Chapter 8: Just You

We didn't speak in the cab.

We didn't speak in the elevator at the mill.

We didn't speak while he unlocked the door or hung his coat on the iron hook.

The loft was cold.

He didn't turn on the lamp.

"One," I said. "You said one."

"Yes."

"You're twenty-nine years old."

"Yes."

"The whole office thinks..."

"I know what the office thinks."

He said it with his back to me, looking at the black windows and the river beyond them.

"Tell me about the coat room," I said.

His shoulders went tight.

"You know about the coat room."

"I know what I said happened. Tell me what happened."

He turned around.

In the light from the street his face looked young and tired and very much like the man I'd seen at twenty-three.

"My father died that week," he said. "The twelfth was the Friday of the party."

"I'd been at the hospice all afternoon, holding his hand."

"My boss told me the agency wanted me there, so I went."

I stood absolutely still.

"I stood in a corner for an hour and didn't hear a word anybody said."

"Then you came over in a red dress and said my name."

"I remember."

"You kissed me."

"I remember, Anson."

"I had never kissed anyone."

His voice stayed flat.

"I was nineteen when he got sick. I spent four years driving him to chemo and learning his pill bottles."

"I had never so much as held a girl's hand."

"You were the first person in months who looked at me like a person. I thought, if I touch her now, I'll fall apart."

"So you said..."

"I said 'I'm not doing this with you.'"

"I meant not like this. Not tonight. I meant I wanted to do it right."

He gave a short laugh with no air in it.

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