She made a face at me. “My point is, clearly you two had something. So maybe you should think about going to a little trouble to work this out, whatever it is.”
“Look,” I said, “you said yourself that relationships only work when there’s an understanding about the limits. We didn’t have that. So now we don’t have a relationship.”
She considered this for a moment. “Nice,” she said. “I especially like how you explained that without actually telling me anything.”
“The bottom line is that I just get where you’re coming from now, okay?” I said. “You don’t want to waste your time on anything or anyone you don’t believe in, and neither do I.”
“You think that’s how I am?” she asked.
“Are you saying it’s not?”
Jamie was crossing the yard to us, finally free. He lifted a hand, waving hello. “I’m not saying anything,” Olivia replied, leaning back again and shaking her head. “Nothing at all.”
“Ladies,” Jamie said, ever the happy host as he came up to the bench. “Enjoying the pond?”
“It’s very nice,” Olivia said politely. “I like the skimmer.”
I just looked at her, but Jamie, of course, beamed. “Jamie, this is my friend Olivia,” I said.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand.
They shook, and then he crouched down at the edge of the pond, reaching his hand down into the water. As he scooped some up, letting it run over his fingers, Olivia suddenly gasped. “Oh my God. I know where I know you from!” she said. “You’re the UMe guy!”
Jamie looked at her, then at me. “Um,” he said. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“You recognize him from UMe?” I asked.
“Hello, he’s only on the new sign-in page, which I see, like, ten million times a day,” she said. She shook her head, clearly still in shock. “Man, I can’t believe this. And Ruby never even said anything.”
“Well, you know,” Jamie said, pushing himself back to his feet, “Ruby is not easily impressed.”
Unlike Olivia, who now, as I watched, incredulous, began to actually gush. “Your site,” she said to Jamie, putting a hand to her chest, “saved my life when I had to switch schools.”
“Yeah?” Jamie said, obviously pleased.
“Totally. I spent every lunch in the library on my UMe page messaging with my old friends. And, of course, all night, too.” She sighed, wistful. “It was, like, my only connection with them.”
“You still had your phone,” I pointed out.
“I can check my page on that, too!” To Jamie she said, “Nice application, by the way. Very user friendly.”
“You think? We’ve had some complaints.”
“Oh, please.” Olivia flipped her hand. “It’s easy. Now, the friends system? That needs work. I hate it.”
“You do?” Jamie said. “Why?”
“Well,” she said, “for starters, there’s no way to search through them easily. So if you have a lot, and you want to reorganize, you have to just keep scrolling, which takes forever.”
I thought of my own UMe.com page, untouched all these months. “How many friends do you have, anyway?” I asked her.
“A couple of thousand,” she replied. I just looked at her. “What? Online, I’m popular.”
“Obviously,” I said.
Later, when Olivia had gone—taking with her a promotional UMe.Com messenger bag packed with UMe.com stickers and T-shirts—I found Jamie in the kitchen, marinating some chicken for dinner. As I came in, the phone began to ring: I went to grab it, but after glancing at the caller ID, he shook his head. “Just let the voice mail get it.”
I looked at the display screen, which said CROSS, BLAKE. “You’re screening Mr. Cross?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, dribbling some olive oil over the chicken and shaking the pan slightly. “I don’t want to. But he’s being really persistent about this investment thing, so . . .”
“What investment thing?”
He glanced up at me, as if not sure whether or not he wanted to expound on this. Then he said, “Well, you know. Blake’s kind of a wheeler-dealer. He’s always got some grand plan in the works.”
I thought of Mr. Cross that morning, practically stalking Jamie in the yard. “And he wants to do a deal with you?”
“Sort of,” he said, going over to the cabinet above the stove and opening it, then rummaging through the contents. After a minute, he pulled out a tall bottle of vinegar. “He says he wants to expand his business and is looking for silent partners, but really I think he’s just short on cash, like last time.”
I watched him add a splash of vinegar, then bend down and sniff the chicken before adding more. “So this has happened before.”
He nodded, capping the bottle. “Last year, a few months after we moved in. We had him over, you know, for a neighborly drink, and we got to talking. Next thing I know, I’m getting the whole epic saga about his hard financial luck— none of which was his fault, of course—and how he was about to turn it all around with this new venture. Which turned out to be the errand-running thing.”
Roscoe came out of the laundry room, where he’d been enjoying one of his many daily naps. Seeing us, he yawned, then headed for the dog door, vaulting himself through it, and it shut with a thwack behind him.