Page 24 of I Need You to Read This
She sits back, her chair creaking, and drops her hands from her keyboard. Her body is stiff from spending so long in deep concentration. It’s amazing the way this feeling overtakes her when she writes. She spent so long in life not knowing that writing was so transportive. She is oddly calm now. She can tell she wrote it well. She looks over the letter, rereading it carefully and correcting any small typos she made in the rush to get it onto the page. Then attaches it to an email to Howard Demetri. She presses Send and sighs with relief.
When she finally looks up, the sky has cleared into a crystal blue after days of oppressive smog. The afternoon sun sparkles warmly in the glass of the skyscrapers. She glances at the Excelsior Building, remembering Tom. It wouldn’t be so terrible to go out and have a nice dinner, would it? She remembers the dimple in his cheek, the way he bobbed his head a bit when he asked her out. She feels like the letter she answered was trying to heal her as well. Maybe she just needs to be brave enough to trust her own message.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she picks up her phone and texts the number Tom gave her.
Dinner tonight? I’m suddenly free.
Immediately after she sends it her chest tightens anxiously. It is unlikely that he’ll be free last-minute anyway, she thinks, trying to distract herself by cleaning up her desk, sweeping aside the already-read letters, and straightening the others in their neat pile. But less than a minute later the screen of her phone lights up.
I’m up for it! Let me find us a reservation somewhere. 7pm?
As Alex looks down at the screen, she can’t tell if she’s thrilled or terrified. Probably a mixture of both.
Perfect!
TWENTY-FOUR
The restaurant Tom chooses is tucked away on one of the shortest streets in Little Italy. With all of Alex’s aimless walking over the past seven years, it is rare for a place to be new to her. Glowing string lights crisscross the narrow street lined on both sides with little mom-and-pop Italian restaurants. People sit at tables along the sidewalk, talking and drinking wine over red-checked tablecloths as scents of garlic and oregano and freshly baked bread waft from the open doorways. Alex stumbles down the sidewalk transported. She’s so charmed by it all she almost doesn’t see that Tom is already waiting for her, sitting on the steps in front of a small church next to the restaurant. When he sees her, he grins and stands up, brushing off the front of his pants. He’s wearing a jacket despite the warm weather, a crisp blue shirt buttoned up underneath.
Alex is glad that she ran home after they texted, showering and changing into a long-sleeved white linen dress that is just a little too short with a cutout along the collarbone. She’d pulled out the only pair of heels she owns, a pair of nude slides that were an impulse buy she had yet to wear outside of her apartment. She’d gotten dressed and stood teetering on the edge of the bathtub to see herself in the bathroom mirror as the pigeons watched her warily from the window.Don’t worry, it’s just one date,she’d found herself saying, as much to herself as to Mildred.
Now she’s glad she made the effort as Tom walks down the steps of the church, looking at her appreciatively.
“Wow,” he says when he gets close enough. “You look great.”
“I’m not always dressed like a writer on deadline,” she says, the compliment making her cheeks flush. “Usually, though.”
“Ready?” Tom gestures for her to go ahead of him through a small red-painted doorway. Inside, the place is not one of the new modern Italian restaurants she often passes while out for walks in her neighborhood, the ones with the polished cement bars and people in the window eating tiny portions off massive plates. This is a proper Italian bistro, with an arched brick ceiling and bouquets of breadsticks teetering in cups in the center of the tables. A waiter brings them back to a small table set against the wall. A candle flickers invitingly, some of its wax already collecting on the checkered tablecloth below. The overt date vibes of the place make them both a little shy and they decide to order a bottle of wine. It’s an optimistic gesture, Alex thinks. A sign that they are anticipating the date going well.
“Any preference on style?” He looks at her over the plastic-coated menu.
“Red? Good-tasting?” Alex shrugs and he laughs. As much as she loves to drink it, she’s never been much of a wine snob. She tends to forget much beyond the very basics.
“I think we can probably do that.” She watches him deliberate with the sommelier about bottles. It’s been a long time since she’s had this kind of feeling about a person, the kind of comfortable chemistry where just watching them do something mundane is attractive.
“So—” they both start to say, and then stop and laugh, each waiting for the other to continue.
“I hope you like it here,” he says, looking around the cozy brick-lined room.
“It’s so lovely,” she says. “There’s something very comforting about it.”
He nods. “It’s one of my favorite restaurants in the city. Reminds me of my grandparents.”
“They were Italian?” Alex asks.
“Irish,” he says, and she bursts out laughing. He gives her a crooked grin, pleased with himself for inadvertently making such a funny joke. “But my granddad worked as a line cook in Philly. Was his first job off the boat, so our family dinners were decidedly very Italian American, with a potato or two thrown in.” Alex likes the way his eyes crinkle and the slightly shy duck of his head.Keep your shit together,she tells herself.No need to lose it because this is your first date in eight years.
“I would have thought you came from a long line of bankers,” she jokes.
“God, no. My whole family is blue-collar. I mean, they’ve done good for themselves, but no one has ever had any desire to work on Wall Street. Myself included.”
“You went into banking accidentally?”
“Kind of. I actually have no idea how I got into it. A friend of mine in college, his dad worked high up at Excelsior, and I just kind of glommed on, summer internship, first-year job. I kind of hate it, to be honest. I don’t think anyone understands why I do it to myself. The hours are terrible. They’d be happier if I found a nice girl to marry and took over the family restaurant.” Embarrassed, he clears his throat, his eyes jumping down to his menu. “What about you? Do you have a big family?”
Talking about her early life makes her skin prickle nervously. Under the table she tugs at her sleeves. It’s not that it’s a secret, but somehow bringing up the time before New York feels dangerous. The truth is, she is ashamed of what happened back then. And of the recluse she has let herself become. “No, I—” A waiter comes to the table, giving Alex a much-needed reprieve. He drops off two heaping plates of pasta flecked with basil and shavings of Parmesan and a bowl of some sort of salad with perfectly in-season sliced peaches, an orb of burrata nestled in the center.
“This looks delicious,” Alex says, thrilled to be looking at real food for the first time all week. Tom scoops up a bite of linguine, expertly twirling it around his fork and taking a bite. He closes his eyes, enjoyingthe flavors. Alex watches him, intrigued. She wonders if he is always so appreciative of things.
