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‘Unfortunately.’ She would be hard to ignore wherever she went. ‘Then there was the lunch meeting.’
She lifted her hand. ‘Okay, you can stop there. Let’s never talk about the lunch meeting. I was nervous. That’s not how I normally act. I didn’t know whether I should tell you I knew you or not. Did you see the looks Stan gave me?’ She glanced towards the ceiling and groaned again. ‘He thinks I’ve lost it.’
I leaned back in my seat. ‘I’m afraid he does. And you didn’t help the situation.’ There was a moment of silence where she avoided my eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ I asked.
‘Because you clearly didn’t recognize me – at least that’s what I thought – and that kinda hurt a little if I’m being honest. I know we just talked to each other for one week, but it was kind of… a big week to me… does that make sense? Well, maybe not a big week, but let’s say it left an impression on me.’
I noticed her fingers tightening around the papers and the laptop: she was still nervous around me, and probably nervous about admitting that the week we met was important for her.
And what she said made sense because I’d felt the same.
‘It does,’ I admitted. I kept my eyes on her as she quietly released a long breath. I gave her a small smile. ‘It left an impression on me, too, Charlie.’ How could it have not.
‘We pretty much showed up at the same diner for a week and bumped into each other day after day. That doesn’t happen all that very often, does it? At least to me. It doesn’t make much sense I know, but I felt this weird connection. At least that’s what I thought back then.’ She winced a little as if she was already regretting sharing all of this. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this.’
I shook my head. ‘No, you can. You should.’
She grimaced a little, but kept going. ‘To go back to my explanation: I told you so many things about myself and just things in general. So what if I told you that we’d met before in front of everyone and you still couldn’t remember me? I’d rather die, which is too dramatic, I know, but it’s just an expression. Basically, too much anxiety all around. So I thought I should just forget about the whole thing and be normal – which somehow didn’t work in my favour at all. And now I’m just blabbering. I’ll shut up.’
‘Don’t shut up. Perhaps it didn’t work out in your favour because you acted the opposite of normal?’
‘I did do that,’ she admitted then smiled at me. ‘Enough about my stupidity and weirdness. Let’s pretend I acted a like normal human being the entire day. Why didn’t you tell me anything then?’
‘I was planning to, I tried for the entire day to catch you alone just so I could tell you, but you are kind of slippery.’
She gave me a mischievous smile while biting her lip. ‘I was busy.’
I nodded. ‘Right. You’re gonna stick to that, I see.’
‘Anyway, how are you?’ She changed the subject. ‘How have you been these last six years?’
Since she didn’t say it out loud, I decided to ignore the elephant in the room about why those diner meetings had ended so abruptly. Instead, I leaned forward and smiled at her.
‘I’ve been fine. I was working in California. Took my first job there actually. Got married. Got…’
‘Oh, congratulations,’ she interrupted before I could finish.
‘Thanks. Got divorced.’
‘Oh no…’ She winced again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry for. Didn’t work out, that’s all. It’s been a little over six months since we signed the papers. Just recently decided to come back here and teach at Colombia for a little while, but obviously changed my mind about that. I also want to be close to my family after being away for six years.’
‘Does your family still live here? Was it… Montauk? Do I remember correct?’
‘Yes they still live in Montauk. Did you ever end up visiting? I remember you wanted to after you saw all the photos.’
She shook her head with a rueful smile. ‘Still haven’t. But they’re all good? I think your sister was having a rough pregnancy, right?’
‘You remember.’
‘Of course I do.’
There was a whole lot of smiling going on, on both of our faces.
‘She had a healthy baby girl, who has each and every one of us dancing to her tune. She is the best.’
She bit her lip, hesitating. ‘And you’re an uncle. You were really excited about that, I think.’
She knew how excited I’d been – she’d listened to me talk about it for hours.
‘I’m the best uncle in the whole wide world.’
She laughed out loud. ‘You heard that from the source, I think.’
