"Well, the short story is -"
Jennie interrupts, "I don't want to hear the short story. I've been watching you sit in that bar, alone, since March. If I wanted a short story I wouldn't have let you drive me to a secluded area and handed over my wall...
"Want something to drink?" Lisa finally says after a long silence between the pair. Since Lisa finished her story, herself and Jennie had resorted to staring at the wall and trying to figure out what to say to break the tension.
Jennie nods generously, "Yeah. God, yeah. After all of that I might need five drinks."
"You got it. I'll go see what I have – make yourself comfortable, turn on the TV or something," Lisa suggests as she rises to her feet.
Once Lisa's in the kitchen, Jennie doesn't know what to do with herself. She crosses her legs and then uncrosses them and then crosses them again. She feels out of place in Lisa's home – as if nobody except for Lalisa Manoban is allowed to step through the front door.
She takes in her surrounding, quietly noting that there are still a couple of cardboard boxes sitting in the corner of Lisa's living room that have yet to be unpacked, even after nearly a year of living in the place. One of the boxes has the word personal stuff scribbled across it in thick black letters and Jennie has to actively stop her from walking over and peeking inside.
She turns her attention instead to the small table beside the couch and stares at the photograph sitting atop it. It's a portrait of a young girl, possibly no older than ten or eleven, hugging a dog and smiling happily.
"Who's the girl in the photograph?" Jennie yells to the kitchen.
"What?" Lisa calls back, confusion evident in her tone.
"The photo you have framed of the young girl – is she related to you? Like a sister or something?"
"Oh, no, she uh... it's just the stock image that came with the picture frame. My case officer said it would be a good idea to put up photos like that to make it look like I actually have family and friends in this life."
Jennie doesn't respond, instead frowns at the photo of the little girl with green eyes and brown hair and turns it away. The picture, like everything else in Lisa's place, feels wrong. When the back of the frame faces towards her, Jennie notices the corner of a piece of paper sticking out. She takes the frame into her hands and unhinges the back cover, letting two images fall into her hands – one of the young girl with the dog, and the photo that was shielded away behind it.
The second photo is of Lisa and a blond beautiful girl with long hair. She runs her fingers over the photo, trying to memorize the way Lisa's lips stretch over her smile – she can't imagine a version of her in which she was this happy, this full of life. Jennie flips the photo over and reads the writing on the back:
Me & Chaeyoung. 2017. Coachella.
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Jennie looks at the photo once more now that the face has a names. She studies the way that one of Chaeyoung's hands is curled at her side while the other wraps around Lisa's back, disappearing behind her. She already knew that the blonde was a bit taller than Lisa. There's a part of Jennie that wants to know Chaeyoung personally and learn all of her inside jokes with Lisa, but also there is another part of her that wants to run as far away from the two as possible. It reminds her of the fact that the other women believe that Lisa is dead. It reminds her of the weight of the situation.
