Follow Her Home by Steph Cha Page A

school, a Columbia graduate who had taken a few years off after college to work in D.C. She was a few years older than Diego, having just turned thirty-one in February. They started dating toward the end of their second year of law school. It was Diego’s first relationship after our breakup, but he and Jackie got hitched the week after their graduation last June. Luke and I used to tease Diego about their hasty marriage, attributing it to her insistent biological clock. We stopped once we noticed the shivering timbre of his laughter as he bore our immaturities.
    Not that she looked old enough to worry. Five foot five, 110 pounds of lean muscle, she went to the gym as often as most people brushed their teeth. Short, dark hair fell jaunty and jagged about her ears, framing a milk-white, unmade face that didn’t tan, didn’t wrinkle. Her quiet eyes stayed squinted most of the time, but when they didn’t, their cool auburn agate was captivating.
    â€œHey, Jackie.” I tried to dissipate the solemn, intimate air that hung over the sofa. “I was in the area and thought I’d drop by.”
    â€œYou’re always in the area.”
    Jackie pretended to like me with the thespian flair of a nervous house cat. I didn’t blame her for being wary of me, but I always thought it was silly. Diego and I hadn’t shared so much as one strand of saliva since before we could drink legally. I suspected that the fact of my perpetual singledom since our breakup let her imagine I still carried a torch for him.
    In her defense, she wasn’t the only person who found my seven years of solitude a little bit curious. When Luke needled me about my lack of male companionship, I knew his jokes came bound with concern. It was a constant theme with my mother, who wanted to see her twenty-six-year-old daughter married before all the good men vanished from the dating field. Co-workers and acquaintances knew me as a staunch bachelorette and occasionally expressed interest in ending my misery. I went on dates now and then, attached men for brief romantic experiments, but I fell in love for the last time when I was eighteen. Diego was the only one who was judicious enough to withhold comment.
    Jackie was an enthusiastic meddler in my love life, and I usually obliged her when she set me up with various men she guaranteed were perfect fits. I was often tempted to tell her that I did not have plans to seduce her husband, and that she should know he would kill himself before cheating on his wife. Diego couldn’t be more loyal if he were in a coma. He was devoted and single-minded, and dating him was not unlike a full-time job with unpaid double overtime.
    But now was not the time to make a point for Jackie. I stood up and motioned vaguely toward the door. “I was just about to head out. I’m going to track down Luke. I think I’ll be hanging out with him today, so if you guys are free, let me know. Though I guess I don’t have a phone right now.”
    Diego looked up at me, distress still evident in every inch of his face. “I’ll walk out with you.” He started to get up.
    I still had no answer for what was probably a rhetorical question anyway. “No, it’s cool. I parked pretty close.” I twisted the doorknob with a pinch too much haste and opened the door halfway. “Later, guys.”
    I heard them say goodbye and closed the door soft and slow, the better to make my getaway.

 
    Six
    I had just turned on my engine when I saw Diego bound down the stairs leading out of his apartment. I kept the car idling as I watched him run up and knock on the passenger-side door.
    I unlocked the car and Diego climbed in.
    â€œYou’re coming with me, then?”
    He nodded, looking at the windshield. “I guess so.”
    â€œWhat’d you tell Jackie?”
    â€œI just said I’d be back.”
    I would have bet my car that Jackie was fuming behind the front door and