“That’s not the point. I can’t have you paying my college loans.”
“Look. I give money to charities all the time. I have more money right now at my age than I’ll ever in a million years be able to spend. You’re a good person. I assume your parents are good people. Let me pay the loans. You can still move back home. I’m not trying to get you to stay in New York.”
“It’s crazy. We don’t even really know each other.”
“Look,” Bruce said, and took a deep breath through his nostrils. They were at an upscale gastro pub, sitting at the corner of the bar, a plate of truffled deviled eggs between them, and they both had to talk a little louder than they normally would to be heard. “When I lived in Silicon Valley, I gave pitches all the time, and the standard line among my colleagues about giving pitches was to practice them, to know exactly what you were going to say, and to stick to the script. I used to do the opposite. I’d go into pitch meetings and just speak from my heart, describe my product exactly as it was. I never practiced. I never worried about how I’d come off. I just went in with total honesty, and it made the whole thing so much easier.”
“What does this have to do with you wanting to pay my loans?”
“I think because when I told you I wanted to do that, I wasn’t being entirely honest. So, here it is, I’m about to be totally honest. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but something very close to that happened when I saw you in the coffee shop. I wanted—no, I needed—to get to know you, so I took a shot. And now here we are three dates later and I know, with certainty, that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. No, let me finish. You’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met. You love poetry and horror movies, and dress like a 1950s housewife. You’re far smarter than I can ever hope to be, and you’re kind and selfless. Plus I think we fit, and I know that we could make it work. I feel, in a way, that you are now my purpose for living. I don’t expect you to have the same feelings. I would be pleased, obviously, if you shared some of them, but that’s not why I’m telling you this. I just want to be open. I think we should be together. I also think that if you’re about to tell me that I’m scaring the shit out of you, and that you never want to see me again, that I still want to pay your student loans, because you’re a good person and you shouldn’t have to worry about something that I can take care of so easily. Consider it your payment for sitting through this embarrassing speech.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” Abigail said, although she was having trouble meeting his eyes.
He must have noticed, because some of the color left his face, and he said, “Oh, I fucked up.”
“No, no, no. You didn’t. It’s just that honesty is …”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I guess so, yes.”
“Should we just forget I ever said what I just said?”
“No, not at all. I like you, too, and I want to keep seeing you. To be honest, I don’t have the confidence about our relationship that you seem to have, but maybe I’m just in a fragile place right now. How about I stay in New York a little longer than I planned, we continue to see one another, and I will consider letting you pay off some of my student loans, but I don’t want you to bring it up again until I do?”
He looked relieved, some of the color returning to his cheeks, and said, “Deal.”
After that conversation, Abigail let herself relax with this new, strange man. There was something childlike and inexperienced about him, despite his success and his wealth. He loved horror movies like she did, but he’d never seen anything before the turn of the century, and Abigail introduced him to the greatness that was 1970s horror. She showed him pockets of New York City that he’d never have discovered, and together they took a weekend trip to Philadelphia to go to her favorite museum, the Mütter, a place famous for its displays of vintage medical instruments and numerous skulls and skeletons. It turned