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She does know that. He mentioned it when they figured out that they both went to the University of Virginia—same small-town campus—Nate two years ahead of Maggie; two years ahead of her after his two years off—though they never met there. She thinks of her own loans, $1,100 that she needed to pay to a woman named Sallie Mae by the fifth of each month on a traveling food critic’s salary, the $1,100 she still needs to pay to Sallie Mae each month.
“Well, that was just stupid of you,” she says.
He puts his head to her head as if to say, thank you. Thank you for making a joke, for laughing. For letting us be us. She reaches for his ear, tugs at it, thinks of him at UVA, and how remarkable it is that they could have met almost a decade before they did. She has a few distinct memories now of seeing him there—on the other side of the student union one rainy Sunday morning, usi
ng the Sunday paper to try to dry off his arms; at a basketball game sitting in the last row of the visiting team’s side with friends, wearing a bright-red UVA sweatshirt. They are so vivid, the memories, but how can she really know if they are real or imaginary? How can she know which way is better?
He leans down, talks into her hair. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told you before?” He pauses. “I like you more than anyone.”
She looks up at him. This is what Nate always says to her— what they always say to each other—instead of I love you, instead of I’ll never leave. I like you the most, like a promise: I want you, and I always will.
“I like you more than anyone, too,” Maggie says.
Then—before she has to take another look at their BlackBerry friend, before she has to think about any of the rest of it—a bus is pulling up with large green paneling on the side, HAMPTON JITNEY written in white letters. They get in line, head onto the bus, behind an older couple who is bickering with the driver about a surfboard: under the bus, over, under.
The first several rows are already filled with passengers from previous stops. As they pass row three, Maggie catches the eye of a model-looking woman—exotic more than pretty, and strikingly thin—who looks at Nate, really looks at him, does a double take as they walk by. Nate doesn’t seem to notice, but Maggie does. She is still not used to this, how women look at Nate. At first, she kind of liked it. But now she doesn’t care if anyone else thinks Nate is attractive, especially because their looks feel so predatory. As if how he looks is all they see. As if any of his more human qualities, or the fact that he isn’t looking back, can be made untrue, invisible.
In the first free aisle, Maggie squeezes into the window seat, Nate shoving their belongings in the rack above their heads before taking the aisle seat, handing her a brown bag.
“What’s in there?” she asks.
“Your favorite.”
“My favorite?” she says, peeking inside.
But she knows what it is, before she even looks. Nate has made her his famous peanut butter popcorn concoction: popcorn with homemade peanut butter sauce and a variety of salty and sweet herbs. It may sound disgusting, especially in the morning, but it is Maggie’s ultimate comfort food. And, with all the fancy, wonderful things Nate can cook so well, she still loves this the most.
“When did you have time to do this?”
He leans over and kisses her on the cheek. “It’s amazing what I can get done when you refuse to speak to me.”
Maggie smiles. “Ha ha,” she says, and takes a bite, then another bite, breathing in the secret ingredient (coconut) and starting to feel better. Immediately and completely better.
This is going to be fine. All of it will be fine. The reason he didn’t tell her until now about the money is that it wasn’t important to him. It wasn’t a part of him, and therefore of them either. It had nothing to do with them. Nothing is different. They will go see his parents, like they planned, go to their bizarre party, and head back to New York, to their restaurant at the tip of Brooklyn. Twenty-four hours from now, and this will be behind them.
“Good?” he says.
“Very good,” she says. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She brushes his hair off of his face, moves closer to him, which is when she gets her next surprise. The model-like woman from the front of the bus is standing there. She is wearing a tiny green dress, bug-shaped glasses, and looks better from this angle—the thin turning into sculpted, the strikingly gaunt turning into simply striking—as if this were the angle, from below her, you’re actually supposed to be watching her from.
“Nate Huntington,” she says. “I thought it was you.”
Nate looks flummoxed for a minute, and—as his eyes register the woman, he looks more flummoxed, as if he has just been caught in something. And from the way he is looking back and forth between Maggie and whoever this is, Maggie wonders what he thinks he is being caught for.
“Murphy . . .” Nate says, standing up and giving her a hug. “What a small world.”
When Nate pulls back, Murphy—Murphy? really?—keeps her arms wrapped around his neck in a familiar way.
“Not that small, mon ami. Or it wouldn’t have been so long since I last laid eyes on you.”
Maggie puts her paper bag of popcorn down, trying to sit up taller at the same time, which makes the popcorn spill all over her lap and the seat. The good and bad news is that Nate and Murphy are talking so intensely, Maggie is able to brush it off before they notice.
“Murphy Buckley, this is Maggie Mackenzie. Maggie, this is Murphy, an old friend of mine from growing up.”
“You can call me Murph,” she says to Maggie, holding out her hand. “It’s good to meet you. I saw you get on the bus. I noticed your shoes.”
