It was 8.05 when we left the office, it was getting dark and it was raining a little, I wanted to be a gentleman so I got out the umbrella, "No" she said "I don't need that, I love the rain". "Even the dirty city rain?" I asked, "Any rain is good!" she said, throwing a brief smile over her shoulder at me as I raced to keep up. "Oh fuck, there's the bus" she yelled, and took off running across the busy intersection, oblivious to the cars turning in from Lexington Avenue, God just reached down and paused reality for a moment to let us cross without getting creamed by a Yellow Cab. "Are you going to get on?" she asked "Yeah sure" I said, thinking of course I'm getting on I have nowhere to go right now but with you. The future I don't know, but this moment right here and now has always been inevitable.
"Let's sit here" she said, pointing to a seat facing backwards, "Better here" I answered, gesturing towards a forward facing seat "I hate to travel in reverse on busses it makes me feel like I'm regressing, to much going backwards. I need to start going forwards again." She smiled a little and we sat down. There was silence for a moment, "Let me see the tea kettle again", I said, she's just bought one as a wedding present for a friend, "It's great, they're going to love it, brushed silver and red's chic" I say. "Well they better, they told me exactly where to go to get it, Macy's", "Cool, so they made a list, very practical, you don't want two tea kettles when you get married, it's a bad omen unless you're English, you need to make concessions." There was another silence as she started to methodically scrape off the price sticker with a fingernail, apparently deep in concentration.
Ok, I thought to myself, this is where I have to say something or I'm going to go off the boil, "So...can I tell you something?", I offer, touching her arm lightly with the very tips of my fingers, "Yes", she says looking me directly in the eyes, no holds barred....ok...I'll admit I was expecting a helping "Sure", but she hasn't adopted that accommodating affectation of American speech yet, she goes straight to the nub, no messing around, I see she's going to make me work. "So, the last time?" I look into her eyes, please don't look straight at me, look away, please, "Yeah, that last time I saw you, that was horrible", I almost stutter, trying to backpedal a little " I mean really e-e-embarrassing", she arches one taut eyebrow, she's sensed where this is going, "Ok, I mean it was one of the worst fucking moments in my life, I shouldn't have said what I said I was a total idiot and I felt so lousy for weeks and months and I was worried you didn't want to see me or talk to me again!", this comes out in a machine-gun-like staccato, unrehearsed and un-punctuated and so unlike me. My heart is pounding and I think she's going to hammer me to the floor, "It's ok", she says...What!? I think, what just happened?, there's been a shift in reality that's what... "Wait wait, how could it be ok?, you said you hated me". "No" she says, a slow pan to a three quarter view, she's not looking at me now, she's facing forward and my eyes are boring holes in the side of her head, I want so desperately to read her mind. "No" she says again and it's a jump cut that yanks me back into reality, "I said I was hating you at the moment, you understand the difference right? Not hate, hating", Now she turns so quickly, and her eyes meet my eyes that are still pinned like lasers where her temple was a split second ago, "I mean you speak English don't you, the progressive tense, no?, I was hating you and now I'm not, ok, but you have to respect me...and yourself". "I do respect you, but there's things going on that you don't know about and I don't even know about yet. I mean, I've spent years not feeling like myself, and now I come back here to New York and I feel at home, I feel like I met myself again, there's things going on that make me feel good to be me for a change". I hadn't planned to say that, but I'm feeling relieved about the way it came out, she inspires me to honesty. "And it's not just the language?" she asks, a little more serious now, "It's more than just that right? You came back for more than that right?". "Yes, it's all that and more, I've had the time to think about things, not just acting out all the time, reacting to outside events, Jesus...you know, some days it actually feels good to be me, like the old me...but better". "That's good" she says, "you must be happy? Yes?". She has a way of asking things so simply, yet with such conviction that you just want to tell her everything. "But you have to have respect for me, you know, for what I've been through, I mean I'm here...", she waves her hand in the air encompassing the whole city outside the bus, "...and you're here", she pats the seat between us. There's several heartbeats, then she asks, "Are we going to talk about the other things?" . All this time her eyes have not strayed a millimeter from mine, I swear she hasn't blinked, and if she did the Earth could breathe a sigh of relief. But me?, I feel calm, I've just said everything I wanted to say and I feel cleansed, blessed.
My stop gets called, "Can I do something", I ask her, "What?" she says a little warily, what does she think I want from her now?, "I want to hold you, I want to hold you close for a moment; ok?", and to be honest that's all I really want to do right now, I want to feel her warmth and weight, her corporeality and reality in my arms. "Ok" she says and leans into me, her arms going around me, strong arms holding me tightly, I push my face into her hair and breathe in the totality of her, and she smells divine, I kiss her left cheek and her temple, I can't stop, I'm so relieved, so happy to be here with her, so desperate to keep hold of her for another second, I feel her hair caressing my arm and I'm stroking the nape of her neck. "God, that was so nice" I say "I really wanted to do that", "Yes it was nice, I wanted to too" she says, and she's really smiling at me this time. "Will you still be here tomorrow?...", I wave my hand at New York exactly like she did, "...or do you I have to leave the country and come back again, again?" I ask as we disentangle arms. I get up to get off the bus, I have to lightly brush my fingertips on her arm again once more, just to check she's real, "Yes I'll be here" she says with that air of finality that she has at times, and she doesn't turn around to smile or wave as I walk past the bus window on the sidewalk, but that's ok, she's just given me a good look at my redemption, one more glance doesn't matter.
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