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“Okay. I…you’ll laugh at me.” She stopped herself from nervous gestures like running her palms along her jeans or twirling her hair.
“No. I won’t. Talk to me. No judgment.”
Her head swam for a second, and she lost her balance. His arms supported her, firmly holding her around her waist. There was something solid about him. Safe. Maybe she could be as silly as she wanted to.
“I want this one night to feel like it’s not a dead end, but a promise,” she blurted before she had time to think better of it.
He bit his lips. She immediately raised her defenses.
“I'm babbling. I'm sorry. It’s one night, right? I shouldn't pile these expectations on you. Let me rephrase—I just want to have a good time.”
“You want the ‘boyfriend experience’.” He made quotation marks with his fingers. He nailed it, as she didn’t do one-night stands and had no idea how to behave with a one-time lover. Boyfriends she’d had.
“Yes!”
“That’s perfect. I’ll be your boyfriend, just for tonight. Yes?”
She nodded.
“Okay. I'll be kissing you now.”
Her spine tensed, and she held her breath. He kept eye contact, his eyes were a striking deep green, and didn't close his eyes, and she kept hers open too. They kissed like that, staring into each other's eyes, which was weird yet reassuring at the same time. His hands stayed firmly on her waist, a light, sure touch. His lips were soft, gentle, no tongue. A brief kiss. The Earth didn't shatter, her knees didn't buckle, but she was very pleased.
"Are we okay? Ready to move to the next step?"
She smiled and finally turned to enter his car. There were no thrown paper wrappers or junk like she had in her own car. The only thing in the back seat was a teenager's backpack. She was a mother of boys, but she did notice that all the girls their age sported this brand. What was a twenty-nine-year-old man doing with a girl’s backpack in the back of his car.
“Whose bag is it? In the back.”
He glanced back. He opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a curt nod, as if reaching a decision.
“My daughter’s. I’m also, like you, divorced.”
A twenty-nine-year-old divorcee with a daughter who was old enough to want this kind of backpack.
“How old is she?”
“She’s nearly thirteen.”
“Oh.” He must have knocked someone up when he was sixteen. Her son Ori would be sixteen next month. She imagined him being so uncaring and reckless that he would get a girl pregnant. This was a complete turn-off. She wouldn’t back down from entering his car, he would drive her to her house, but she wouldn’t sleep with him.
He started the car and the dashboard automatically connected to his phone. A clear soprano voice filled the car.
“That’s her, my Gal,” pride curved his mouth into a smile, “singing Mateus Passion’s recitativo. Johann Sebastian Bach.”
“She has a beautiful voice,” she answered dryly, although his apparent pride softened her a little.
They drove through the narrow, tree heavy lanes of her village, in his very clean, well-tended car, listening to his daughter singing Bach.
When she grew up here, orange groves bordered their house, and the sidewalks were made of hardened earth. Now, rows and rows of suburban houses replaced the fields and orchards, the streets paved with crisscrossed small bricks. Yet, the sense of village prevailed, ancient eucalyptus bowing where the village boys had a tree house.
“Erez, listen. I don’t think we should go through with this.”
His fingers flexed on the steering wheel. Then he nodded.
“I get it. It’s okay. And I need to apologize. I let you think I was my brother, who usually works in the pub and is twenty-nine years old. I’m thirty-six.”
She stared at his strong profile, then his words sank in, and she slumped in her seat with relief. He was thirty-six, divorced, and he had a daughter.
