The Geography of You and Me

Owen knew this wasn’t true, but he didn’t mind. He was just relieved to hear the determination in his father’s voice.

The new apartment was near the marina, and from their window, they could hear the sounds of the boats bumping against the docks and the seagulls calling out to each other. Owen wondered what his friends from home would think if they could see his life now, which was so unrecognizable from what it had been in Pennsylvania. Their e-mails had mostly stopped—he knew they must have given up on him by now—but he could still picture their days as clearly as if he were there, too: the exact location of their lockers in the senior hallway, their exact lunch table in the cafeteria, their exact seats in the back row of every classroom. It was strange and a little unsettling to think how easily Owen could have been there, too, and he tried to hold on to this whenever he worried too much about their current situation. Because in spite of everything that had happened since his mother died, all the bad luck and the good, he was still happy to have seen the things they’d seen.

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 item on the menu 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’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.