Page 76 of The Cabin
We drink whiskey over ice and listen to the crickets and the frogs, watch the last of the fireflies flitting on the fading warm evening.
“I like you too,” I whisper. So quiet, I wonder if he even heard me.
He did. His eyes slide across the space, to mine. Search me.
“You always hear that the first step is the hardest,” he murmurs, in his rough woodsmoke voice. “Maybe that one’s true.”
“Maybe it is,” I agree.
I finish my whiskey.
“Coffee in the morning?” He sounds hopeful.
And that does something very complicated to my belly.
“Yeah,” I say. “My porch. Six thirty.”
“Could you, uh, sometime, if you feel like it, could you make that bread with the little pieces of chocolate in it? That stuff was good.”
I laugh. “Pain au chocolat.” I’m glad he picked that one—I’ve never made it for anyone but him. “Yeah. I can.”
“I didn’t mean tomorrow morning.”
“I know.” I consider how long it would take. “We’ll have to see how early I wake up.”
I walk back home, and I feel him watching me. The sensation of being watched, looked at, seen—I don’t mind it. There’s no judgment in his eyes. No pity, either. Just warmth and understanding and the depths of a soul, which some part of mine seems to recognize.
Like when you meet someone, and it feels as if you’ve been friends before, if you were to believe in reincarnation. Similar to that, with Nathan. Only…far more complex.
I go to bed, and I’m thinking about Nathan as I drift off. That’s new.It’s over coffee, the next morning.
I’ve made pain au chocolat, he’s made scrambled eggs and bacon in a huge cast iron skillet.
We’re done eating. Sipping coffee and watching the sun poke salmon-colored fingers through the rim of pines over the lake.
“There’s a restaurant, just outside town,” Nathan says, apropos of nothing. “A nicer place, I guess. On a lake kinda like this one. Do you want to have dinner there with me, tonight?”
I swallow hard. “I…I…” I search myself, and again the truth is a viscous, multilayered thing within me. “Yes, I do.” I lick my lips, run my finger around the rim of my mug. “This might be weird and stupid, but…could we drive separate?”
His smile is not mocking. “Yeah, of course.”
“I just—”
He holds up a hand to halt me. “What’d I say about explanations or apologies?”
I sigh, and I’m almost smiling myself. “Fine.” I take the last piece of bacon, because it’s obvious he’s not going to, and I munch on it. “What time?”
“Leave at six?”
“Okay. Next question: what should I wear?”
A shrug. “It ain’t a formal place, I don’t think. Never been there, but folks in town have told me it’s nice. Whatever that means.” He picks at the crumbs of pastry and bits of chocolate on the now-empty plate. “It’s called The Boat Dock.”
“Six o’clock then.”
He nods. “Nadia, just so you know, this can be just two friends sharing a meal—”
“No explanations or apologies is your rule, Nathan. Goes for you too.”
I mainly don’t want to rule anything out any more than I want to label it with anything.
His smile is hesitant, like he wants to be happy, eager, excited, but doesn’t want to get his hopes up, or let me see what he’s really feeling. Or some confusing emotional admixture of all that and more.
Neither of us seems to know what to say next; we just agreed to what is, despite my precaution of driving separately, a date.
We’re not calling it that. We’re not calling it anything. But it’s a man and a woman, who have tacitly agreed that there is in fact a thing which is being taken slowly, having dinner together. It’s a step beyond breakfast on the porch, but a step less than inviting him in for wine by the fire.
He grabs his pour-over, his skillet. Stands up. Goes down one step, hesitates, turns. “I’m looking forward to dinner with you, Nadia.”
“I’m looking forward to it, too.” I stand up, too. I’m not sure why. “See you at six?”
He chuckles. “It’s gonna be a long day, isn’t it?”
I laugh at that. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“You, uh, you ever been fishing?”
I hold up both hands. “Not if you paid me, Nathan.”
“Too boring, huh?”
“Watching golf is boring. Watching C-Span is boring. Fishing is…something there isn’t a word for.”
“So that’s a no.”
“Firmly.”
“See you at six.”
I laugh. “Yeah, see you at six,” I call after him. “If you catch anything, I’ll cook it. I think I remember how.”
He waves a dismissive hand. “They’re all tiny, in there. Fun to catch, but not worth trying to eat.”
Weird how we both seem to have trouble ending conversations.
He smiles at me over his shoulder as the conversation just kind of abruptly, awkwardly ends, because he’s doing his thing and I’m doing mine and we’re going to see each later. So do you say goodbye, see you later, or do you just stop talking and do what you do until it’s time to see each other again? Neither of us seems to know how to navigate that.
