“I don’t think you are,” he said. “But regardless, it’s true, I do.”
I uncrossed and recrossed my feet at the ankles. “Thank you.” What I felt was:Uh-oh.
When I was twenty-four I briefly lived in San Francisco. I moved for an internship with an app that went belly-up six months after I got there. San Francisco was a weird city—all the conformity of DC with the lush, green hills of a freethinking Pacific Northwest. And still in California!
I met a man there named Noah who was getting a doctorate in meteorology. I knew from our first date that he was going to be trouble, and when the paper came it said:five weeks. I remember thinking:That’s too long.
By which I meant:It isn’t enough time.
He was from Texas, with a slow drawl and just the right amount of facial hair and blue eyes that when he looked at you felt like they were missiles. Noah showed me the Golden Gate atsunrise and the Haight in September and the best Indian place in the whole damn city. When five weeks were up, I didn’t want it to end, but then he got the call: a grant in Iceland. That was a Friday. He left the following Tuesday.
I can’t say I was surprised. There are some experiences you just have to have.
When Hugo and I were finished with dinner, Hugo got up from the table and went over to the guitarist.
I watched him negotiate, slide a bill into the man’s hand, and return to our table. I gave him a questioning look; he just shrugged.
And then a song began to play. The first dangling notes of “Ribbons in the Sky” by Stevie Wonder: “?‘Oh, so long for this night I prayed that a star would guide you my way…’?”
Hugo was looking at the guitarist intently. And then his gaze turned to me. “Too much?”
I wanted to say,Yes, of course, ridiculous[eye roll].Who does this work on?
But instead I shook my head.
“I’d ask you to dance, but that seems embarrassing.”
“Try me.”
Hugo pushed back his chair and stood up, offering me his hand. I took it.
I was wearing a black dress, fitted at the top, flowy to the ankles. He placed his hand right along the seam of my back.
From the corner of my eye I saw people at neighboring tables watching us. I felt an unfamiliar sense of anticipation, the stirrings of something unexpected.
“I like the way you smell,” Hugo said.
I liked the way he smelled, too. The cologne had transformed. I wanted to bury my nose in the crook of his neck.
His fingers played down my back.
“What do you think?” he whispered. “Should we give it a whirl?”
I pulled back to look at him. His face was lit up in a smile.
“OK,” I said. “Why not?”
He lifted my arm, and spun me.
Chapter Six
I drop Hugo at his house—a Spanish-style three-bedroom on a rose-lined street called Ashcroft smack in the middle of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. By the time we leave, it’s been over an hour since I’ve had anything to drink, and I feel dead sober, the reality of tonight sits upright like another passenger.
Hugo lives about eight minutes from me, but his house is in another world. It’s classic, charming, with just a hint of history—and perfectly maintained. Bright green moss grows over one exterior wall and ivy on the other. The greenery offsets the big, glass windows.
“Do you want to come in for a drink?” he asks.
“School night,” I say. All of a sudden I feel exhausted. “And I have to get back to Murph.”
