As she talked she looked at his face, wondering what he was thinking, trying to predict his response. Mark had nodded in all the right places. He’d said things like “That makes sense,” and “You know, you’re right” and “I completely understand.” Still, she wondered what he really thought about her choices, and how different they were from his own. Did he ever regret what he’d done? Did he think other fat people were stupid, for not having surgery themselves?
Then, when they’d started walking together along the pier, and she’d begun to feel eyes on them, she had another set of questions to concern her. Was it even possible for this version of Mark to desire her now? So far, as a Magic 8 Ball might have said, all signs pointed to yes. Mark was just as kind as she remembered, holding the doors, making funny remarks, sneaking looks at her like he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be with her, delightfully oblivious to the attention they were attracting. Maybe she was imagining it, but as they strolled, Abby thought she could sense guys giving Mark disapproving looks, like he’d let down the team and had an obligation to be with someone hotter. She definitely noticed girls glaring at her, like she’d stolen something to which she wasn’t entitled or hadn’t earned.
Mark didn’t seem to notice any of the looks. Or, if he noticed, he didn’t seem bothered. As they walked toward the skating rink he took her hand and held it with just the right amount of pressure, and his eyes never wandered, no matter how many other lovely women passed by.
It was heady. Flattering. After so many bad dates and false starts and so much rejection, being the recipient of that kind of attention had felt so enthralling that Abby could believe that Mark’s return was a gift the Universe had given her; a reward for everything she’d endured.
They’d wandered back toward Center City, strolling along the cobbled side streets of Society Hill and Queen Village, enjoying the early spring sunshine, talking nonstop. Occasionally, their hips or their shoulders would brush, and Abby would feel a jolt of excitement, mingled with trepidation. She and Mark had never been naked together. How would she feel about his body? How would he feel about hers?
“If you’re free this Thursday, can I take you to dinner?” Mark asked.
“Of course,” Abby said. “This is me,” she’d said, when they’d reached her door. Mark was still holding her hand, and he’d leaned in to kiss her, the barest brush of his lips against her mouth. Abby barely slept that night. She was completely blissed out, bubbling with excitement, sure that she’d found—or refound—the One. Her person, her soul mate, her bashert, as her nana would have said.
On Thursday Mark met Abby on the corner in front of Royal Izakaya, in khakis and another crisply pressed shirt. At a booth in the back of the dimly lit restaurant, with episodes of Speed Racer projected over the bar, he’d wielded his chopsticks gracefully as he ate his sashimi, assuring her that the fish was delicious and that he didn’t miss the rice, and she’d had hand rolls and pillowy pork buns and split an order of tuna guacamole with him, humming happily at the unctuous, oily richness of avocado chunks and slivers of meltingly tender fatty tuna. She’d felt his eyes on her face—on her mouth, specifically—as she licked her lips. But that night, when he’d walked her home, all he’d done was kiss her. Much more extensively than the first night.
“Do you want to come up?” Abby asked, a little breathlessly. Her back was up against the warm brick next to her building’s front door, and she could feel that he was interested.
He’d paused. Abby had held her breath. “Next time,” he finally said. “I don’t want to rush you.”
“I think we know each other well enough,” Abby said.
“True. But I still think we should take our time. There’s no rush, is there?” He leaned close, murmuring, “We get to enjoy this part.”
Abby nodded. She still couldn’t quite believe that this was happening, that of all the cities in the country, Mark had picked Philadelphia; that of all the places he could have volunteered, he’d picked Kensington.
“Are you busy Saturday?” he asked.
She’d felt her heart sink. “I’m busy all weekend. Remember Kara Taft from Golden Hills? She was in my bunk. She’s getting married, and her bachelorette party is in New York, on Saturday night.”
“How about I make reservations somewhere for a week from Saturday, then?”
Abby had happily agreed. Then she’d gone to New York, and had her interlude with Sebastian, which had felt like a delicious dream, or maybe even the Universe giving her a palate cleanser, one last lovely treat before she settled down with the man she was meant to be with forever. Sebastian was just a fling; nothing that could ever turn into something real. Mark was real.
On the Saturday night after she returned from New York, Abby put on her prettiest dress, an ivory-colored maxi dress with puffy sleeves and a fitted bodice and a neckline cut low enough to give Mark a preview of coming attractions. He’d picked her up in an Uber and taken her to dinner at Morimoto (raw fish without rice, Abby realized, was one of the foods Mark could eat without worrying). After dinner, they’d stepped into the warm night and, without discussion, began walking toward Abby’s apartment. They didn’t talk about what would happen next. They didn’t need to. Mark held her hand, and Abby felt like his grasp was the only thing keeping her tethered to Earth. She was that happy.
Her bliss ended as soon as she’d unlocked the door. Even though she’d spent the afternoon cleaning (at least, the parts of the afternoon when she wasn’t removing hair from various parts of her body), she knew her place looked untidy and undone, especially compared to Mark’s apartment, which was completely furnished and decorated in a manner suggesting good taste and competence. Mark’s place looked like a grown-up’s home, while Abby’s apartment looked like a room in a youth hostel, a way station for someone young who didn’t have much money or many things and wasn’t planning on staying for long.
“It’s kind of a mess,” Abby said, cringing, wishing she’d moved the pieces of the IKEA television stand she’d been trying to assemble for longer than she cared to remember into a closet. Mark looked around, inspecting her jumble of furniture and possessions. There was the dark blue velvet couch, her pride and joy, with an unframed poster of a Monet watercolor thumbtacked above it. A glass coffee table she’d inherited after Eileen and Gary the Businessman had redecorated stood in front of the sofa; a soft, fringed, pumpkin-colored throw, one of the few things she’d bought for herself as an adult, hung (unevenly, she saw) over its back. There were a pair of metal barstools standing in the kitchen, in front of the breakfast bar, but there was an empty space under the window where a table should have gone. On the windowsill, an orchid Lizzie had given her was clinging valiantly to life, despite Abby’s haphazard attentions. Waist-high stacks of books teetered against the walls, next to the recycling she’d meant to take out and the canned goods she’d been meaning to drop off at the mutual aid food pantry. Everything looked temporary, tenuous, thrown together, and barely thought through. It was not the home of a person who knew who she was, or how she wanted her living space to look.
Abby moved quickly to take Mark’s hand and convey him to the bedroom. She lit the candles she’d had at the ready, casting the room in a romantic glow (and, she hoped, disguising the piles of laundry on the floor, as well as the truly embarrassing number of self-help books on her nightstand). She pulled him down to the bed, and he’d kissed her, her forehead, her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, whispering that he didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky.
It wasn’t the electric, immediate connection she’d felt with Sebastian. It wasn’t fast or frantic. It was slow and measured and thoughtful; good, but in a different way: the fulfillment of a promise their bodies had made long ago.