“And it’s probably time for dinner,” Ally continues.
“Yeah.”
Ally looks at me curiously, because I still haven’t moved. “Are you planning to lie here forever?” she teases.
“Maybe.” If I could, I’d freeze time right here.
“Well, don’t forget, Honeybun, you still owe me a massage.”
“Um. You might have to be patient, Cuddlebug. Right now I’m kinda dead.”
TWENTY-NINE
DREW
“Okay if I put on some music?” Ally asks as we turn out of the condo parking garage. It’s seven-thirty Saturday morning, and we’re heading to Toronto for my neurology appointment.
“Sure,” I reply, and Ally reaches over to tap the screen on the dashboard.
I hadn’t planned to tell Ally about this appointment, and I definitely hadn’t planned to ask her to come with me. But, as often happens when I’m with this girl, the words just slipped out.
I can think of a lot of excuses for telling her, and some of them even make sense. She already knew about the tremor, and I wanted her to know I was taking her advice and getting it checked out. I didn’t want to have to lie to her about what I was doing today. And I thought she might enjoy a day trip to Toronto.
Another explanation involves a mind game: by telling Ally, I was dismissing the possibility that there was something seriously wrong with me. Only a very selfish man would bring a woman he’d recently met to an appointment where he could receive life-changing news.
But the real reason I told Ally is a hell of a lot simpler: I wanted her to come with me.
She finishes tapping the screen, and a song starts. It sounds familiar but I can’t place it, so I glance at the screen to see what she’s picked.
“Pink?” I ask.
Ally nods. “‘Just Like a Pill.’ It’s what I listen to when I’m anxious about something.”
I glance over at her. “I’m not anxious, Ally.”
She shoots me a speaking look. “It’s a normal human emotion, Drew. Anyway, I used to listen to this song before my tennis matches. It’s so angsty, but for some reason it settles me down.”
I’m unlikely to get a better opening, so I decide to ask the question that’s been bothering me for weeks. “What happened with tennis, Ally?”
She pretends not to understand. “What do you mean?”
“I mean a lot of people in your position wouldn’t shut up about the fact that they’d been a professional athlete, but you keep it a secret. And you started to go by Alexandra instead of Ally?—”
“It’s my real name,” she cuts in.
“And your hair’s different, and you wear glasses?—”
“You don’t like my glasses?” she interrupts.
“I love your glasses,” I reply. “But I hate the idea that you’re hiding behind them. It’s like you don’t want to be recognized as a tennis player.”
“Former tennis player,” she corrects.
“Whatever. It’s like you’re ashamed of it, and it doesn’t make sense.”
She turns her head away and looks out the window, and for a moment I think she’s going to brush off the question and shut the conversation down. And she’s got every right to do that. She doesn’t owe me an explanation.
But maybe she realizes that I’m not just idly curious; I care about her answer because I care about her, even if I haven’t told her yet.
