“Plans got delayed,” Paolo said. “We pushed everything back.” He stepped back as if to admire her. “You’ve got to be the prettiest girl in London. Yowza.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. Woman, not girl. Sorry. Are people following you around, like with their tongues hanging out? How did you get prettier since I last saw you? It’s terrifying. I’m talking too much because I’m nervous.”
Jule felt her skin warm.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll buy you tea. Or a coffee. Whatever you want. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” She didn’t mean to say it. The words came out and they were true.
Paolo grabbed her hand, touching only her fingers. He had always been confident like that. Even though she’d rejected him, he could tell right away that she hadn’t meant it. He was supremely gentle and yet sure of himself at the same time. He touched her like the two of them were lucky to be touching each other; like he knew she didn’t very often let anyone touch her. Fingertip to fingertip, he led Jule back to the lobby.
“I only didn’t call because you told me not to call,” Paolo said, letting go of her hand as they stepped into line for tea. “I want to call you all the time. Every day. I stare at my phone and then I don’t call because I don’t want to be creepy. I’m so glad I ran into you. God, you’re pretty.”
Jule liked how his T-shirt lay against his collarbone, and the way his wrists moved against the fabric of his jacket. He bit his lower lip when he was worried. His face curved softly against the black of his eyelashes. She wanted to see him first thing in the morning. She felt like if she could just see Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone first thing in the morning, everything would be okay.
“You still don’t want to go home to New York?” he asked.
“I don’t want to go home, ever,” said Jule. Like so many things she found herself saying to him, it was absolutely true. Her eyes filled.
“I don’t want to go home, either,” he said. Paolo’s father was a real estate mogul who had been indicted for insider trading some months ago. It had been all over the news. “My mom left my dad when she found out what he’d been doing. Now she’s living with her sister and commuting to work from New Jersey. Things are all mangled with the money and there are divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers and mediators. Ugh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just ugly. My dad’s brother is being a giant racist about the divorce. You wouldn’t believe what’s come out of his mouth. And so my mother is full of venom, frankly. She has a right to be, but it’s hellish to even talk to her on the phone. I don’t think there’s anything, really, to go back to.”
“What will you do?”
“Travel around some more. My friend will be ready to go in another couple weeks, and then we’ll backpack through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, same plan as before. Then to Hong Kong, and we’ll go see my grandmother in the Philippines.” He took Jule’s hand again. He ran his finger softly across her palm. “You’re not wearing your rings.” Her nails were painted with pale pink polish.
“Just the one.” Jule showed him her other hand, which had the jade viper on it. “The others all belonged to this friend of mine. I was only borrowing them.”
“I thought they were yours.”
“No. Yes. No.” Jule sighed.
“Which is it?”
“My friend killed herself not that long ago. We argued and she died angry at me.” Jule was telling the truth, and she was lying. Being with Paolo muddled her thinking. She knew she shouldn’t talk to him anymore. She could feel the stories she told herself and the stories she told others shifting around, overlapping, changing shades. She couldn’t tell, tonight, what the names of the stories were, what she meant and what she didn’t.
Paolo squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
Jule blurted: “Tell me, do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?”
“What?”
“Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?”
“You mean, will your friend go to hell because she killed herself?”
“No.” That wasn’t what Jule meant at all. “I mean, do our worst actions define us when we’re alive? Or do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we have ever done?”
Paolo thought. “Well, take Leontes inThe Winter’s Tale.He tried to poison his friend, he threw his own wife in prison, and he abandoned his baby in the wilderness. So he’s the absolute worst. Right?”
“Right.”
“But in the end—have you seen it before tonight?”
