Page 26 of A Night to Remember

“Obviously,” I reply. “Oh, Alli, I’msohappy for you.” I wrap her in a hug and marvel over the way things change. There hadbeen a time when Allison wouldn’t have accepted anything less than a Jumbotron proposal, or maybe someone shouting “Will you marry me?” while jumping out of a plane. While also riding a motorcycle. Allison’s taste in men used to terrify me, along with her appallingly high tolerance for Long Island iced teas. Tom’s not a flashy guy, but he’s a good one, and when she fell in love with him, something in her just seemed to quiet down. Don’t get me wrong, she still likes to have fun, but she no longerpursuesfun with the manic desperation of a toddler hunting down the last piece of Halloween candy.

“If I make you my maid of honor, though,” she says with a sly smile, “you’re going to have to wear the pinkest, frilliest dress I can find.”

I laugh out loud. It’s a wonder our coworkers haven’t shushed us yet. “I’d wear a tutu for you. With sparkles.”

“And body glitter! You’re coming out tonight to celebrate, right? Mickey’s? 9:00? If Meg doesn’t give you the night off, I’ll makeherwear acrylic nails.”

I can’t deny Allison anything today. I am radiantly, explosively, deliriously happy for her.

“I’ll be there.”

13

Gabe

Fuck it,I’m going to ask her out, I think as I jog down our country road in the pre-dawn cold, letting the “text your crush” playlist I made last night encourage me to do just that. I’ve spent the past week orchestrating ways to bump into Kayla. Twice I’ve picked up lunch from the café for Adam, my dad, and me, and once I ventured to the library, where I realized, panic-stricken, that I was going to have to choose something that would meet Kayla’s standards. Ideally it would also be something that I would actually like to read during my excruciatingly long evenings at home. I finally settled on Ishiguro’sThe Buried Giant, which earned me what I interpreted as an approving nod. It took all I had not to mutter “phew” as she checked it out.

She’s been more reserved than she was the night she cooked me dinner, but still pleasant, and willing to answer questions about her mom and whether she’s heard back from the bank. It turns out that they responded to her almost immediately by sending her mother a notice of her right to request mediation—which seems to me like an admission that they screwed up. I’m hoping it won’t seem like I expect some kind of quid pro quo, but I just can’t let her slip away again.

I wish I hadn’t been such a coward in high school, but she seemed to have a knack for preemptively letting me know that I didn’t have a prayer. In April of that year she’d announced, apropos of nothing, that she wasn’t going to prom. The tips at the diner from the pre-prom and post-prom crowd were too good, she’d claimed, and she was trying to save all that she could for college. I’d ended up going with friends and having a terrible time.I’d rather do calculus, I thought, gazing at my classmates as they bumped and grinded (ground?) to mid-2010s dance-pop hits,than spend another minute here without her.

So I pulled a When-Harry-Met-Sally and drove over to the diner once I’d gotten my friends settled at a house party. And when she finally emerged about 1:00 AM, looking tired and rumpled, I stepped out of the car with the mathiest math song I could find playing on the stereo.

She’d laughed a loud, ringing laugh that made me feel like I would explode with joy.

“You couldn’t come to the dance,” I called. “So I’m bringing the dance to you.”

“What on earth is this song?” she asked as she crossed the street to where I’d parked, a huge grin lighting up her face.

“‘Mandelbrot Set’ by Jonathan Coulton,” I’d explained. “What, don’t you know it?”

“And it’s about…?”

“The renowned mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot,” I replied. “Surely you’re familiar with his work.” I gently pulled her to me and we began to dance, a slow waltz totally out of step with the music.

“You know, I don’t even reallylikemath that much,” she said as I spun her around. “I just like?—”

“—hanging out with me?” I supplied hopefully.

“—puzzles,” she finished. She continued to smile at me, her face just inches from mine on the deserted sidewalk next to the courthouse, JoCo still serenading us with equations.This is the moment, I thought. If I could just keep from falling into the fractals of her agate-gray eyes, if I could tell her that I wanted to stop messing around and be her guy…

“This isn’t a date,” she’d said then, resolutely.

“Um… no?” I’d replied, intelligently, struggling to get my bearings. “Why not?”

“Because if it was, we would have set a time, place and spending limit that were acceptable to both of us farther in advance. And we’d have agreed on who was going to pay for what. And it would be ten years from now.” She stepped away from me slightly, without letting her hand slip fully off my shoulder. Her expression was soft, kind, and a little sad.

“Why ten years from now?” I asked seriously, fingertips still touching her waist. Even in the harsh streetlights, with sweaty hair and a greasy uniform, she was still the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I couldn’t bear to wait ten years. I couldn’t bear to wait one minute.

“Because I’m not ready now—for anyone—but I might be then.”

“Well then,” I replied, trying to inwardly balance the thrill thatshe wants to say yeswith the disappointment thatshe’s not saying yes, “I suppose I have to respect your limits.” My dumb calculus joke earned me one last smile before she ruffled my hair and walked to her car.

It’s been eight years. I’m a little ahead of schedule, but we’re both here, now, and I’m willing to take a chance.

Over the courseof that day, I compose about 500 messages to text to my crush and don’t send any of them. I must do a little bit of work, because Mark and Nancy seem as pleased with me as ever, though I couldn’t say what any of it was.

Around 5:00, Adam comes by the courthouse on his way home from work. I’ve been wondering all week if he’ll see the letter Kayla sent to the bank and suspect that I had a hand in it. Normally he would consider a case like Kayla’s beneath him, but our argument in his driveway the other day makes me uneasy. I don’treallythink he would sabotage her, but it’s not impossible. It doesn’t seem like a bad idea to stay on his good side.

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