The spread of Harper’s smile was a slow, simmering thing. Dangerous. Sultry. I almost forgot we were sitting in the middle of a restaurant.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
The conversation looped and meandered, touching on everything and nothing. Childhood stories and college mistakes and the worst jobs we had ever had.
Harper told me about working retail during undergrad and having to smile at customers who looked straight through her like she was invisible. I told her about my first day of medical school when I had been so nervous, I dropped a scalpel inside a cadaver and had to fish it out.
“You did not,” Harper said, laughing so hard she had to set down her water glass.
“I did. I almost dropped out.”
“But you stayed.”
I nodded. “Mostly because I didn’t know how to tell my dad—well, my step-dad but he’s been my dad since he married my mom—that I was punking out. He’s a physician, so that was never gonna fly. You never had a day that made you feel like quitting?”
“Oh, of course,” Harper admitted. “Especially in the first year. I spent so much time translating, making everyone feel heard, while knowing the organization isn’t really going to do anything. I started to wonder if I was part of the problem instead of finding the solution.”
“But you stayed.”
“Mostly because patients that look like us need to see someone that looks like us in a suit in the admin wing. Some days, I have to wonder,” she said, “whether being good at something is reason enough to keep doing it.”
“What would you do instead?”
“Live the dream! Buy a plane ticket, disappear for months on end and just exist.”
“Nice. Where would you exist?”
“Italy, maybe. Spain. Bali—I don’t know, but somewhere where they serve the wine fast and the food slow and people don’t apologize for taking three-hour lunches and naps in the middle of the afternoon.”
“That sounds incredible.”
“What about you?” Harper asked. “If you could do anything other than surgery?”
I thought about it. The wine had made me honest. More honest than I usually was. “Okay, don’t laugh, but I’d learn how to cook.Reallycook, not just throw together chicken and pasta or grill a steak. I want to know how to make food that makes people stop talking and just eat because it’s that good.”
Harper’s expression softened. “That’s really specific.”
“My mom used to cook like that,” I said, nostalgia taking over. “When we were kids, she would spend all day in the kitchen making these elaborate meals. The whole house would smell like whatever she was cooking. We would sit down to eat and nobody would talk for the first few minutes because the food was too good to interrupt with conversation.”
“Does she still cook like that?”
“Not often. All the kids grew up and moved out, so most of the time it’s just her and my dad. These days, they’d rather go out for a nice meal.” I picked at the edge of my napkin. “I keep thinking I should learn how to make those meals she used to make. Kick up my own tradition.”
The server appeared with the check. I grabbed the folio before Harper could reach for it.
“I invited you,” I said when she opened her mouth to protest.
“Next time is on me, then.”
“Next time?”
She smiled. “Next time.”
I signed the receipt, left a generous tip because the food had been excellent and the service had been perfectly timed, and stood. I was pleasantly loose, like all my edges had gone soft.
Harper stood, reaching for her coat, and I grabbed it before she could, held it out for her. She gave me a look that was half amused, half surprised, but she let me help her into it.
Outside, the air was cold enough to make my breath visible. Crisp and clean after the warmth of the restaurant. The parking lot was mostly empty now, just a few scattered cars under the streetlights.
