Page 51 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“Maps can tell you a lot, not just about the place charted, but the people who charted it. Here, look, let me show you.” He goes to a cabinet and pulls one of the thin drawers open. The drawer is about an inch deep, but Dalisay can see a stack of maps laid out inside. He flips through a few and brings one out, laying it flat on the desk. It’s of Ancient Greece, with Greece surrounded by Africa, Europe, and Asia and then the oceans like rings, the dimensions completely skewed from modern satellite imagery. “It’s not so much a map as it is the idea of one,” says Evan.

“Navigation by vibes only.”

Evan laughs. “Exactly.” His gaze lingers on her for a minute, and then he clears his throat and turns back to the cabinet drawers, pulling out another one. It’s an explosion of saturated reds, blues, and yellows with hundreds of detailed geographic illustrations and illuminated texts. “Fra Mauro. It’s one of the biggest maps from medieval Europe. Notice how south is oriented at the top.”

Dalisay traces her fingers over the print. The lines look so textured, she almost thinks she can feel them popping out of the page. The world seems so different turned upside down.

Evan pulls out another map. “Now this one is my favorite.”

It’s a map of North America, or rather, it looks like someone’s best guess at what North America looks like, as if they’d heard about it from a friend of a friend of a friend. Noticeably, the western part of America is labeled as an island.

“Cartographers used to think California was this magical, mythical island,” Evan says. “Like, early European colonizers mistook the Baja Peninsula for one, and the rumor spread as other cartographers kept copying the same map. California became this fantastical place, separated from the rest of the land, as more and more maps were re-created based off that misconception for hundreds of years.”

“People didn’t check?” Dalisay asks, amused. “Could have asked the natives.”

“It only took them two hundred years.”

Dalisay laughs and so does Evan. Seeing him like this warms her heart. He’s so excited to show her the maps, she can tell he doesn’t get to talk about his collection all that often. They riffle through more maps, and Dalisay lets Evan rattle off historical details, realizing she could listen to him for hours. This whole time she thought cosplay and D&D was the geekiest thing about him. He’s a lot nerdier than he lets on.

“Growing up, with my parents’ work schedule and stuff, we didn’t really travel all that much. And I think they kind of hated each other by the time I was actually making memories anyway.” He lets out a small laugh. “So the only way I could travel was through books or movies. I remember being fascinated by the first Indiana Jones and those map sequences, and how they had so much texture and how the soundtrack made everything feel so … epic. I would rewind that part over andover and learned everything I could, and I even got to a point where I found mistakes, like anachronistic country names. I was so obnoxious when I was little, I would tell anyone within earshot that Siam wasn’t Thailand until 1939.” He smiles at her, his whole face bright, and Dalisay can’t help but smile back.

It’s clear he could talk about this forever, but the timer on his phone goes off. “The focaccia. I’ll be right back.”

When he leaves, Dalisay brings out another huge map, this time a map of the world. She spreads it over the entirety of the desk and her eyes glaze over all the words, simply taking in the shape of the world, and her mind drifts. It’s crazy to think that she started on one side of the map, and now she’s on another. She traces her hand over the archipelagos of the Philippines. It feels so small on the page, only an arm’s length from Manila to San Francisco. It doesn’t capture the enormity of the distance. Sometimes it feels like she left so much behind … and yet there’s still so much more of the world she wants to see. While her father always said,remember where you came from, that was only half the saying. When she won that writing contest, he said to her, his hand warm on her shoulder, “Remember where you came from, but also remember where you’re going.” It’s easy for Dalisay to forget that last part, especially since he’s not here anymore.

When Evan returns, Dalisay is still looking at the map, her thoughts a million miles away.

“Do you think we could make our own map someday?” she asks, lifting a shoulder.

Evan comes to her side, bringing the smell of bread with him. “Like, go on a trip together?”

“Why not? Cartography can’t be too hard, can it? I bet we wouldn’t make California an island.”

Evan’s smile goes wide. “No, we would not.”

“So then, where would we go?”

Either the wine is getting to her head, or it’s getting warm in here.

Evan looks at the world map in front of him, his brown eyes catching the light and turning to honey. He points, tracing his finger down the boot of Italy. “Rome. It’s the most romantic place in the world.”

“Oh,” says Dalisay. “Themostromantic? How do you know if you haven’t been everywhere else first?”

Evan’s large hands splay on the map, and Dalisay’s eyes linger on them before Evan says, “You’re right. I haven’t seen everything. Where would you take me?”

She puts her hand over his and draws it across the paper, using his finger to point. “Hoi An, Vietnam. The Old Town, beaches, paper lantern festival.” She leads his hand again, appreciating the warmth of his skin. “Kyoto, Japan. Temples, yakitori, bright pink cherry blossoms.” She leans over, and her hair brushes against Evan’s forearm. “Bhutan. Tiger’s Nest Monastery, natural hot springs, snow-capped mountains.”

Evan teases, “I thought you didn’t like going on hikes. You’d want to trek the Himalayas?”

“With the right person,” she says.

And all at once, he goes still, realizing what she means. It’s only after she says it doessherealize what she means.

She could fall into his eyes, they’re standing close, so close now, she can see every detail of him, each hair in hisstubble, every single one of his eyelashes, a small scar above his upper lip.

This is what she was worried about. This feeling right here.

Evan’s eyes flick back and forth a few times, looking at her, taking her in. He moves as if to pull back, but she doesn’t let his hand go. She wants him to read her like a place on a map.

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