The Geography of You and Me(35)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“So did you…” he began, then stopped to clear his throat. He reached for his water glass but realized it was empty. “Did you get here okay?”

“Yeah, the flight wasn’t bad actually,” she said, then paused and shook her head. “Wait, sorry, did you mean the restaurant?”

“Yeah. No. I mean… either one.”

“Uh, yeah, it was fine,” Lucy said, looking around. After a moment, she seemed to remember that her jacket was still on, and she slipped it off her shoulders and onto the back of her chair. She was wearing a black cardigan over a purple shirt, and Owen thought of the white sundress from the elevator that day, remembered following it up the darkened hallway like some sort of apparition.

“Well,” she said, smiling gamely, and he felt the full weight of it now: this stiffness between them where before there’d been such ease. Any excitement over seeing her again had deflated, sharply and suddenly, and what was left was the worst kind of awkwardness. His mind worked frantically, turning over his scrambled thoughts, searching for something to say, but there was nothing but the empty space between them.

Maybe they were never meant to have more than just one night. After all, not everything can last. Not everything is supposed to mean something.

And what other evidence did he need than this? Lucy looking around for the waitress while he played with his napkin under the table, nervously shredding it to pieces. This was the worst date of all time, and it wasn’t even a date.

“So,” he said finally, and she looked at him with slightly panicked eyes.

“So,” she echoed, managing a smile. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” He bobbed his head too hard. “Really good. How are you?”

“Great,” she said. “Everything’s good.”

His stomach dropped so far he could just about feel it in his toes. It was like moving through sand, this conversation, slow and plodding and full of effort. He could feel them both sinking in it. Soon they would be lost.

Lucy was biting her lip, and beneath the table, he could feel her knee jangling up and down. “You like San Francisco?” she asked, and he nodded.

“It’s nice so far,” he said, hating himself.

The waitress arrived to save them, at least for a few seconds. “Can I start you guys off with anything to drink?” she asked, her pen hovering above her notepad.

“Just water,” Lucy said, and Owen held up two fingers.

“Me too.”

The waitress let out a little sigh, then headed off to get their waters, and another silence settled over the table in her wake, this one worse than the last. A woman at the next table threw her head back with laughter, and in the corner, another group erupted into cheers. There were couples on dates and a family celebrating a kid’s birthday; there were people at the bar taking shots and a group of men clinking bottles of beer just behind them. Suddenly, the twangy warbling of the mariachi band felt too loud and the walls felt too close.

Across from him, Lucy leaned forward on the table, her face full of determination. “So have you been here before?” she asked, and before he could stop himself, Owen threw his head back and groaned. When he lowered his gaze again she was looking at him in surprise, and he eyed her right back. Then he stood up.

“This is the worst,” he said, and this time, she smiled for real.

“It’s not the best,” she agreed, rising to her feet so that they were facing each other across the table, the empty basket of chips between them.

“So there’s this taco truck down by the marina,” he said, and her smile widened. “Any interest?” When she didn’t answer right away, he raised his eyebrows. “Unless you’d prefer not to…”

She laughed. “Let’s go, Bartleby,” she said, and so they did.

14

It was better outside.

They were better outside.

As they walked toward the harbor, a few inches between them, Lucy could feel the horrible awkwardness beginning to melt away. They were leaving it behind, all of it: the greasy restaurant with its overpowering smells, the too-loud music, the vastness of the table between them, the stilted conversation.

Out here, they could both breathe again. And as they walked past lit restaurants and darkened bars, Lucy couldn’t help glancing sideways at Owen, reassured by the sight of him: his white-blond hair, which had grown longer, curling at the ends; that loping walk of his, which made him bob like a puppet on a string. When he’d looked at her across the table in the restaurant, his eyes had been darting and nervous, but now they met hers with a brightness that matched her memory.

He lifted a long arm, pointing at a street that ran up a steep hill. “Our place is up there,” he said. “If you look out the bathroom window, you can sort of see the water.”

“No better place for an ocean view.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I can think of a few.”

“But in the bathroom, you can sit in the tub and pretend you’re a pirate,” she explained, as if it were obvious, and he laughed.

“Shiver me timbers,” he said, then steered them toward a square blue truck that was parked outside an Irish pub. Two men in white aprons were taking orders from a large open window that stretched across one side of it, and the striped awning above them flapped in the breezes from the nearby water. “You’re going to love these. I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve already had about a million.”

“I can’t wait,” she said as they joined the small line. “I’m completely in love with everything about Edinburgh except the food.”

“Not even the haggis?” he joked, and she rolled her eyes.

“Especially not the haggis,” she said. “Do you even know what’s in that stuff?”

“Only the best ingredients around,” he said as he dug his wallet from his pocket, his eyes on the menu. “Sheep’s heart, sheep’s liver, sheep’s lungs…”

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t know about the lungs.”

“It’s a delicacy,” he said with a grin. “A Scottish delicacy.”

“I think I’ll be sticking with tea and biscuits.”

When it was their turn, Owen insisted on paying and Lucy let him, even though she wasn’t sure if his dad had found a job yet and guessed that money might still be tight. But there was something endearing about the way he waved her off, and now that they’d finally found a kind of hard-won rhythm again, she didn’t have the heart to spoil things over a few dollars.