Page 52 of The Seven Year Slip

I met you in my time, and you’re so different, I wanted to tell him, pressing my face into his chest, but I doubt he’d believe me.I don’t know why you changed. I don’t know how.

And, quieter,I don’t know you at all.

“You’resucha sight for sore eyes. And you’re right on time for dinner,” he said into my hair. “I hope you like japchae.”

I stared up at him as though he might as well have been a ghost. My brain was buzzing. The apartment did it again—like it had for my aunt and Vera. But whynow? Another crossroads?

Iwan frowned, and let go of me. “Is something wrong?”

“I...”

I realized I didn’t care. He was here.Iwas here.

And I was happier than I’d been in a long time.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, “that I didn’t come back.”

“Everything work out well with your apartment?”

“What?”

“With the pigeons,” he said.

“Oh, yes! Everything’s working out fine. I just came to—to check up. To see how you were. I’m sorry I didn’t knock first.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I was sure you’d be back. Well,” he added, with a shy grin, “I was kind of hoping, at least.”

We stood there for another awkward moment. Like he wanted to say something, and I sort of did, too.I missed you—but was that too forward?I missedthisyou—that would’ve been too weird. I wanted to shake him and ask him ifIwas the reason he passed on Drew’s offer, but he wasn’t that man.

He wouldn’t be that man for years.

Then he cleared his throat and invited me into the kitchen, where he turned down the radio and returned to the stove. The moment passed. I followed him, dumped my purse by the counter, and climbed up on my barstool, as though it were routine.Wasit routine at this point? This felt comfortable. It felt unreal.

“How’ve you been?” he asked, picking up the wooden spoon he had abandoned in the pan and stirring whatever was inside.

“Fine.” Then, when I realized I’d used that word so often in the last few weeks, I added more truthfully, “Overworked a little, honestly, but I’ve been painting more.” Then I reached down to my purse at my feet, and took out the travel guide to NYC to show him my new paintings. I had finally colored the one with the girls on the subway, and I really liked how they had turned out, bathed in blues and purples.

“Oh, gorgeous!” he cried, and took the guide to flip through and see all of them. “These are really something. I tell you what, someday when I get a restaurant, I’ll commission you for a few pieces.”

I thought about the Olive Branch and his cookbook proposal. “I doubt they’re your aesthetic.”

“Of course they are.” He closed the book and handed it back to me. “What do you say?”

I was flattered—it was a nice thought. “I don’t take commissions, sadly.”

“Then how about an exchange?” he replied. “Dinner at my restaurant for the rest of my life.”

That was a lovely future he painted. I would’ve been enraptured by it, if it existed. “Okay,” I said, because it didn’t exist, “but only if I get my own table.”

“Set aside for you every night—best table in the house.”

“It’s a deal, Chef,” I replied, reaching out a hand, and he shook it—his grip firm and warm, fingers calloused. At least his handshake hadn’t changed in the future. Except maybe in that meeting room he’d held on for a second too long.

“You’re going to regret that,” I said, as he went back to his simmering saucepan, and I put my travel sketchbook back into my purse.

“Nah, I don’t think I will.”

No, he’d just forget about it.

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