I still in place, wishing I could toss back a light reply immediately. But that small expression of care—that code of friendship that insists on these kinds of safety hatches—I feel a brief press of tears behind my eyes. It takes me a second to swallow them back before I look over my shoulder, smiling brightly.
“Oh, sure,” I lie. But I’m so grateful that I add, “The Promenade. Public place, and all that.”
“Have fun!” she calls back, but she and Cecelia already have their heads bent together, looking over the ink, a picture of the kind of comfortable friendship I don’t know if I’ll ever have again.
When I’m pushing out the door, Cecelia’s bright laugh rings out behind me, and I feel as alone as I have in months.
Swoosh, I hear as the door closes behind me.
In the end I make it a whole six minutes early.
It’s a busy walk down Montague—the sun’s out, the weather’s warm, and everyone’s got that slightly dazed “oh my God, it finally stopped raining” look about them. Instead of focusing on signs—almost as though I don’t want to jinx it before I talk to Reid—I focus on people. I pass the Häagen-Dazs and see a man staring down at his chocolate shake like he’s a groom at the end of the aisle and he’s just seen his bride walk through the doors. I see a kid joyfully swinging her mother’s hand while she licks at a cone, what’s probably thirty percent of the original serving spread across both her cheeks and down the front of her shirt. I see an older couple standing outside a café, both of them squinting at the menu that’s tacked up in the window, and the shorter man says, “They’ve got a club sandwich; you love a club sandwich!” as though a club sandwich is a really great surprise to come across and not a menu item you could find within five blocks of any place you’re standing.
Once I get to Pierrepont Place I can see the blue of the East River ahead. With the sun shining, the water is a brighter shade than I’ve seen in months and months, and the breeze across my face is enough to cool me down, but not enough to make me worried about getting hair stuck in my lip gloss, which, as everyone knows, is the ideal type of breeze. There’s a woman hanging around the bike racks, juggling four balls of yarn and singing a song about cat astronauts (Keep NYC Weird,obviously), and while I’d normally think of this as an ideal opportunity to avert my eyes and pretend there’s something interesting on my phone, this stretch of people-watching I’ve been indulging in means I’m somehow charmed and not vaguely on alert for one of those yarn balls to hit me in the head. For a few seconds I feel a bit like chocolate milkshake guy or club sandwich man, remembering for the first time since theswooshwhy I’d thought this was a good idea. Even if Reid says no, getting out here, around all these people, will be good for me.
I just need to get through this one meeting, which I am, again, six minutes early for, an absolute advantage since I can set myself—
Except of course! He’s already here.
He’s twenty or so yards down the Promenade, his forearms resting along the railing, hands clasped in front of him as he looks across the river toward the city. He’s definitely not doing business casual, wearing instead something similar to what I saw him in a week ago—sneakers, jeans, jacket. Maybe this is his Sunday outfit. It’s probably labeled that way in his extremely anal-retentive closet. His profile, even at a distance, is ridiculously handsome.
I subtract a few letters from that word that’s been haunting me. His face looks like the wordswoon.
He straightens as I draw closer to him, as though he’s sensed me coming, and when he turns toward me there’s an awkward few steps where there’s nothing happening except him standing there waiting for me. I feel as if I’m walking the plank toward those blue eyes, flat and fixed on me. I wonder if he’ll say, “Good afternoon.”
“Hey,” he says instead. I try not to let my eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Thanks for coming.” For the first time, I notice there’s a woman sitting on the bench closest to us. She’s got a travel mug in one hand and her phone in the other, and she’s staring at Reid with her mouth slightly open, which is probably what I would be doing if I were in her position and was seeing him for the first time. He doesn’t seem to notice, but still I say, “Want to walk?” and I’m relieved when he nods, lifting an arm in a gesture that tells me to go ahead. Maybe the woman behind us sighs.
“So,” I say, trying to squeeze right into that casual “Hey” he offered me. “How’s your weekend been?”
He looks over at me, blinks once. He is definitely not going to dignify small talk with a response. I might as well have asked him which sexually transmitted diseases he’s been tested for.
“Mine’s been okay,” I continue, as though he’s answered me. “Of course, it rained all day yesterday, so I didn’t get out much. Pretty nice out here today, though.”
If Sibby were here, she would remind me that talking about the weather in this way is functionally the same as having “I’m a Midwesterner” tattooed onto my face. For my next trick, why not bring up a garage sale I heard about? Or perhaps point out that I got the bag I’m carrying at a fifty percent off sale, with an extra five percent deducted for a temperamental zipper? Would Reid be interested in knowing my opinions on mayonnaise versus Miracle Whip?
“You mentioned you had an idea,” Reid says, and he is obviously not referring to the mayonnaise-Miracle Whip thing.
I clear my throat, committed to dispensing with the small talk for both our sakes. “Right. Right, well. I was thinking about what you said last week. About there not being signs for you here?”
I slide my eyes his way. His hands are in his jacket pockets. His head is tipped down. He’s listening, but he’s keeping his distance about it.
“Well, signs are sort of . . . my thing. Given my job and all, I’m always interested in signs—what they say, how they say it.”
He stops, and I’m a half step ahead before I pause, too, turning to look back at him. His face is so serious, the kind of face that should be stamped on a coin.
“I was not speaking literally.” I think the slight softness to his voice is sympathy.Dear Diary,I imagine him writing later.Today I met a woman wearing too many buttons who does not understand what a metaphor is.
“No, I mean . . . of course, I realize that. But when I first moved here, the actual signs, they sort of, um”—I look out toward the Manhattan skyline, all its huge gray-and-glass chaos—“they organized my experience.”
There’s a long stretch of silence while Reid simply looks at me. I’m guessing my sense of organization is different from his, what with the days-of-the-week outfits and daily diary entries I have assigned to him, but for some reason—maybe for the same reason I felt that odd connection to him last week and last year, too—I have the sense he gets it. That he wants me to keep going.
We start walking again.
“I have this project. My deadline is in July, which is a long way away, but also not, because I’m . . .” I pause, a heavy swallow in my throat. Too blocked to even say the word out loud, which is I guess whatever the opposite of irony is. “Because I’ve been having some trouble focusing on my work lately,” I say instead.
“That seems hard to believe.”
