My nails cascade like falling dominoes on the table. One-two-three-four, mine count in fourths of a second. Two-hundred and forty times a minute. At least a quarter of an hour passes this way. Wes is now well beyond the qualification for fashionably late.
He’s late enough that if he were anyone else, I’d call for my tab and go. But this is important. And it’s him, not anyone else. The realization that I’m putting my evening on hold for a man sits like an unwanted guest next to me. I force a smile for the waiter. He smiles back, re-serving the gesture as gingerly as a brittle-boned tennis player. My irritation begins to blossom into full-fledged anger. The kind that’s impossible to bury in a grin. It seeps out at the edges and I think he notices. He continues to look my way awkwardly as if to say, I’ve been stood up before, too. Sucks, huh?
I look away and still my nervous hands by clasping them together under the table in my lap. I steeple them outward, like they’re praying. They soon feel fidgety and I allow them to return to their previous activity. I glance at the clock on my phone and sigh. Five more minutes and I’m calling it.
I called Wes when I got back home from Norway. Gone for a year working on my next book, a follow up to my first non-fiction endeavor: A Portrait of the American Death. This second volume chronicles the ways in which the rest of the world grieves. My first book met with some critical acclaim. I got featured in a magazine and did several podcasts. That elusive morning talk show hot seat eluded me, though. Death wasn’t something people wanted to ruminate on over coffee. I’d found in my research that people mostly didn’t want to ruminate on it at all; however, it was something that followed all of us constantly. A bloodhound tracking wounded fugitives. In the end, we’d all be treed.
Wes and I broke up the month that I left for Oslo. I told him I needed to focus on my work—a chintzy cover for the fact that I’d have rather died than let him get close enough to peel back yet another layer in the multitude of coatings over my innermost self. I was like a wood-paneled bathroom, wall-papered over once, twice, then painted, wallpapered again, and painted once more. Wes was the new homeowner who had noticed a piece of wallpaper beginning to peel. Before he could mix up a chemical solution to get back to that first layer of tacky wood paneling with the names of former owners carved into it, I short circuited the breakers of our relationship, sparked a fire, and ran him out in a cloud of smoke. Better that than let him see me at my worst.
Still, now that the adventure is over—the trip that I so closely guarded as my own—the only person I want to tell the story to is Wes. I want to tell him about the man I met in a hospice center in Brevik who told me the story of how he lost the love of his life. How he chose the army over the woman that should have been his wife. How he was a coward and she married his brother. How when he told me this story, I thought of myself and I thought of Wes. And how now, I want nothing more than to be with him. It’s time to smoke out the creepy crawly things that live between my ears, chorusing mantras from the past and live for now. I remind myself of this when my watch reaches a benchmark that puts Wes twenty minutes behind schedule. This isn’t a power play—this is the kind of late that means he doesn’t want to come at all.
It’s then I look up and see him.
His hair is longer, a mess of dark blonde that could use a haircut. He takes off a pair of glasses—readers—and sticks them in his blazer pocket. It was just before I left that he had to start wearing them. It’s an indication he’s been looking at his phone. His faded jeans seem to be tailored specifically for him, and they hug the muscles in his thighs.
I’m suddenly aware of my lingering attraction to him and briefly a thought like a mosquito buzzes in my mind: This is a mistake.
He spots me and walks over. I stand from the table, and my hip bumps the corner and shakes the silverware and my empty drink glass. Ice clatters in the vessel. Wes reaches down to steady it and laughs. Nervously, I reciprocate. We look at each other. Our hands almost touch as they still the table.
“Ione, I—” he starts with my name. Hearing him say it is a balm on wind-beaten skin. I stop him short, though.
“No need to apologize,” I tell him it’s fine that he was late. He produces an excuse that dings a distant bell of recognition and makes me uneasy.
“I have this student right now—super bright—and she needed some help coming up with a thesis,” he fiddles with his napkin, and never fully settles into his chair to unfold the piece of cloth and throw it over his lap.
My body grows rigid, my muscles against my bones like resin settling into a mold.
“She’s writing about your book,” he adds, not oblivious to my silence. A dynamic so familiar yet entirely forgotten during the course of my absence blankets us. We are wrapped in suspicion. Or at least I am. Wes isn’t to blame. It’s one of those names carved on the bathroom paneling that’s responsible. The letters might as well be etched in granite, the way they hold me tighter than the dash between the dates on a tombstone.
His addendum does little to warm me up. My hand finds the arm of my chair and clamps down like if I let go, I’ll fall to my death. I’m a bullet, shot towards him but now I’ve glanced off his shoulder and I ricochet into the past. I smile and when the waiter comes by, I order another drink. Wes seems to accept the idea that we’ll be staying for at least one more round. He fidgets with the menu as we talk. I slowly loosen my grip on the arm of my chair. Maybe it’s the past melting away in the August heat, or maybe it’s the second mixed drink permeating my blood stream. Either way, it’s a welcome relief.
Wes loosens up, also. The evening stretches over the horizon and the tension between us seems to stretch out, too. After two more drinks, we’re feeling good. He gets the check and I let him. We stand. He helps me when I stumble. He laughs, and I lean into him. I inhale the scent of his aftershave. For the dying, the scents of home do more for comfort than almost anything else. I begin to think that if I were to die right there with my face in the bend of his neck, I’d be content. And I think far too often we chase after happiness when what we really want is contentment.
He rights me and leads me out by the hand. We navigate the stairwell and emerge onto the street where we stand for a moment. Wes looks down and fiddles with his keys. Only two feet separate us.
“It was good to see you, Ione,” he looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
I lean in and kiss him. I run my hands through his hair and he gingerly places a hand on my back. Surprise colors his features. I’m taken aback by it, too, but it feels right. There’s time to apologize for everything—for the way I left, for the way I kept him at arm’s length—there’s time for all of that now.
He pushes me away.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he looks away this time.
I stumble and step unexpectedly off the sidewalk. My stomach lurches and I’m not sure if it’s the sudden change in elevation or his sudden change in tone. He reaches out to help me.
“I met someone this past year, Ione,” he offers me a hand.
I’m close enough to inhale the words as he speaks them, the sweet scent of his whiskey sour fanning across my cheeks. I shrug away from his touch.
“I missed you—I still do—but she’s here. She’s always here,” as he speaks, I know exactly what he means. “I should go.”
He looks at the sidewalk for validation that it doesn’t give. Stoic and unmoved by the breaking of my heart, it offers me no solace, either, other than a path by which to return to my car. We part ways and I look over my shoulder twice to see Wes retreating into the evening, his steps quick—the steps of a man whose mind is made up. He’s not going to turn back. But I do, a third time, just to be sure.
Once at my car, I get inside. The dimly illuminated cabin fades after I sit for a few moments in silence. In the darkness, I start to cry.
I really fucked that one up.
