lot. After the exhibit ended, I rented a cabin in Joshua Tree for a couple weeks. And I went to Rochester for Thanksgiving. I guess now I’ll just be doodling and drinking coffee.”
That explained why I couldn’t find her in town. She hadn’t been there.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Joshua Tree,” I said. I thought better of asking the next question, but I asked it anyway. “Did you go by yourself?”
She made a face indicating that was none of my business. Nevertheless, she said, “No.” There was a pause, and I was certain it was for effect. “I drove down with Diego. And I didn’t talk to a single human for ten days. It was a dream.”
“I’ll bet.”
She stretched out her legs and set her bare feet on the floor. Then she picked up her cup and held it in her palm. It was almost empty, and she stared into it as if it were full of secrets. She pulled her legs back up underneath her. Put the cup down. Ran her nail across a scratch in the table. Looked around the cafe. She seemed nervous too.
I looked at the book in my hand and thought of something I’d just read. “Did you know that alpacas can die of loneliness?”
She digested that fact and laughed. And it was a genuine October laugh. The one that used to be followed by her telling me I was funny or cute.
“Good thing you’re not an alpaca,” she said.
I laughed too, though there was something tragic about the joke, something that hurt my heart. And when I met October’s eyes, I recognized the same nostalgic sentiment there, a desire to make all the tacit conversations explicit.
“Did you get the envelope I sent you?”
“The light sculpture,” she said. “I did.”
“And?”
“I like it.”
“You do?”
She nodded. “Very much.”
“I’m going to build it.”
“Good.”
She readjusted her position on the bench so that only one foot was underneath her, the other on the floor. Then she looked me up and down and said, “Why are you dressed like it’s about to snow?”
The fleece jacket. No wonder I was so warm. “I’m on my way to Guerneville. To visit Colonel Armstrong. It’s supposed to be chilly up there today.”
“Who’s Colonel Armstrong?”
“He’s a redwood. Over fourteen hundred years old. And 308 feet tall.”
There it was again. That smile.
A guy I recognized as someone I used to work with at FarmHouse called my name from behind the counter and handed me my breakfast sandwich. It was all wrapped up to go, and I had no reason to linger any longer.
I turned back toward October’s table, and for another long, subtext-filled moment we looked at each other without saying anything.
“Well. I guess I should get going.” I hoped she would ask me to stay, but she didn’t. “It was really nice to see you. To talk to you.”
All of a sudden she looked profoundly sad. “You too, Joe.”
“Well,” I said again. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
She nodded. “See you around.”
I had parked under a big, shady oak tree, and when I got back to my truck, it felt like dusk inside the cab. I sat there without turning on the engine, without moving, crippled by a desperate longing. Saudade. Desiderium. There was a lump of regret in my throat, thick and hot like a ball of wax, and a familiar hunger in my belly so gnawing, so dire, it felt as though it were eating me from the inside out.
No, I thought, my breath short and quick. Not again.
I dropped my head back and let out a deep, rage-filled roar.
Fourteen thousand six hundred days.
I wouldn’t make it. Not like this.
I thought about a question I’d asked October back when things were good between us, when I believed we had a future. “If we’d never gotten together, if I hadn’t been willing, I mean, do you think it would have haunted you?”
I remember her looking at me like I was crazy. “Why would it haunt me?” she’d asked. “I said yes to us. What more could I have done than that?”
I got out of the truck and sprinted back to the cafe, stopping outside the entrance to catch my breath before I went in.
She was still there. Not drawing, just sitting with her elbow on the table, her chin in her palm, watching the barista pour hot water in slow, concentric circles over coffee grounds in a filter above a Chemex.
“Hey.”
She turned toward me, her eyes dancing all around my face.