Chapter 8: Slow Pace

That night Eli texted: Did you eat anything today besides a sandwich on Friday?

I looked at the message for a long time.

Then I wrote: Half a granola bar.

Three dots appeared and disappeared twice.

Eli: I'm in Riverside. I picked up a per diem shift out here and got off early. Dinner?

I didn't have a good reason to say no.

I changed my shirt twice and told myself it was for the cold.

He was waiting on the sidewalk outside a Thai restaurant when I got there, in the canvas jacket with his hands in the pockets.

He looked at my feet first.

"The sandals," he said. "Good. I approve."

"They were nineteen dollars."

"A fine investment."

The waitress seated us at a table by the window.

I picked the cheapest noodle dish on the menu, and Eli watched me do it.

"Is that what you want," he said, "or what costs the least?"

"Both."

"Pick again."

"Eli."

"I'll wait," he said, and sat back with the menu closed.

He did wait.

I picked the beef noodles with the chili sauce, which cost seventeen dollars and was what I wanted.

"And the dumplings," Eli told the waitress. "Her treat."

"My treat?"

"I made you sit in the waiting room for two hours. It's a standing policy. The hospital owes you dumplings."

I laughed, and he looked pleased, and I realized I'd laughed more in one week with him than in the last year with anyone else.

Over dinner he asked what I would have studied if Nonna's money had come to me.

Nobody had ever asked me that.