I lift my head from the table. When did it get there?
“Kismet is closing.”
“What’s Kismet?”
“Fate,” he says.
“What?”
“The name of this café.”
“Oh. Okay.” I follow him outside and into the night. It’s still raining. The drops are fat and warm. I cover my head with my bare hands as Josh stuffs his sketchbook underneath his shirt. I catch a glimpse of his abdomen. Yummy. “Yummy tummy.”
He startles. “What?”
“Hmm?”
A smile plays in the corners of his lips. I want to kiss them, one kiss in each corner.
“Okay, Loopy.” He shakes his head. “Which way?”
“Which way to what?”
“To your place.”
“You’re coming over?” I’m delighted.
“I’m walking you home. It’s late. And it’s pouring.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I say. “You’re nice.”
The traffic lights glow yellow on the wet asphalt. I point the way, and we run across Amsterdam Avenue. The rain pours harder. “Up there!” I say, and we duck underneath a city block covered in scaffolding. Weighty raindrops clang against the aluminium like a pinball machine.
“Isla, wait!”
But it’s too late.
Scaffolding is generally ideal for escaping bad weather, but occasionally the bars will cross together to create a funnel, which can collect water and soak a person completely. I am soaked. Completely. My hair clings to my face, my sundress clings to my figure, and water squishes between my sandals and the soles of my feet.
“Ha-ha.” I’m not sure it’s real laughter.
“Are you okay?” Josh stoops under the scaffolding, swerves around the waterfall, and then stoops back in beside me.
I am laughing. I clutch my stomach. “Hurts…mouth…to laugh. My mouth. My mouth and my stomach. And my mouth.”
He laughs, too, but it’s distracted. His eyes suddenly, pointedly move up to my face, and I realize he’d been looking elsewhere. My smile widens. Thank you, slutty funnel.
Josh shifts away, his posture uncomfortable. “Almost there, yeah?”
I gesture towards a row of gabled buildings across the street. “The second one. With the copper-green windows and the tiled roof.”
“I’ve sketched those before.” His eyes widen, impressed. “They’re gorgeous.”
My parents’ apartment is located in a line of Flemish-inspired homes built in the late nineteenth century. We live in one of the only neighbourhoods that’s nice enough for residents to have flowers on their stoops, and passers-by won’t destroy them.
“Maman likes them, too. She likes pretty things. She’s French. That’s why I go to our school.” My voice drifts as Josh guides me towards the entrance with the climbing pink roses above the door. Home. He removes his hand from the small of my back, and it’s only then that I realize it was there in the first place.
“Merci,” I say.