AND THE LIVING IS EASY
CHAPTER ONE - SCHOOL'S OUT
She's 35 now and that makes Jordan 37, and that makes it twenty years since she was hatching plots to run into him under the bleachers or in the boiler room, so Angela almost never thinks about those things anymore. Maybe she remembers sometimes just how young she was once, and how it felt to be one of the many girls who wanted Jordan Catalano back then. But remembering him hasn't hurt for a long time, and now there's just a fondness left for that part of her life, for the days of Ricky and Rayanne and being fifteen and longing for Jordan, all a long time ago.
And Jordan barely remembers Angela Chase and that long ago spring and summer when he thought he was in love with her, because that was the year that everything finally fell apart for good in his family, the summer his mom really left his dad, which was when his dad got crazy mean, and when the whole thing about staying in high school blew up in his face. Now, twenty years later, when he occasionally drives down Angela's street, or past Graham's restaurant, or runs into Patti somewhere, he just remembers a blur and a hurt girlfriend and how shitty it had all felt, to be responsible for someone's feelings, how he couldn't do it then, and hasn't really wanted to do it ever since then. But he doesn't quite think it out that way. It's just sort of a hazy jumble of memory around Angela Chase, a nice girl who was once his girlfriend for a little while a long time ago, someone who grew up, got herself out of this town and actually stayed out, something he's never quite managed to do himself.
He does remember that he dreamt about her a few times though, and that he woke up one morning, maybe five years ago, smiling, dreaming that she'd called his name on the street and waved at him, that he'd been so happy to see her.
Maybe that's why it's confusing when he hears her voice again for the first time in years.
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"Jordan?" he hears someone saying, and the voice is too familiar to make sense of, coming from this person he doesn't even recognize, a slim, pretty woman, dressed a bit too nicely to live here, holding a little girls hand.
He stands by his truck in the Big Guy parking lot, blinking in the sunlight, slightly confused, and then she laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear and he knows who it is.
"Didn't recognize you for a minute, Ange," he says, feeling strangely happy, "you're all grown up now."
"You haven't changed at all," she says, and it's true. In his jeans and plaid shirt, hair just a little shorter than it was the last time she saw him, Jordan looks at least ten years younger than she knows he is, and ten times handsomer than he has any right to be.
"Sophie, this is Jordan," she tells the little girl, smiling down at her, "my friend from a long time ago."
"Hi Sophie," he says, as a miniature Angela looks up at him curiously, and then he grins back at Angela.
"Do you have children?" she asks him.
"A boy," he says softly, "just five now."
"I'm seven," Sophie informs him, and again, he and Angela look at each other and smile in a way that feels full of quiet fondness and grown up memory.
He's so full of their moment, of looking into her eyes, that he doesn't say much or ask her anything at all about herself. He might have, but then Andy comes bouncing up to them, smiling and apologizing for taking so long, explaining that she'd run into someone. There's a slightly awkward pause as she's introduced, before he and Angela both say how good it was to see each other again and then he's in the truck, driving them back to work, totally confused.
"Old girlfriend?"
"Yeah."
"I could tell. Is she married?"
"Looks like it."
"She thought we were together."
"Maybe. Fuck. Yeah," he mutters, realizing that was probably true.
"You really liked her," Andy says, surprised. As long as she's worked for Jordan, five days a week for four years now, she's never seen him look at anyone the way he was looking at Angela, never heard his voice as soft as the voice he was talking to her in, or seen him so distracted.
"Yeah, well, " he says, shrugging it off, "it was a long time ago. She doesn't live here anymore."
It's true, he thinks, pulling up in front of the garage, Angela Chase is part of the past. But there's a funny tug in his heart, something calling him back, a memory of something he didn't know he'd been missing. He tries to put it away, but it's there now, in his body, the feeling of closeness, of being held. And it makes no sense to remember it or to want it now, he tells himself, because Angela Chase, the girl he'd loved, who'd loved him back, is all grown up, and married to someone else. And why that should hurt so bad makes no sense at all.
#
"How was Big Guy?" Patti asks, kneeling down to beam at Sophie adoringly. She loves being a grandmother, and since it doesn't look like Danielle is ever going to settle down and bring forth another, Sophie is the recipient of all her grandma's love.
"Sophie had a strawberry milkshake," Angela tells her mom.
"Do you miss Strawberry, honey?" Patti asks Sophie.
"Yes," Sophie tells her seriously, "but Daddy says he'll give her extra apples while I'm gone and make sure she's happy."
"I should have just incarnated as a pony," Angela laughs, "maybe next time."
She thinks for a moment about telling Patti she'd seen Jordan, and realizes that it's something she doesn't really want to share. There's a warm feeling in her heart right now for whatever it was that had passed between them, the way he'd somehow let her know she'd been important to him, and she doesn't want to dilute it by talking about it.
Funny how things change with time, Angela thinks, feeling old and wise. Even after Jordan had left high school, and then left town, she'd never really been over him. She'd made it through school and had other boyfriends but she'd stayed hungry for any crumb of news about Jordan, hoped against hope that she'd see him again, carried him in her heart for those school years, until finally she'd left town herself, gone off to college. By then she'd realized that he was in her past, and that life would hold other things for her. She'd moved on, been happy, hoped he was well, and never been bitter about him. But it had been a hard lesson to learn, finding out that sometimes life takes things away from you and there's nothing to be done about it.
He looks like he's doing okay, she thinks. And the girl, the girlfriend maybe, had seemed nice. They'd been comfortable together. I wish him well, she says to herself, and even while a tiny part of her still wishes he was hers, the grown up part of her knows better than to try and relive the past, even in her imagination.
#
"You're not coming in?" Andy asks, puzzled, when Jordan doesn't turn the engine off.
"No," he shakes his head, looking puzzled himself, "I'll be in later."
He doesn't even know what he's doing, but by the time the truck's turned around and headed in the direction of Angela's house he's starting to figure it out. He can't believe that he's going to drive by her place like a lovesick kid, but then he can't imagine walking up and knocking on the front door either. Operating on some kind of a homing instinct, he keeps driving, until he's in front of her house, and then it's only the sight of the shiny new BMW convertible parked in the driveway that shocks him back into reality.
She'd looked rich, he realized. Not that he'd really noticed what she was wearing, but there'd been something there, some sense of money, about her.
She's gone, he tells himself, not looking back, and then he doesn't stop till he's an hour out in the country, surrounded by rolling green farmland, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, almost the only car on the road.
#
When the kitchen phone rings, Angela wonders if she should bother picking it up. Her parents are almost the only people she knows who've kept a land line, and she hasn't used one for so long it seems like a historical artifact. But something inside her tells her to answer the phone.
"Hello," she says, waiting to be surprised, and she is. Or then again, maybe she isn't.
"Angela?"
"Jordan?"
"Yeah. Uh, hey," he truly doesn't know what he's doing, but at least he didn't just hang up when he heard her voice, "I wanted to say how happy I was to see you."
"Me too Jordan," she says warmly, feeling her heart flood with happiness
"You know, I," he starts, and then he lets it come out, the apology that's twenty years overdue, "when I left, all those years ago, it wasn't about you. I just couldn't stay here, back then."
"I know, Jordan."
There's a silence then, and they both know it's not because there's nothing to say, but because it's enough now to just be quiet together.
"I always kept you in my heart, Ange," he tells her softly after a minute, and there it is, exactly what he needed to say, exactly what she needed to hear.
"You too, Jordan."
Hearing Angela Chase say his name, her voice soft and full of love after twenty years, has him so rewired, he actually steps back outside of the foggy zone his feelings live in most of the time.
"Are you married, Ange?"
"Jordan," she laughs and feels sad at the same time, "I am. And I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you asked."
"Are you happy normally? I mean in your life?"
"I love my family," she says, "my daughter and my husband who works too much. I live in a beautiful place. I'm grateful for what I have. I guess that's happy."
"Good," he says thoughtfully, "that's good. I'm glad."
"How about you?" she asks, "Tell me a little about your life."
So he does. Sitting in his truck, out pretty much in the middle of nowhere, he tells her things he'd never even think to tell anyone, little details about the old house he's been rebuilding for a few years now, how he plays his guitar in front of the fire and remembers playing in the loft, about his dog, Clancy, who's getting old. He tells her some of the other things too, like how he still hangs with Shane, who's a policeman now, married with kids, and how running his uncle's garage and towing business has worked out okay, and how it didn't work out okay with his son's mother, how the two of them are in Philadelphia now and he sees his kid a couple times a month. They talk until his ear's on fire and he wishes he could find those stupid earphones he hasn't seen for a while.
"Is this what people call closure?" she says, when the conversation slows to a pause, "because it feels like things are whole again now."
"Maybe? I always hated that, people looking for closure, talking that way."
"Me too," she laughs.
"But you're right, it feels," he pauses, and waits to see what word is coming out of his mouth, "complete, I guess."
"Well," she says, sounding surprised, "imagine that."
After they get off the phone, he wanders over to a big oak tree, the most imposing thing in sight, and drops to the ground, squatting with his back against its trunk. Something's shifted, opened inside him, and he's smart enough to not run around in his mind trying to name it. Looking out at the fields, the sky, he let's it all reach in and touch him, and even though he's not looking for a word, if he had to choose one it would be probably be gratitude.
#
There's a new tranquility in Angela too. For the next week, still at her mom's house, she finds herself strangely at peace with life. Visiting home has always held a certain amount of boredom and irritation to it, but she's content now to spend these early summer days with her parents and Sophie. Jordan doesn't call again, but she hadn't expected him to, and she doesn't hope she'll run into him when she's out of the house either. Things are as they should be between them, and she's happy with how much sweetness that brings to her life. She's even a little sentimental when she and Sophie pile into the car to drive home, and tears up saying goodbye to her mom and dad. Heading out of town with the top down and the radio on, she's happy; happy to have been home to visit, and happy to be going home to live.
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