Tonight, she seemed thoughtful.
Maybe it was the birthday. Maybe it was the sudden change in our dynamic. Where I was not being a complete asshole to her tonight.
“So how was San Diego?” I asked.
“It was cool. I just walked along the water and did all the touristy things. Helped to get me out of my head. Arthur wasn’t happy because I’d changed plans on him, but it doesn’t matter now.”
Arthur. That was new.
“Your father said you needed the trip because you were so distraught over what I’d done. I listened to your voicemail…you didn’t sound distraught.”
She shook her head and her hair brushed her shoulders. It looked as soft as cotton balls and I thought about how it would feel crushed in my hands.
“He was exaggerating,” she said, but she fidgeted in her chair while she said it. Which meant she was lying. “Getting away from everything did help.”
This was her night and I didn’t want to ruin it by pushing something she obviously didn’t want to share. I would let her get away with it tonight.
“You excited about school?” I asked, changing the subject. “Just a few more weeks.”
Our first course arrived, so she didn’t answer immediately. It wasn’t until those plates were cleared and she was playing with the edge of the lace tablecloth that she looked at me. Really looked at me, maybe for the first time tonight, and I was worried about what I saw in her eyes.
Sadness? Fear?
“Marc, have you ever thought about leaving Harborview?”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? I think about it constantly. In fact, I won’t be staying at the carriage house next summer. The bank where I’ve been interning these past two summers is going to bring me on as a temp hire. I’ll be making money, so I can afford a place to rent somewhere in the city. It will mostly likely be a couch with five other banker dudes, but that works for me. You get that, right?”
She nodded. “No, I meant after school. If there was someplace you wanted to go besides New York, where would it be?”
I laughed. “I’m going to be an investment banker. There’s only one place to go.”
She glared at me.
“Fine, okay. Uh, San Francisco? That’s always looked cool. Maybe Seattle, too. There’re mountains and water. Sometimes I think about Florida. You know. Because of my love for Dan Marino.”
She shook her head. “Your obsession with a quarterback who you’ve only ever watched play in ESPN throwback games is ridiculous.”
“Don’t hate on Dan,” I told her. “He’s the best there ever was in my opinion. Keep Tom Brady.”
While I did have an unhealthy affection for Dan Marino, that wasn’t why I said Florida.
It’s where my mother had disappeared to. I didn’t know if she was alive, in jail, or had somehow found a way to have gotten clean and just hadn’t bothered to let me know. But there were times I thought about going there and looking. Just to see. Until I remembered I didn’t give a shit about her because she didn’t give a shit about me.
I wasn’t ignorant to the issues I had in life because of her. Anger being a large one. The idea of finding her, maybe fixing myself, was always tempting. But I knew it wasn’t that simple.
After all, if she was dead, there would never be a fix for what had happened to me.
“Florida,” she repeated with a small nod. “Okay. I’ll remember that.”
That seemed an odd comment, but whatever. Our entres came. I had no clue what mine was, so I just ate, and it was delicious. Then her chocolate cake came out with a candle, which again made her smile and I thought…
I’ve always had that smile. It had always been there for me whenever I needed it.
It didn’t matter how many times I pushed her away, she always pushed back, and when she did, it was with that same warm and completely open smile.
We had coffee, she ate cake and I paid the bill. Then I took her to this bar a couple blocks down from the restaurant that featured a dance floor and jazz music on the rooftop.
“We’re not going to get in,” she told me as she squeezed my hand. “Maybe you, but totally not me.”
