Page 104 of The Pairing

Luckily, Signora Lucia knows how to drive a stick shift.

We’re on the motorway somewhere between Chianti and Rome, three across on the bench seat of the truck Lucia usually takes to pick up cases of wine from neighboring wineries.

Everything that could go wrong on our bike ride, did. Theo got lost, my bike blew a tire, a goat chased us off the road. For the first hour it was a charming pastoral misadventure, until our play fighting became actual fighting, and when Theo mentioned the bus leaving at nine, I stopped and stared and told them the schedule said eight. We were late for a bus that had already left, and nobody had looked for us because Theo had helpfully checked our names off when they loaded our bags.

By the time we could communicate what happened and get a concierge to call the tour company—Theo never got around to saving Fabrizio’s number—the bus was an hour out. If they turned back, the entire group would miss the Vespa tour of Roman monuments scheduled for this afternoon. That was when Signora Lucia marched in, took up the receiver, and told Fabrizio she would handle it.

And now here we are, halfway to Rome in a half-rusted farm truck with the Italian ghost of my dead mother, who seems to only know two words of English,helloandcow.

Theo and I sit with our arms crossed, tense and separate. Under the engine and a cassette of Patty Pravo’s greatest hits, I can almost hear Theo grinding their teeth. I fix my gaze on the miniature portraits of Mary and Jesus hanging from the rearviewmirror and try to recall how nice it felt to wake up this morning.

“Cow,” Signora Lucia says boredly, pointing through the dusty windshield at some cattle grazing in a field. She has pointed out every cow pasture we’ve passed in what seems to be a perfunctory agricultural sightseeing tour. Theo and I both make appreciativehmmsounds.

We pass two more pastures before Theo finally unsticks their jaw and says, facing straight ahead, “Why don’t you just say whatever you’re thinking so we can get it over with.”

Here we go.

“There’s nothing to say,” I tell them. “I should have checked the time before we left. I should have made sure you told someone where we were going.”

“In other words, you should have known I would fuck up.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten us into this situation, no.”

They nod hard and fast. “Right, and you never make mistakes.”

“I knew the right time.”

“Sure,” they say. “Fuck me, I guess.”

“Why are you mad atme?”

“Because I can hear the superiority in your fucking tone, Kit,” Theo says, finally facing me. “Like you think I’m an idiot child.”

I don’t think that, but we’ve had this conversation a thousand times before, and it won’t make a difference if I say so. Last night should be enough proof, but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe they didn’t really believe what I said then either. Maybe I just put a crust on top of everything, and this has broken it.

“There is one thing I’d like to say, actually,” I attempt. “I don’t think this is about the bus. I think you’re feeling a bit raw from yesterday.”

“Oh, cool, you’re here to save me from myselfandtell me how I feel,” Theo says, cheeks flaring red. “Really taking me back to the good ol’ days. It’s a miracle I survived all this time without you, huh?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” I say, keeping my voice even. “That’s not what I think.”

“Pretty close to what you said back then.”

“Cow,” says Signora Lucia, pointing, and we both gohmm.

“Then?” I ask Theo. “Then, when?”

They don’t say anything, and it hits me like I’m rolling down the motorway myself. Head over ass, scraped across the pavement, fifteen different French swears colliding in my head.

“You mean on the plane,” I say. “You want to talk about thatnow?”

“No, I’m just saying,” Theo says tightly. When they swat a piece of hair from their eyes, their hand shakes. “It’s not like I’m making things up.”

“I don’t remember saying anything like that,” I say, throat tight.

What I do remember is: my ears ringing as Theo shook me awake. The envelope in their hand—they’d gone looking through my bag for a snack and found it. The dull roar of the engines as we sailed over the ocean, the sour taste of sleep in my mouth. I remember Theo holding the pages out and asking what the hell they were, how I’d carefully folded them in thirds. My acceptance letter and the papers for our apartment.

We’d talked about Paris so many times. I’d been telling them stories about the pied-à-terre in Saint-Germain-des-Prés our whole lives. This was Theo’s first time crossing the Atlantic, but when we were up late watchingNo Reservationsor picking up Camembert from the cheese shop next to Ralph’s, we swore that Theo would come with me one visit, and I’d show them everywhere Thierry and Maman took me when I was little, and we’d eat and kiss and drink kir with a splash of Lillet Blanc. And wouldn’t it be funny, we said, if we never left? If we stayed forever, started a whole new life, opened up Fairflower on some flowering corner?

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