“Don’t lie to me,” Aidan says now from my phone screen, “You didn’t keep me for the unsolicited compliments. It was always my excellent coffee-making skills.”
“I almost forgot about your coffee.” I laugh, sitting at the edge of the bed to strap on my wedge heels. “It’s been so long.”
“I’ll be home to make it for you soon,” he tells me. “In the meantime, have fun on your date.” We say our goodbyes and Ireach across to hang up the phone, just as Aidan calls out, “And don’t forget to use protection!”
Cheeky bastard, I think, smiling in spite of myself.He can pay for his own haircuts.
I do love Atlanta, I find myself musing, several hours later. I love this vibrant, young, diverse city that has become my adoptive home. I love the way the azaleas flame pink in March and the maples blaze red in October. I love the quirky little neighborhoods, where flower shops and bookstores crop up at random intersections, and where purple-haired women with a dozen piercings serve biscuits and grits in shabby diners. I even love the grimy blue seats in our radically inadequate metro system, and the twelve lanes of clogged highways that pulse through the center of downtown.
I love my city, almost all the time. Except at seven thirty on a Saturday night, when I’m on a first date, and we’re trying to get a table for two at a trendy restaurant. Since it was my idea to just “pop in” to Deer and Dove for our date, I had no room to complain when we were politely informed of our two-hour wait.
I was getting hangry, and after we tried unsuccessfully to walk into three other nearby places, I was about to suggest that we give up and go to the Chili’s at the mostly demolished North DeKalb Mall—site of filming for many postapocalyptic and dystopian films. That’s when Hugh suggested that he could make something simple at his place, but we’d need to do a quick grocery run—which is how we ended up at Your DeKalb Farmers Market, where my first date with the esteemed Professor Hugh Pridmore isn’t going exactly as planned.
My stomach is growling fiercely, and my fingertips are so frozen that they’re tingling, which makes it impossible to determine the ripeness of mangoes. This is the one simple task that I took on when we walked into this freezing-cold place to execute plan B: pick out two mangoes from the mountains of fruits and vegetables surrounding me.
This place is an Atlanta treasure, where the unusual scent ofseafood and bleach and pungent fruits somehow entices, where an entire wall of spices and seasonings rises above rows and rows of fresh produce from around the world, and where for some reason the temperature always hovers just barely above the freezing point. Even though I’m not much of a cook, I come here occasionally to pick up a bag of their house-made ravioli or a pint of fresh pesto. In a pinch, I’ve even rushed over to buy flowers for the club—they always have an excellent selection for dirt cheap.
My hands too numb to function, I abandon any attempt at testing ripeness and grab a couple of mangoes from the top of the pile. I’m clutching a huge, firm mango in each hand when Hugh shows up beside me, carrying a basket with basmati rice, cilantro, and a large squash or melon I don’t recognize.
“It’s a bit nippy in here,” he says, taking the mangoes from my icy fingers to put in his basket. “Christ, your hands are cold,” he exclaims. “You have actual goose bumps.”
We both look at my bare arms below a whisper-thin silk tank. I was aiming for dressy casual: a bright summer patterned top with spaghetti straps, the jeans Aidan helped me choose, and wedge heels. Hugh looks damn near perfect in dark-wash denim and a white linen button-down. He also looks a tad warmer than me.
He places the basket on the floor, wraps his hands around mine, and begins rubbing vigorously. I watch, mesmerized, inspecting his oval nails and clean cuticles, feeling the pads of his fingers press against my palms.
“Is this helping at all?” he asks, smiling so wide that those adorable thin lines take shape around his eyes. I simply nod in response, because I’d be embarrassed to share how very much his touch is warming me, and in how many unexpected places. He releases my hands, then lets his own hand fall tentatively to the small of my back, gently urging me toward the exit.
We amble along a long row of produce, and even though I’m starving, I can’t help moving slowly, with Hugh walking so close beside me that I can feel the heat radiating from him, warming my bare skin. Or maybe it’s the peppers. They are a marvel: dried and fresh, Thai, habañero, scotch bonnet, chipotle. Piles of peppers squeeze between banana flowers and hunks of fresh ginger bigger than my hand.
“Have you ever tried granadilla?” he asks, touching my upper arm to guide me toward an adjacent aisle filled with fruits. I savor the feel of his touch on my skin.
Fingers still resting on my arm, he lifts a smooth orange fruit with small yellow spots from a precarious pile, and presses it into my hand.
“Will I sound painfully uncultured if I admit to you I’ve never even seen one?” I ask, studying the way our hands look against its bright flesh.
“Not at all,” he replies, smiling. “You simply sound like someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to travel to Bolivia.”
“Yet,” I say.
“Yet,” he repeats, and then he takes the fruit from my hand and places it gingerly in the basket. “In the meantime,” he says, “we’ll break open the granadilla when we get to my place—prepare you for your journey.”
I can’t resist letting my mind wander as we head toward the cashier bays, envisioning all the places I could go with Hugh, if he were to invite me along. I know I’ll never live abroad, but it’s not impossible to conceive of traveling a bit, now that Aidan is mostly self-sufficient. After all, I have months and months of accrued vacation time. I envision myself in a flowy yellow sundress, wandering an outdoor market while Hugh gives a talk or teaches a class or whatever he does in all those places he goes. I’d fill my basket with fruits for us to try together, bring them back to our apartment or hotel, wait impatiently for his return.
Hugh presses his hand against my back again, this time less tentative, as he guides me through a sea of Atlanta residents from every corner of the world. They crowd around us, on the damp concrete floors, carts piled high with produce, fish, meat, cheeses, pastries, and dried goods, most of the jostling shoppers bundled up in jackets and gloves, even on a Saturday in June.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. Then he pays for our groceries and leads me into the balmy evening, reminding me of another thing I love about Atlanta: the gentle summer nights that follow scorching-hot days.
It’s a short drive to Hugh’s place, a carriage house in the historic and affluent Druid Hills neighborhood, less than a block fromEmory’s campus. Towering elms line the steep driveway leading to a lovely brick Tudor Revival home. Hugh parks and gestures for me to lead the way up a rickety exterior stairway beside the garage.
“Welcome to my glamorous home,” he says, turning the key in the lock and then easing the door open.
The first thing I notice is a small kitchenette, with a Formica counter the size of a school desk, above which are open shelves painted white and neatly stacked with four plates and four bowls. The oven, against the edge of the counter, is a two-burner type that wouldn’t even fit a casserole dish inside, and the squat refrigerator looks like it belongs in a dorm.
“Needless to say, I don’t entertain much,” he says as we step into the room.
He turns to close the door behind us, giving me a chance to do a quick scan of the room—theonlyroom. It’s a studio apartment, the key feature being a full-size bed, neatly made with a duvet covered in white cotton and two fluffed pillows. In some ways, it’s a classic graduate student crash pad, but the very small number of items filling it are of much higher quality and are much more artfully arranged.
Hugh slips off his shoes and sets them on a wooden rack beside the door, where a row of leather loafers lines up neatly beside one pair of gently used running shoes.
