“Why?” I ask.
“Because I think it might lift your spirits, and because I want to show you that not everything here is as awful as you seem to think it is.”
I shrug my shoulders. At this point, it’s already late afternoon and I’m really not in the mood to be productive anymore anyway. I didn’t even get the things that I needed at the store. I might as well blow off the rest of the day and try for a fresh and more ambitious start tomorrow. At some point, I need to catch up on work, but for right now, Manhattan seemed so far away.
6
Trevor
Iknow we need to keep working on the house, but I can just tell that Ava needs a breather. I’m not sure what happened during her trip to town, but she is obviously upset. Honestly, I’m not even sure if taking her around town will make her mood better or worse, but I take her by the hand and pull her along with me anyway. We leave everything right where it is in the house, grab our jackets since the cool fall temperatures are just starting to begin, and head toward my pickup truck. I can see Ava eye the rusted doorhandle as if she is worried that touching it is going to result in a tetanus shot.
“Yeah, I guess it’s not quite as fancy as your ride,” I say, giving a nod to her sleek black Audi parked in the drive. “But I’m driving, so hop in.”
I open the door to the truck, and she steps up into the seat. Everything about my pickup is a direct contrast to her aesthetic; from the bright orange exterior paint job that is peeling off in big sheets, to the worn seats covered with plain flannel blankets.
“Where are we going?” she asks as I turn the engine over a few times before it gets a good rolling start.
“Everywhere,” I grin.
I take her to the apple cider mill, and we pick Macintosh apples straight from the trees.
“Remember when we used to sit up in these branches and eat apples right from the tree until we got stomach aches?” I laugh.
“How could I forget that?” she says with a smile. “They were the tartest, crispest, and most delicious apples I’ve ever tasted.
Her comment surprises me. I thought for sure she was going to say something about how stupid it was to sit in the apple trees or how much more refined her tastes were now that she lived in the city.
“Let’s climb up there again,” I say with a mischievous smile.
“I don’t think you’re technically allowed to sit in the trees here,” she says as she looks around nervously.
I grab her hand and pull her alongside me.
“So what?”
We climb high enough in the branches to be partially hidden by the apples and leaves. We sit near each other, close enough to touch, and Ava reaches up and plucks an apple from overhead before taking a big bite that crunches in a satisfyingly audible sound. She closes her eyes and smiles as she chews.
“Damn,” she says. “They’re every bit as good as I remember.”
That moment gives me all the motivation that I need to want to take her everywhere else that I think she might remember with any sort of fondness.
We spend a great afternoon together, and I take her to all of our old haunts we used to frequent when we were in high school; the field we used to sneak away to, the old movie theatre where we once watched a triple feature and brought our own blankets and flasks with cheap wine that we snuck in before we were even old enough to drink, even the old library where we sat in the corner almost an entire afternoon reading books next to each other in silence as we waited for the rainstorm to pass so that we could walk home. I can see Ava’s face light up when she revisits some of the places that make her remember things she used to love about her hometown.
When we get back to the house it’s already evening. I decide to stay late to get some work done on the house since I didn’t really make any progress on it today, and I also don’t really want to leave yet. But I can’t really focus on work. I’m tired and distracted after such a nice day, and so when Ava decides to crack open a bottle of wine and offers me a glass, I take a break to join her.
“Are you happy with your life and your job in Manhattan?” I ask when we sit down on the couch together.
“Of course I am,” she says. “I am a senior executive in our design firm, and the projects that we work on are huge. I love the city; there’s always so much to do at any given moment, and I have the cutest little high-rise apartment.”
That all sounds great, and I can tell that she is very successful and enjoys all that the city has to offer, but then why does it seem like she is much more stressed and insecure about her life than I would have guessed? There’s a tone in her voice and a tension in her smile that make her seem as if she is acting the part but not quite feeling it.
After we chat for a little while and enjoy a second glass of wine, I help her clean up and get ready to leave. Ava walks me out. I don’t realize until the moment that Ava trips over some tools that I left laying out on the floor that I had forgotten to clean up my own mess. Ava falls right into my arms, and fortunately I catch her before she hits the floor. But when I lift her back up to straighten her on her feet, our bodies are pressed closely together and my arms are around her, and I can’t help myself. I can’t help but kiss her.
For a moment, our lips press both softly and urgently together, and my tongue slides into her mouth, and I am almost surprised that she kisses me back. But I am more enthralled and consumed by her to give attention to being surprised. After a moment, we both carefully pull our mouths apart, and we are both clearly flustered by what just happened.
When I get home, I lay down in bed and I can’t stop thinking about Ava or that kiss. I am really beginning to question whether she belongs in the city, or whether she would be happier back here in her hometown—with me.
7
