100 Yellow Doors

september 7th, 2019, 8:52 p.m.

    He ran his fingers through her hair, his smile rueful. "Are you okay?"

    "I don't know," Iman said, "but I do...I do feel better."

    Beck worked his jaw for a moment, as if pondering something. Then, swiftly, with a new purpose, he turned and ruffled through his backpack for a clean shirt. Iman sniffled, watching him. "What are you doing?"

    He shucked the ruined sweater over his head and dropped it beside his backpack, accidentally knocking his glasses from his nose. "Changing," he said, putting the new shirt on and fumbling around for his fallen specs.

    "Yeah," said Iman. She got up—her legs wobbling underneath her from sitting for so long—and swept his glasses up from the carpet. He reached to take them from her, but Iman leaned forward, setting them upon his nose. "But why?"

    "Do you know what I do when I'm upset?" he said, not moving from his spot on the floor, his eyes trained up at Iman. "What takes my mind off things?"

    Iman frowned. "Read a book?"

    "Well—" He smiled, laughing at himself. "Yes, that. But I mean besides that."

    "Then, no. I don't know."

    Beck nudged his glasses further up his nose, getting to his feet, and at once reminding Iman of just how small she was compared to him. He rummaged through his pockets, car keys jingling as he lifted them to show her.

    Beck grinned, teeth and all. "I drive."

As they drove, Beck told Iman about his mother.

    "She was a florist," he said, as the lights of downtown Annapolis streamed past them in blurs of gold and white. One hand gripped the wheel, the other hand resting placidly in Iman's. "That was how she and Dad met, actually. He needed flowers for his girlfriend at the time—he messed up 'bad,' he always says, though I've told him many times before that it's badly, but oh, that's beside the point—but he said the second he walked into Mom's shop and saw her there arranging a bouquet of tulips, he forgot all about the other girl. Sucks for her, right? But yeah, that's the beginning of it all..."

    They drove past close-knit buildings, brick and stucco, tall colonial spires and cobblestone walkways. People walking, people laughing, hands in coat pockets or around another's shoulders. Live music bleeding out of bars: jazz, classic rock, blues.

    "Are you cold? Hot? Should I let down a window?" Beck let down her window halfway, so she could feel the river's breeze upon her face. "So another thing about Mom, right? She could sew just about anything—made my sister's and my clothes all the time—but she was an awful cook. Once she tried this shepherd's pie recipe she found on Pinterest, but it was not shepherd's pie. It was mush, is what it was. But, you know, all I could do was grin and bear it, because she worked so hard, you know?

    "She and Dad coached us in basketball, too. Wendy's much better at all that stuff than I am, but it was still fun. Couldn't make a free throw for my life, but Mom and Dad made me forget about all that. Just play, she used to say. That's the thing about sports, Becky! They're not just about winning!"

    Despite herself, Iman chuckled at the idea of Beck dribbling anything. She'd watched him play intramural soccer before, after all, and it hadn't taken her long to figure out why he didn't care for sports. "Could you make things that weren't free throws?"

    Beck shot her a side-eye. "What do you think?"

    Iman laughed again, the sound bubbling up in her chest and out of her mouth before she could stop it. It felt good to laugh again, like stepping back into her home after a long day away. She was returning to herself—slowly, painfully—returning to everything.