“Can I join you?” I asked tentatively.
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not. At least I won’t die alone.”
“No one is dying tonight,” I said with as much authority as I could.
I walked over to her and sat down, careful to keep my distance, but close enough so that if, God forbid, something did actually happen, I would be able to do something about it.
“You’re not holding on to the pole,” she pointed out.
“I’m confident we’re not going anywhere.”
We sat in silence for a while, her still clutching the pole while the wind outside raged. More claps of loud thunder and then the rain. It was as if the sky had ripped itself open.
“God, if we’re not blown away, we’ll drown in raging flood waters or be incinerated by lightning.”
“You’re going to be fine,” I promised her.
“Sorry,” she blurted. “I must look ridiculous, a grown woman clinging to a pole—”
“Never apologize!” I cut her off. “Cling to as many poles as you want.”
She nodded slowly. Her shoulders relaxed a little and my heart felt as if it had just expanded tenfold and was about to rip out of my chest. We sat in silence for a while and I looked around her room. It was similar to mine, but bigger and nicer. I’d asked them to give her the better one, just as I had at the villa too.
“Oh, look, African Dreams.” I got up and grabbed the bottle, turning it over in my hands. I’d seen the storyboard, read the advert, but had never actually seen the product in real life. “What does it taste like?”
“I have no idea,” she replied.
“Wait, you’re shooting an ad for a product you’ve never tasted?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “That’s like asking a male cinematographer who is shooting a tampon commercial why he’s never tried the product.”
I laughed. “I can’t argue with that logic, but Iamgoing to taste it.” I walked over to the bar fridge and pulled out the ice tray, then took out two tumblers.
“Want to experience some African Dreams?” I asked, waving the glass at her.
“Mmm, undecided. I’ve never been a fan of creamy liquor.”
“You didn’t like anything creamy. You hated ice cream and never drank milk.”
“You remember that?” she asked, a small smile tugging on the corners of her lips.
“I remember a lot of things,” I said, pouring myself a glass. “Do you?” I asked as casually as I could, but it was a loaded question.
“You hated runny eggs—you said the liquid gave you the creeps. You had the biggest sweet tooth and were always chewing on sweets or sucking on something. You hated fish! To eat and to look at. You could eat an entire box of cereal after dinner—you called it your ‘second supper’—and thirteen years later I still haven’t met anyone who eats as much as you did. And you loved sweet-and-sour pickles. See, I also remember a lot of things.”
A loud clap of thunder put a punctuation mark at the end of her confession. It felt apt, almost as if it had been planned, purposefully and perfectly timed. Because the silence that followed was so loud and resounding, for a moment it seemed to drown out the entire storm. I stared at her, fighting an urge to walk across the floor, pull her into my arms, and tell her that I remembered everything too. But I didn’t.
“I’m impressed,” I said instead.
“Don’t be. I think I remember some of those because I have somePTSDfrom you spilling an entire bowl of cereal on me in bed, and then you dropped that pickle on the floor once and I stood on it barefoot in the dark and got the fright of my life because I thought it was a slimy animal.”
I burst out laughing. “I remember that. Sorry.”
She smiled at me. It was the biggest smile she’d given me so far and I felt incredibly lucky.
“I’m pouring you a glass of African Dreams, by the way,” I said. “I insist you at least taste it. Perhaps it will inspire a different way oflighting it.”
“Oh God, please no. No more lighting talk.” She let out a small laugh, her first one, and my heart did a backflip.
