as I approach with keen eyes and barely any movement. I know in my gut that this is exactly the way he looks when he sits in wait for his elusive wild creatures to appear.
It makes my breath catch, the awareness that he’s waiting for me with that depth of perseverance.
He stands when I reach him, but he’s wise enough not to try to greet me with any physical connection. I find that both admirable and disappointing.
“You’re ravishing,” he says after his gaze takes in my gray ruffle blouse (long-sleeve, of course) and my black cigarette pants. His voice is reverent, as though he’s awed by the sight of me. As though he still sees me as that woman I became with him.
Talk like that will be my undoing.
“This is not a date,” I say, an attempt to plant myself on firm ground.
His lip twitches like it’s fighting a smile. “Of course not.”
I’m not reassured. But I sit anyway. He follows suit.
So. This is really happening.
“I’m not late,” I say, more of a statement than a question. I know I’ve arrived right on time. I planned it so, but as much as I despise small talk, I need something to say and it’s the first thing that comes to mind.
“No. I’m early.” He’s still looking at me with that expression of wonder that has me feeling all sorts of wrecked inside, and fuck it, I can’t sit here if he’s going to keep this up.
“Stop.” I can’t even look in his direction. His gaze is like a studio lamp, too bright to look directly at. “Stop looking at me that way.”
“What way?”
I’m annoyed by his feigned innocence. “Like you’re amazed by my presence.” I feel uncomfortable as soon as I’ve called him out. Then it occurs to me that maybe his awe is in the fact that I showed up. “You didn’t honestly think I might ghost, did you?”
He gives a half-shrug. “It crossed my mind.”
My chest loosens. That’s a much more tolerable reason for awe than the alternative. “Please. I said I’d be here, and so I am. I’m not scared of you.”
“Yes, you are.”
And just like that, I’m tight and tense again. It’s not fair that he knows that. It’s hard enough being the one afraid.
As though he senses my alarm, he adds, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m scared of you too.”
“Bollocks. As if I’m to believe that after all the adventures you’ve been on. It’s unlikely you’re scared of anything.”
He folds his arms and leans them on the table between us, pitching him forward. “Now that is awfully presumptuous. Just because I’m out facing the fear doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Believe me, I feel it quite intensely.”
“Then why do what you do?”
“Maybe I like being scared.” His tone doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be a tease, rather that he’s trying to figure it out for himself. “Maybe it makes me feel alive. Maybe it’s because the truly scary things tend to bring the biggest reward.”
Well, then. We’re far from the shallow now, aren’t we? Is it too late to run?
Fortunately, Hendrix decides I need a reprieve. “How about I go order? Do you know what you want?”
I’m so eager for him to be gone, for me to have a moment to regroup that I don’t even bother with the menu. “Fish and chips are fine.” Greasier than I usually go for, but it’s an item I’m sure they’ll have.
“And to drink?”
“You choose.” It instantly feels too personal for some reason, but it’s been said and even the “Whatever” I add doesn’t diminish the intimacy.
But it’s enough to send him on his way, and with him gone, I can breathe. In, out. In, out.
And now that I can think again, I miss him.
I contain multitudes. Not just contradicting myself from day-to-day but from minute-to-minute. I don’t want to be here, in this situation, feeling this unmoored. And, also, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
It’s better when he returns. Like his absence has reset the conversation, and we start again, on surer footing when he asks my opinion on the Gupta exhibition at the TPG. We quickly slip into that familiar banter I remember. It’s easy to discuss art and philosophy while we sip contessas, a variation on the classic negroni, I learn, when Hendrix explains all of his favorite varieties of the Italian cocktail.
I learn other things too. Silly, trivial things. That his favorite movie is Kurosawa’s Ikiru. That Hendrix is a