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DANIELLE
Our date is like sitting down to dinner with an old friend. It feels like nostalgia and comfort all rolled up into one. Holy laughs at my jokes and asks insightful questions about what I’m doing with my life.
“My dad would be thrilled if I became a teacher.” I lean back in my chair and eye the lake outside the window. The sun shines on the water’s surface, reflecting beautiful rays of the waves. “He loved being a teacher. He always said his favorite years were the first couple.”
“Bullshit,” Holy calls out immediately. “I remember my first year as a teacher; it was hell. I was terrified of the kids, and they could smell it on me. It was like my own special cologne. Eau deyou can pull anything over on this guy.”
People turn our way when we burst into laughter. I see the way they look at Holy and then at me, wondering how a man his age could be out with a woman so young. I know they have questions, but I keep my eyes trained on Holy. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time my dad brings up being an English teacher.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Holy corrects swiftly, “being a teacher has its perks. I’ve never felt more fulfilled than when I help a student struggling to understand histograms and scatterplots, and it finally clicks in their brain. It’s a unique feeling to know that I taught someone something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”
With a snort of derision, I make myself comfortable. “I doubt they’re going to use histograms for the rest of their life. I barely even remember what a histogram is, and I’ve taken stats within the last year.”
Holy clucks his tongue while shaking his head in prominent disgust. “That means you had a bad teacher. When I teach scatterplots, people don’t forget.”
He looks a dozen years younger. When Holy smiles, it gives him a youthful appearance. I can almost forget we’re at two very different points in our lives. I’m writing essays for college applications, and he’s in a well-established career. “Do you think this will work out?” I ask after a few moments of silence, changing the subject without warning.
A frown flickers on his face. The rapid change of topic catches him off guard. “You and me?” He confirms. Holy takes a deep breath and leans against the table. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to tell, honestly. But you’re twenty-two years younger than me. You have your entire life ahead of you while I’ve spent the last four decades living. I think you’ll get bored of me after a while. You’ll realize that I’m not what you want, and you’ll move on. Unless, of course, we have a kid or two before then.” Holy purses his lips, and I can tell that it’s a struggle for him to figure out what to say next. “If we have kids, you’ll stay with me for a while. You’ll convince yourself that you can make it work. Then one day, you’re going to wake up, thirty-five years old, and realize that this was never what you wanted for your life. You’ll leave me. You might leave our kids, or maybe you’ll take them with you. But either way, our marriage will be shattered, and we’ll lose everything we spent the last fifteen years fighting for.”
He paints a bleak picture of our future, one designed to end in disappointment instead of happiness. It is another example of the stark differences between us. I still believe in happily ever after; he’s grown up enough to know there’s still a story after the credits are read.
But in the same way that I need someone to ground me, Holy needs someone to show him some fun. “I don’t believe that for a second,” I contradict.
Holy raises a single eyebrow. “And what experience do you have to back up your knowledge?”
Everyone discounts the young. Whether you’re eight or eighteen, no one takes you seriously until you’re in your twenties. But by then, you realize that the knowledge you acquired began in your youth. Every traumatic experience you went through, how your parents raised you, the choices you made when you were with your friends. They shape you into the person you become.
“I don’t,” I respond. “I don’t have any experience. But we both know what it’s like to have a parent leave. I don’t think I’m going to wake up one day and walk out on my family because I wouldn’t build a family with someone I wasn’t sure of.”
“You can’t be sure, though.” Holy’s jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth. “My mother was certain that my father was the love of her life. You’re saying that she was wrong?”
I shake my head no. My father was in the same position; I know how he feels. But I also know myself on a deeper level because of what my dad and I went through after my mom left. I was too young to go through the heartbreak with him, but it has affected us year after year ever since. “I’m saying if you believe in us and I believe in us, we can’t fail. I don’t care if you’re forty, fourteen, or seventy-four. The first time I saw you, I knew I was looking at the rest of my life. If you can’t believe for a second that we can make this work, then all this is useless. We might as well go our separate ways before we get hurt.”
Holy wears an inscrutable look on his face. The seconds pass slowly, feeling like an eternity stretching between us. I prepare myself for the worst, whatever that may be. I don’t know what I want him to say or how I want him to react. I just wish he’d do something other than stare at me.
“I thought at first that your worst quality was your age. You’re eighteen, after all.” His unemotional characterization of my youth hurts. I’ll admit that I expected it earlier, but not now. “Your prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully matured until your mid-to-late twenties. You have a decade to go before someone would consider you fully mature.” Holy pauses for a minute and the weight of the silence feels like an anvil crushing me into the ground. “And yet, you have a better understanding of love and relationships than people twice your age.”
Tension deflates my lungs, expelling carbon dioxide from my lungs. “What?”
Holy signals to the waitress that he’s ready for the check. “I’m saying maybe twenty years of watching my friends break up with people they thought they’d marry and divorce people they said were the love of their life may have colored my opinion, and not in a good way. I forget that I’m a jaded old man of forty. I keep thinking you don’t know what’s best for you because you’re young, but I keenly ignore that youth has the perks of optimism and chance.”
The waitress brings Holy a leather-bound black book with the check; he doesn’t even bother to look at it. He slaps three $20 bills down on the cover and tells the waitress to keep the change. “Let’s go, Dani.”
I pull the napkin from my lap and place it on the table as I get to my feet. “Where are we going?” I ask, suddenly feeling anxious.
“To my place.” Holy reaches out to grab my hand. “I want to make love to you.”
Good thing it’s a short walk to Holy’s motorcycle because my knees suddenly feel like jello.
21
HOLY
The drive from Milford Lake to my place in Manhattan takes what I can only assume is forever. Even though the time on my watch seems to be moving at a reasonable pace, I’m not convinced the digital numbers are accurate.
We pull up in front of my place an excruciating forty-five minutes later. I want to take Danielle upstairs, throw her on my bed, and have my way with her. But she wants a tour.
“It’s small,” I warn her, but Danielle doesn’t seem to mind. She looks through the downstairs bedroom and peers into the bathroom cabinets. “Are you looking for something?” I ask when she starts going through the drawers in my kitchen.
