“No.” She shook her head. “I thought you were going to Australia. That’s why I ended up joining Dan’s orchestra.”
I was shaking my head now, too. “No, I didn’t go to Australia. I came back at the end of August. I tried to call you before I left, but I couldn’t get through. I went straight to Senior House, thinking you’d still be there. When I couldn’t find you, I thought maybe you had moved to grad student housing, so I went to check with the registrar. He told me you had deferred your grad school admission. On my way back to Senior House, I saw Daria and she said you had joined Pornsake’s orchestra.”
Grace started crying, full, quiet sobs into her hands. “Grace, I’m so sorry.” I grabbed napkins from the dispenser on our table and handed them to her. “I thought you were the one who left me. I didn’t know how to reach you. I didn’t even accept the job at National Geographic until I found out you were gone.”
She let out a laugh through her tears. “Holy shit. All this time . . .”
“I know. I tried looking for you a few times, but I could never find you online. I didn’t know until tonight that your last name was Porter.”
Grace was hysterical now. “I married Pornsake, Matt. He changed his last name to Porter.”
My heart was murdered. “Oh.”
“Not right away. I waited almost five years. He’s dead now. You know that, right?”
“No. How would I know that?”
“I wrote to you.”
“You did?” Elizabeth. Turned out she still hadn’t told me the whole truth. It was like I had fallen into some alternate universe, where Grace loved me and I was the one who had left. All these years I had spent depressed over losing her, yet all this time she had been trying to find me.
I reached across the table and took her hands in mine. And she let me. “I’m so sorry about Dan. He was very kind. How did he die?”
“Enlarged heart. He died with a damn smile on his face,” she said, proudly.
“Did you love him?” I knew I had no right, but I was dying to know.
“He was good to me.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I loved him in my own way.”
“Yeah?” I was getting choked up again.
Her eyes met mine. “Yeah. But not the way I loved you.”
“Grace . . .”
“What the fuck happened, Matt?”
“I don’t know anymore. I thought I knew. Elizabeth just told me she sent you a letter?”
“I got one letter from you, maybe in ’99 or 2000. The rest of my calls and letters went unanswered.”
“Elizabeth wrote that letter, not me. I swear to God, Grace, I never would have ignored your calls.”
“Well,” her voice got very quiet, shrinking in on itself. “It’s too late now, isn’t it?”
“Why? Why does have to be too late?”
“I would say fifteen years is pretty late. So much has happened to us and . . .”
I squeezed her hands. “Let’s get a piece of pie or pancakes or something, like we used to.”
“Are you insane?”
“Yes,” I deadpanned. “We need to get out of this place.”
“I don’t know . . .” She withdrew her hands from mine.
I looked at my watch. “Breakfast for dinner?”
She ran a hand across her face and sat up straight, putting some distance between us. I couldn’t tell if she was contemplating the idea or trying to think of a nice way to say no. I searched her eyes and she smiled. “Okay. I’ll go with you, on one condition.”
“What’s that, Gracie?” She laughed at the nickname and then her eyes started welling up again. “Please don’t cry,” I said.
“We have to forget for a little while who we are to each other. No talking about the past. That’s my condition.”
“Deal.” I left a fistful of bills on the table, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the door. But just before we left, I turned to her. “Wait. Let’s do a shot first. We’re young, the city is ours, you don’t have to wake up early tomorrow to teach, and I don’t have an asshole for a wife. ”
“Sure. Why not?” Her cheeks turned pink. She suddenly seemed happier, younger. And though I had promised her we wouldn’t talk about the past, I couldn’t help but feel like we had traveled back to the best time of our lives.
We each had a tequila shot, left the bar, and found a little twenty-four-hour diner. “I think I want pie,” I said as we stared into the refrigerator case.
“Me too. You wanna share a piece?”
“Let’s share two pieces,” I said, practically daring her.
“You’re talkin’ dirty now. I like it. Let’s do a slice of chocolate cream and . . .”
“A slice of peanut butter?”
“That’s so perfect. I’m gonna eat the crap out of that pie.”
God, I loved her. “Same here,” I said.
We ordered and then sat in a green vinyl-upholstered booth. She traced the sparkles in the retro tabletop with her finger. “So, how are Andrew, your dad, and Regina?”