Something crosses her face, it’s brief. A flicker in her expression that I've learned to watch for; the micro-flinch she gets when Italian surfaces in her environment. But this time it's different. She didn't flinch. She leaned in. She asked.
"You're Italian," she says.
"Yes."
"You don't have an accent."
"Born here. My family is from Calabria."
"Where's that?"
"Southern Italy. The toe of the boot."
She nods. Her finger is still tapping her thigh. "I don't know anything about Italy."
That’s not true, but I don’t say shit because I know what she doesn't know. She doesn't know anything about Italy because she was taken from an Italian family at eight and drugged into forgetting everything about who she was, including the country her blood comes from.
"You're not missing much," I say. "Loud people. Good food. Bad drivers."
She laughs, short, surprised, a sound that breaks out of her with ease. Her whole face changes when she laughs. Her eyes go narrow and her mouth opens wide and she looks carefree. I want her to laugh again.
"I need to finish closing," she says, but she doesn't move.
"Okay."
"You can stay. If you want. While I close. It's just mopping and wiping down and the register."
"Okay."
She picks up the coffee pot, walks to the bar, starts closing procedures while I sit at table four and watch her. She wipes down the bar top. She counts the register. She checks the door locks on the kitchen. She mops the floor around the tables, working her way across the room, and when she gets to my table she mops around my chair and I lift my feet. She goes under the table and comes back up on the other side two feet away from me, the mop handle in both hands, her face flushed from the work.
The mop handle is between us. She's gripping it with both hands, knuckles red from the hot water, sleeves pushed up past her elbows. The tendons in her forearms flex when she shifts her weight. The freckle below her ear catches the low light. Her chest is still heaving from the work, her lips parted, and the heat coming off her body crosses the two feet of space between us and lands on my skin. Neither of us has moved. Neither of us has spoken. Thirty seconds. The mop drips onto the tile and the sound is the loudest thing in the room.
"I should finish up," she clears her throat, trying to avoid looking at me.
"Yeah."
She doesn't move for another second. Then she pulls the mop back and steps away. The heat goes with her. Three feet, then five, then she's across the room emptying the mop bucket in the utility sink. I sit at the table and press my hands flat on the surface, fingers spread, and breathe.
She finishes the closing tasks. Checks the walk-in. Resets the alarm panel by the kitchen door. Turns off the last of the lights one switch at a time. The restaurant goes dark in sections. The bar first, the dining room overheads, then the kitchen behind the pass until the only light left is the neon clock, the exit sign above the door, and the glow from the street coming through the cracked front window.
She gets her jacket and her bag and walks to the front door. I'm already standing, I got up when she went for the lights. The exit sign puts red light on half her face.
"You don't have to walk me home," she says.
I don't answer. I just wait for her to lock the door.
She locks it. We step onto the sidewalk and the cold hits. She hunches into her jacket, chin down, shoulders up. The cold has never bothered me, and for a moment, I wonder if I should offer her my coat.
Three blocks. The street is empty. The bodega sign glows on the corner. Our footsteps are the only sound except for a car passing on Ninth and the distant bass of someone's stereo from an apartment above the dry cleaner.
She walks on my right side. The swing of our stride brings our sleeves within contact distance. The first time, her sleeve brushes my coat. She doesn't pull away. The second time, she adjusts, half an inch closer. The third time, her knuckle bumps the back of my hand, and then the swing carries her arm away.The fourth time, I adjust. Half an inch. Her breathing changes. Her finger taps the strap of her bag, fast, rapid, but she doesn't slow down or speed up. She just walks beside me.
At her door, she gets her key out and turns to me.
"Carmelo," she says. Just the name. Not a question, not a goodbye. She's saying it to hear it, to feel the shape of it, and I watch her mouth form the syllables and think about what it would be like to put my mouth on hers. If I kiss her right now I don’t know that I’ll finish what I set out to do, so I don’t. Not before I've done what I came here to do.
"Grace," I say.
