The Geography of You and Me(34)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

The last few mornings, while Dad sat at the computer, his eyes bleary as he scanned the newest job postings, Owen took off, exploring the city by foot. It was so unlike New York, all cramped together on a thin spit of island, everything crowded close like an overgrown garden. San Francisco, on the other hand, was sprawling and disjointed and colorful. It had only been a few days, but already he was falling in love with this place, just like he’d fallen for Tahoe, and so many of the other towns they’d seen along the way. And now, as he sat there waiting for Lucy, it struck him that the only one he hadn’t loved—the only city that he had, in fact, been determined not to like—was New York, the place where they’d met.

He wondered if that meant something. He supposed that magic could be found anywhere, but wasn’t it more likely in a Parisian café than a slum in Mumbai? He’d met Paisley on a starry night in the mountains. But with Lucy, they’d met in the stuffy elevator of an even stuffier building in the stuffiest city in the world. And yet…

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking this way. He picked up his fork and twirled it absently between his fingers. But when the waitress appeared at his side, he lost his grip, and it fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Can I get you some more chips while you wait?” she asked, stooping to pick it up.

“Sorry,” Owen said, flustered. He glanced at the basket in front of him, which was down to a few crumbs. He hadn’t even realized he’d been eating them. “I’m okay for now.”

As soon as she left, he straightened in his chair, craning his neck to look past the cactus decorations up front, wondering where she could be. In her last e-mail, she’d suggested a Mexican restaurant, since apparently there wasn’t much in the way of good tacos in Edinburgh, and he’d given her directions to this place, which was just around the corner from his new apartment. He had no idea where she was staying or what time she was supposed to get in. She didn’t even have a U.S. phone number anymore, so there was no way to call to see if her flight had been delayed. He sat back in his chair again and drank his whole glass of water in one gulp, then wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

Ever since getting her e-mail a couple of weeks ago, he’d been trying to figure out what to tell her about Paisley. The problem was, he wasn’t entirely sure where they stood himself. In the days leading up to Owen’s departure, they’d danced around the subject of the future; instead, she’d given him restaurant recommendations in San Francisco, and he’d asked her about her plans for Christmas. They’d talked about things like ski conditions and the new menu items at the diner. He just assumed they’d figure out the rest of it at some unspecified point later on.

But when he’d stopped by the diner on the way out of town to say good-bye, Paisley had looked at him expectantly, as if the problems of time and distance could be solved right there, in the middle of the lunch shift, the air smelling of onions and the order for table eight growing cold on the counter.

“Well,” she said eventually, seeming somehow disappointed in him. “I’m sure I’ll be down to visit my dad soon. And in the meantime, I guess we’ll talk.”

“Sure,” Owen said quickly. “We’ll talk.”

And he’d meant it then. Standing there, with her pale eyes focused on him, he was already thinking about calling her when they arrived. Or maybe even sooner. He’d ring her from the road. He’d text her when he got to the car. He’d be thinking about her even as he walked out the door of the diner.

But what he hadn’t known then was that everything about Paisley was immediate. When you were with her, it was like being in a spotlight. It was almost blinding, that sort of brightness, and it was exactly what he’d needed all these months.

But even as they drove away, it was already beginning to fade.

In the days since he’d arrived in San Francisco, they’d mostly spoken through voice mail. It wasn’t that he was avoiding her calls exactly, but he wasn’t going out of his way to pick them up, either, and he suspected she was doing the same. In her absence, the urgency of what he’d felt for her, the pull of it, had simply evaporated, and each time her name appeared on his phone, he felt nothing but a vague reluctance at the thought of catching up.

If he were still in Tahoe, he knew, things would probably be different, and if he thought too hard about it, he felt a sharp stab at the memory of those blue-cold nights out by the lake and the afternoons when they drank mugs of cocoa behind the steamy windows of the diner. But their relationship had existed wholly in the moment. And he was starting to realize that moment had passed. This, it seemed, was just what happened when you left someone. They disappeared behind you like the wake of a boat.

But sitting here at this Mexican restaurant with his elbows resting on the sticky tablecloth, he was keenly aware that this had never quite happened with Lucy.

And he decided right then that there was no reason to tell her about Paisley. It wasn’t like he owed her an explanation, anyway. They were only friends, he reminded himself, if they were even that.

He was still sitting there with his head bent, lost in thought, when she finally arrived. In all the noise, the relentless music and chatter, he didn’t notice until she was standing right in front of him, and when he looked up through the blurry, chaotic lights of the restaurant, for a brief second he wasn’t sure if it was even her. Her hair was longer than last time, and she was paler, too, the freckles on her nose more pronounced. She was watching him with a gaze a mile deep, her muddy eyes sizing him up, and neither of them said anything for what felt like a very long time.

Finally, the band stopped playing, the last note ringing out with a rattle, and she smiled at him, the moment tipping from one mood to another, from one song to the next. He scraped back his chair, standing up in a hurry, and he was already hugging her, his hands resting on her thin shoulder blades, when he realized they’d never really done this before, and without quite meaning to, he stepped back, moving away from her as if he’d been shocked. She blinked at him a few times, then offered another smile.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, pulling out her chair, and once she was seated, he took his as well. “Sorry I’m late.”

His eyes were still caught on hers, and he opened his mouth, then closed it again. “It’s okay,” he said after a beat. “I just got here.”

She glanced at the empty basket of chips but said nothing.