The Geography of You and Me

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 starry 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.

“So did you…” he began, then stopped to clear his throat. He reached for his water glass but realized it was empty. “Did you get here okay?”

“Yeah, the flight wasn’t bad actually,” she said, then paused and shook her head. “Wait, sorry, did you mean the restaurant?”

“Yeah. No. I mean… either one.”

“Uh, yeah, it was fine,” Lucy said, looking around. After a moment, she seemed to remember that her jacket was still on, and she slipped it off her shoulders and onto the back of her chair. She was wearing a black cardigan over a purple shirt, and Owen thought of the white sundress from the elevator that day, remembered following it up the darkened hallway like some sort of apparition.

“Well,” she said, smiling gamely, and he felt the full weight of it now: this stiffness between them where before there’d been such ease. Any excitement over seeing her again had deflated, sharply and suddenly, and what was left was the worst kind of awkwardness. His mind worked frantically, turning over his scrambled thoughts, searching for something to say, but there was nothing but the empty space between them.

Maybe they were never meant to have more than just one night. After all, not everything can last. Not everything is supposed to mean something.

And what other evidence did he need than this? Lucy looking around for the waitress while he played with his napkin under the table, nervously shredding it to pieces. This was the worst date of all time, and it wasn’t even a date.

“So,” he said finally, and she looked at him with slightly panicked eyes.

“So,” she echoed, managing a smile. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” He bobbed his head too hard. “Really good. How are you?”

“Great,” she said. “Everything’s good.”

His stomach dropped so far he could just about feel it in his toes. It was like moving through sand, this conversation, slow and plodding and full of effort. He could feel them both sinking it. Soon they would be lost.

Lucy was biting her lip, and beneath the table, he could feel her knee jangling up and down. “You like San Francisco?” she asked, and he nodded.