felt the need for a sounding board, so when it came up, I took the opportunity. He and I share an office with one other guy, David, who was out doing an inspection.
“How’d the date go?” he asked.
“Um, it went okay,” I replied vaguely, wading in from the shallow end.
“When you say, ‘okay,’ it doesn’t sound very okay. What movie did you see?”
“She’s Not Perfect.”
“Nobody is, man.”
“No, that’s the movie we saw. As for her... let’s just say there’s more to her than I realized.”
“Is that the one with Ashley Holder?”
“What? Oh... no, this one had Amy Jarvis.”
“Then who’s Ashley Holder?”
“She’s the one on Sushi Stand: Santa Monica.”
“I thought that was Amy Pipkin.”
“No, Amy Pipkin’s on Sushi Stand: Seattle. Do you want to know about the date or not?”
“Sorry. Go on. More to her than you realized.”
“Right. I mean, she’s great! We’re going out again on Saturday.”
“Why Saturday?”
“What?”
“If she’s so great, why not tonight or tomorrow? It’s not like you to play hard-to-get.”
“She has a work thing, some kind of training conference. Anyway, like I was saying, I feel like we can say anything to each other. She really gets me. We have the same tastes in things. There’s definitely a... connection.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She’s... she’s green, Brad.”
Brad nodded silently, apparently taking it in. “Well, you know, Neil, we’re destroying the planet. We have to act now before—”
“No, I don’t mean she’s an environmentalist. I mean she’s green.”
Brad squinted and turned his head for a second. “Oh, I get it: inexperienced. Say no more.”
“No, you don’t get it.” I held out my left hand. “Blue.” I held out my right hand. “Yellow.” I clapped my hands together and clasped them. “Green. She’s literally green, Brad.”
He paused longer this time before speaking. “What shade?”
“What?”
“What shade? Sage? Mint? Sea green? Chartreuse?”
“Good grief, Brad. She’s not a crayon.”
“I’m just trying to get a mental picture. Is she ‘70’s kitchen appliance green or She-Hulk green?”
I rolled my eyes in resignation. “She-Hulk green.”
“Okay, so a healthy green then.”
“You’re awfully nonchalant about this.”
“I’m not the one dating her.” He squinted again. “What about her lips?”
“Pardon?”
“Her lips. If the rest of her face is green, what color are her lips?”
“I don’t know. She was wearing lipstick. Why does that matter?”
“Just trying to figure out... no reason. So she’s a regular woman otherwise?”
“Oh, she’s so far above regular! I just don’t know...”
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know...” I laughed at myself. “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
“You like her, right?”
“Very much.”
“Then that’s all you need to know; for now, at least.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I couldn’t explain the question to him or even to myself.
Brad grabbed a file off his desk and headed for the door. “I’ve gotta go check out a duplex. Talk to you later.” He stopped at the door and spun around. “Oh, yeah! I almost forgot to ask!”
“What?”
“How was the movie?”
I told him my review probably wouldn’t help much.
A few minutes after he walked out, Carly walked in. “Hi,” she said after knocking on the open doorway.
“Hi.” I was a little surprised. Sometimes she stopped by at the end of the day to see if I was going to an office thing, but this was probably only about the third time she had come to my office in the middle of the day.
“Bad time?”
“No, come on in.” I wheeled Brad’s chair over to my desk for her. “Perfect timing. Brad just left, so he won’t need this for a while.”
“Timing is everything. Thanks,” she said, sitting. “Michelle heard about a roller rink where they have theme Thursdays. Tonight it’s roller disco night — all ‘70’s music. Costumes encouraged but not required. You in?”
“How could I not be? All that polyester and a chance at personal injury to boot; too good to pass up.”
“Great.”
“Will Ben be joining us? You guys might get to couples skate,” I teased.
Here smile faded. “I don’t think so. We kind of had a fight.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to bring it up.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I was telling him about the tapas outing the other night, and he kind of freaked out.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I was with you.”
“I don’t understand, Carly. I thought you said Ben’s not the jealous type. We hang out all the time.”
“Yeah, we do,” she agreed, “and I don’t make a point of bringing it up, but I mention things sometimes.”
“Things?”
“Stuff we talked about, stuff that has to do with whatever Ben and I are discussing at the moment.”
“But he knows there’s nothing going on. Why would he be jealous?”
“Because he... well, he cornered me, Neil. He asked if I found you attractive.”
“What’d you say?”
“We’re having this conversation, aren’t we?”
The silence after that was pretty heavy. I wanted to break it, but I didn’t know how. Finally I tried. “Carly, I’m honored, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t mutual. I think you know that. I didn’t mean to cause a rift in your relationship.”
“You’re not. He is. If he didn’t want the truth, he shouldn’t have asked for it, and if he can’t be okay with it and trust me, I can’t be with him. Being attracted to someone else doesn’t mean I’m being unfaithful to him. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” I said. I had never known we were on the same page with that. Then something hit me. “Carly, does this have anything to do with what you said to me yesterday, about how I should be more assertive?”
“Maybe.”
“It was good advice, by the way,” I said nervously. I think I was subconsciously slipping into confession mode. “It was good that I had a plan in place. It freed us up to talk about... other things.”
“Did she like the movie you picked?”
I crafted my answer carefully. “The movie choice was not the make-or-break element I had feared it would be.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “You weren’t watching the movie.”
“You’re right, but not in the way you think you are.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“I do.”
She looked down, then back up at me. “I guess I was right earlier,” she said, getting up and pushing Brad’s chair back to his desk. “Timing is everything.”
“I should probably pass on the skating tonight.”
“No, don’t! Come out and skate with us. There’s no reason a little honesty should make things weird between us. I get it. It’s cool.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. You can even invite her to come out if you want.”
“She’s tied up tonight. Training conference for work.” I was thankful the truth was such a convenient excuse.
“So what’re you going to do, sit around at home by yourself all night? Come on. I know Michelle and Gary are definitely going, and probably Carol as well, so it won’t be just us.”
I was torn.
“Neil, if we’re going to keep our friendship, we’ve gotta get back to normal at some point. Why not just go ahead and do it now?”
I couldn’t find a single logical argument against that. I had always known Carly was capable of great maturity and reason, but I was struck by her no-nonsense stance on the matter. I was also touched that she cared enough about our friendship to fight for it in this way.
“Okay, but grade me on a curve. I haven’t skated in years. They still spray that stuff in the skates, right?”
“You won’t regret this.”
I had the strangest feeling she was right.
Copyright © 2021 by Jef Coburn
