He takes a great, big deep breath now. And for a moment, I think I might see tears forming in the amazing eyes of the normally implacable and unflappable Dr. Ben Kalinsky.
But I’ll never know if he’s about to cry or not, and neither will he, because then he’s kissing me, like it’s our first overheated kiss all over again. Like we really are back to acting like teenagers in the front seat of a parked car.
When we come up for air, he says, “We need to celebrate.”
“I really don’t feel like drinking wine,” I say.
“Who said anything about effing wine?”
He’s up and gone before I’m even awake, on his way to surgery.
By the time the sun is all the way up, I am on the back patio, having walked and fed Rip and made a cup of coffee for myself and eating the Goldberg’s flagel I’ve defrosted and toasted and slathered in cream cheese.
I see the hummingbird then.
They’re supposed to be gone by now.
They’re always gone before October and I know that. But every year, every single one, I stubbornly keep the feeder full of sugar water, checking it every morning in the hope that I haven’t said good-bye to this year’s hummingbirds for good.
And now here, out of nowhere, is my stray.
The color is a dull shade of green, telling me it’s a female.She looks beautiful to me, hovering in the air, staring at me, as if to say,What areyoulooking at?
I stare back, not moving a muscle for fear of scaring her off, unspeakably happy in this moment.
She’s still here and so am I.
I watch her until she’s at the feeder. When she’s finished there, she’s gone, disappearing into the rest of the morning, or maybe for good.
I tell myself that even if she is gone for now, I’ll see her in the spring.
When I still plan to be here.
I get up and walk back into the house, smiling.
Taking another win.
Trying to convince myself that maybe I’m on a roll.
EIGHTY-SIX
HE IS SEATED AT the butcher block table, the table a little too rustic for his more refined tastes, drinking coffee that he’s just made, when Paul Harrington comes walking into his own kitchen, wearing slippers and loose pajama bottoms and an open robe that’s seen far better days, the way Harrington himself has.
Robby Sassoon sees that Harrington is also wearing a faded NYU T-shirt that once was probably a much deeper shade of purple.
If Harrington is surprised to see him sitting in his kitchen at six thirty in the morning, he hides it fairly well, even though Robby knows he’s rocked Harrington before he’s even fully awake.
They’re all tough guys until they’re not.
Mostly Paul Harrington just looks old, and tired, as if he hasn’t slept well, if at all. But a lifetime living on the margins, and pretending to be something you’re not, will do that to you.
“Okay, what are you doing here?” Harrington asks.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Robby says, then points to the Keurig machine on the counter. “Coffee?” he says.
“I can get it,” Harrington says.
He walks over, takes out the pod Robby left in the holder,replaces it with a pod of his own, and hits the button, studying the machine pouring the coffee now as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s going to encounter all day.
