Would it always be?
“But, Nora,” Marian said, cutting through her thoughts, her voice gentler this time. “What are you doing, looking for a sure thing?”
Nora looked over at Marian, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t even try to answer one of her neighbor’s questions. She simply begged with her eyes to have this one answered for her.
“Not every love you have is the kind like you had with your nonna. Or like the kind you have with me or Emily, or Jonah. Or anyone in this whole place, with the exception of that new man downstairs, I guess. Love can’t always be a sure thing from the start.”
She thought about that dark morning she’d first talked to Will—that electric, new feeling she’d had, that curiosity and intensity that had carried over even into their silly feuds about the apartment. She thought about his laugh and his way of making conversation with almost anyone; she thought about the secret, tender heart that hid behind his practicality, and she thought about how he pushed her, so gently, in the directions she always wanted to go herself. She thought about the way she wanted him, the way she could be a certain version of herself with him, someone different from who she was with anyone else in her life, ever.
“It’s scary,” whispered Nora, and Marian reached over and patted her leg.
“I sure know.”
Nora took another breath, gathering her courage. No more stubborn waiting and withholding; no moreWe’ll talk when I get back, orNot in a hospital, orI’ll call you later. She would tell him she loved him even if he thought Jonah should move, even if he hated the hallway wallpaper (had Marian said she didn’t like the wallpaper?!), even if he was as rattled and scared as she was. She’d tell him right now, over the phone, if he’d answer. She’d text it if she had to, which was an awful thought, but she wasn’t going to wait anymore. She was going to—
“Now what in the world,” Marian said, and that’s when Nora turned around to see a small cherry tomato splatter against her balcony door.
She heard his voice through the glass first, a muffled, single syllable that sounded likeHey!, though she wasn’t quite sure. For a second, she stood paralyzed, looking first at the leavings of a tomato sliding down the glass, and then toward Marian, who set down her tea onto the coffee table and said, “I had better get out of here.”
“Hey,” he called again, louder this time, and oh, goodness. The whole neighborhood would hear this. She finally gathered her senses enough to go to the door, and she slid it open just in time for a cherry tomato to hit her squarely (and painlessly) in the face.
“Nora!” he called, because he obviously did not know he’d just struck her with a small fruit. She touched at her cheek, making sure nothing had splattered, and stepped out onto the balcony, avoiding other scattered tomato projectiles as she went to the railing and peeked over.
And there, in the middle of her backyard, stood Will Sterling, squinting up at her through his glasses, one hand poised for another throw, and one holding a small, half-empty plastic container of tomatoes.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Down below, Will lowered his raised arm and smiled, big and boyish, and Nora felt every single cell of her body get in courageous formation, a little army ofI love yous lining up for launch. But before she could speak, Will called up to her again.
“I stood here,” he said, and for the first time she realized he was standing beside something, a spindly, bright-green-leafed tree that came to his shoulders, still packed with a burlap wrap around its unplanted base. “The tree was bigger, obviously.”
She put a hand over her mouth, muffling her wet laugh. “Like that,” he said. “You laughed, but it was bigger. You didn’t know I was down here. You saidHey, and then you laughed, and my heart never beat the same after that. I never forgot the sound of it.”
Her hand fell away, her laughter fading as her own heart took off into what felt like a full, forever gallop.
“I thought you were yelling at me, at first—I thought you’d seen me. But really you were yelling at those squirrels, and I”—he took a few steps forward, away from the tree—“I was thinking of something to say,anything, really. I was all locked up with nerves.”
Anything,she thought.You could have said anything, and I would have loved it. I would have listened and listened.
“I was almost ready, but then you started tossing tomatoes off your balcony. The first one hit me here.” He reached up, touched his hand to the front of his thick, wavy mass of hair. “You can throw some of those ones back down, if you want to get me again.”
She shook her head, unable to speak, caught between more laughter and tears, locked up with nerves now like he’d been all those years ago.
He nodded, shifting the hand he’d put in his hair to shield his eyes for a few seconds, and even from here she could see: whatever story he was telling, it was about to change. He looked at her like he was gathering his own courage for it, and she set both her hands over her heart because that was the place she was listening from; that was the place where all her locked-up words lived for now.
She thought he might have taken a breath, a big one, and then he said, “I picked them up, all the ones you’d thrown.” He brought his half-full container in front of him, held it cupped in his hands.
“Like this,” he said, and then he crossed the yard, moved to stand right by Donny’s—his—balcony.
Nora moved, too, peeking over from a different spot.
“I stood right here, so I’d be closer, so I could try to see you better. I was going to say,Hey, did you drop something?”
Below, she heard the distinct sound of a door sliding open, and then an unfamiliar voice said, “Listen, could you keep it down?”
Will’s head turned to his own balcony and he said, “In a minute,” with a flat, inarguable seriousness that was nearly as heart-thumping as this entire scene.
“I sleep during the day, so . . .”
