Page 18 of French Kiss

I started walking down the block toward Heidi’s, feeling the pleasant warmth on my lips from his kiss. It wasn’t the red hot fire I sometimes felt in my stomach when Maddox cast his blue eyes on me and smiled. But at least it was real. Maddox was just a fantasy. Of course I’d conjured the idea of him into something amazing because it could never actually happen.

A block later I heard a familiar voice behind me. “He’s beneath you.” I turned to see Maddox a few paces away but I didn’t know how long he’d been behind me. Had he been watching me with Jordan?

“What?”

“Jordan, that dude from the gym. Are you seriously with that guy?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s new.” I didn’t want to be having that conversation with Maddox and I didn’t know why he cared.

“Well, just remember when you break up with him that I said it first. He’s beneath you.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You’re beautiful and smart, and he’s already maxed out his career potential at twenty-five.”

“Quit being judgmental. He’s a good guy.” Who is he to criticize Jordan when I’ve seen the clothes hangers he dates?

“I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m being unfair. I just… you know you’re amazing, right? I mean, you’re brilliant, you’ve got a rockin’ body, you’re totally intimidating…” I knew he was a bullshitter but it still felt nice to hear the words.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. You have everything going for you. Any guy would be insanely lucky to have you, and I… I dunno. I just don’t see you with a guy like that.”

I decided to take the bait. “What kind of a guy do you see me with?”

He cast his all-seeing blue eyes on me and I felt the electricity of a connection. I thought for a second that maybe this was our moment. Then he looked away. “I guess… maybe I need to hang with Jordan outside of the gym, to get what you’re seeing.”

He couldn’t follow through. I knew that about him, and I hated myself for hoping he’d be different for once. The moment passed.

“You should take some time before you blurt stuff out. Even if it’s in your head, learn to edit,” I told him.

“Point taken,” he said, walking beside me to Heidi’s apartment. He took the stairs two at a time while I slogged up behind him.

Once inside, I saw that Heidi had set out a nice cheese plate and thrown a couple varieties of crackers into a bread basket and set them on her round kitchen table that also served as a dining room table and conference area when we debated the merits of various job options for next year.

Her apartment was about the same size as mine but felt more like a dorm—completely modern and without much character. In San Francisco, it almost took effort to find a place that didn’t at least have some design details worth noting, but her building dated to the 1950s, which apparently had not been an inspired era for apartment construction. The best thing about her tiny apartment was the balcony off the kitchen, which was really just a glorified fire escape but fit at least five people and afforded us a better view of the sun setting over the San Francisco Bay than what we could see through any of the windows. Go figure.

There was room for two people to sit on a windowsill that had been cleared of tin planter boxes after Heidi discovered that being a resident and tending to live plants were mutually exclusive activities.

Rather than killing and replacing the plants, she’d spread a towel topped with a blanket on the ledge where the planter had been, which made for a cozy seat for two. There were another couple of spots where people could lean against the rail while still leaving space between them for sunset viewing, and if no one moved, there was room for another person or two to stand in the doorway and watch. If necessary, we rotated positions to make sure to spread the sunset gazing evenly among us.

That night, exactly six of us took our positions and gazed out across the San Francisco Bay, intentionally ignoring the bank of fog that sat to the east, its mist already threatening to obscure the sunset before it happened. That was just the way in San Francisco—fog in the morning that often burned off in the summer, sometimes staying away long enough to allow for a sunset view.

In our time living there, we’d learned never to take a sunset for granted because we never knew what the next day’s weather would bring. At that moment, the sky was the pale blue that came with late afternoon, marked by a few wisps of clouds and the bright light of the sun’s rays snaking over the tops of buildings and between trees. On the street below, the N-Judah bus line snaked through traffic, intrepid cyclists wove between cars, and electric scooters created their usual havoc.

“Who brought this crap beer?” Heidi asked, slugging half a can of it.

“I did. It looked interesting,” Josh said, not sounding at all offended.

Heidi looked at the can, which had a big green melon on a background of pink and orange leaves. “I guess it tastes vaguely like melon. I’m just not sure that’s what I’m looking for in a fucking beer.”

“I think it’s refreshing,” Josh said without irony. He never cared if the beer he liked pleased anyone else in the room or if his tastes ran toward fruity beers, which he called lambics but which I was certain were just fruity beers.

“Sticking with wine,” I said, holding my glass out to Karim, who’d ducked through the doorway, only the top half of his body and the bottle visible while the rest of him remained in the apartment. “Thank you, sir. Do you want to switch with me and catch the sun?”

“Nah, I catch it almost daily. You go ahead,” he said, the Senegalese lilt in his voice making him sound even more gentlemanly than the gesture.

He and Heidi would probably get married one of these days, but Heidi never wanted to discuss it. “It’s not the right time,” she’d tell me. “Fucking residency… just too much going on.” She was putting that kind of planning on hold in an effort to stay focused on our heavy workload without letting her mind wander into “the impractical,” as she termed anything that didn’t affect her day-to-day ability to get through her rounds and long shifts at the hospital.

---