Page 110 of Catch a Kiwi
When we were outside, I said, “I really am feeling too sweaty to go out. Like I said. Long night.”
“Oh, do come,” Hope said. “I wanted to thank you for what you said to Maia. And ask how you thought of it. She can get overtaken at home, since she’s the quietest, and I don’t always notice.”
“In other words, we’ll talk about our children,” Karen said. “It’s a very long list. Run now, Summer. Well, walk. Ooze. Whatever.”
Roman hadn’t said much, I realized, though he also hadn’t had much of a chance. He said, “Have a heart. I’m going to slink off home, take a cold shower, and tell my male pride it wasn’t really that bad. Come on, Summer.”
Karen said, “You reallyareHemi’s brother, despite the sexy green eyes and slightly less Neanderthal levels of command presence. You don’t have to do what he says, Summer. It’s better for him if you don’t.”
“Oh, that’s—that’s OK,” I said. “Heismy date, and you go home with the one who brought you, right?” I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but I did want to leave, and Roman did have my hand and was exerting a little pressure, so …
“Stop by later,” Hope said with her sweet smile, “if you can. Seriously. We’ll all still be at Karen and Jax’s, I’m sure,swimming and probably eating some more, but it’ll be more casual than yesterday. Hanging out, enjoying the day.”
“We’ll see,” I said, since Roman wasn’t saying anything. “It was great to see all of you again and, uh, knock you down and all. Have a good breakfast!” I said that last one as I was being pulled away by Roman.
“Bye,” Karen said. “I’ll do yoga with you guys anytime. Awesome stuff, Roman. Seriously brilliant. Jax is going tohowl.”
“What”I asked Roman when we were half a block down the street and he finally slowed from race-walk to military march. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of having breakfast with four women. After you did hot yoga?”
He said, “This was meant to be a breakfast for the two of us. Or skipping breakfast, if you like.”
Wait. I stopped, which meant he stopped, too, after a moment of tugging. “What?” he asked. “We have a program.”
I said slowly, “I don’t think that’s it.” I felt a bit hollow inside. Or maybe I felt naked, because I had a feeling … “That wasn’t you being rude,” I said. “You left because of me. At least I think so. Oh, and I really do want breakfast. I know I’m sweaty, and we have that program you mentioned, but I’m actually starved, so …”
He started walking again and said, “Well, yeh, I left because of you. What, I wasn’t meant to notice that?”
“What?” I asked.
“Whatever that was. Whatever made you stiffen up like that. Want to tell me?”
“No,” I said. “Not now, anyway.”
“Fair enough,” he said, and turned onto Marine Parade. There was the sea, doing its in-and-out thing. There was themountain, too, dead ahead, rising tall and green and volcanic. And here was, yes, a café. “Best menu I could find,” he said. “Corn fritters, manuka-smoked bacon, creamy mushrooms, and all. And, of course, the sea.”
“And sitting outside,” I said, smiling at him because he’d cared enough to check, and what was even better, he’d noticed how I was feeling and had helped me get out of it. And then not pushed me to explain. And because he was still holding my sweaty hand, looking at my sweaty self, and seeming like every bit of me was what he wanted to be looking at right now. “This works for me,” I told him. “And oh, boy. So do you.”
Roman
Falling in love wasn’t something I did anymore. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I ever had. I’d thought I’d been in love both times, but I’d never felt the way people talk about. I hadn’t been carried away, or obsessed, or even all that distracted. None of that was anything I was interested in. I liked her, that was all. I liked her more all the time, especially today, but that could be lack of sleep and lack of oxygen to the brain. There she was, though, unselfconscious about her hair, sweaty tendrils of which were escaping from their high ponytail, and her snug, sweaty workout clothes, which wouldn’t have been nearly as jaw-dropping on any other woman, but were on her. Which she either truly didn’t notice or didn’t care about. And her eyes. And her smile. And her heart.
I liked her, that was all. I liked the way she looked at the sea, sighed, and seemed to sink into the sensation of it, the swells rising and crashing over and over and forever. The rush-and-roar sound they made, and the way the rhythmseeped into your bones. The sea-salt-ozone of the air, and the pied shags skimming the water’s surface, flying free. I liked the way she relaxed into that, yeh, and the way she watched the people go by and didn’t even seem to think about laughing at them. The way she patted a fluffy spaniel on a lead, and did laugh when the little dog licked her salty leg before its owner noticed and called it away. I liked the way she exclaimed to the server about the swan art on the top of her latte, but didn’t take a photo of it, just sipped around the edge. “So I can keep it as long as possible,” she told me. “And savor it. The impermanence is what makes it special, right?”
“Right,” I said, and got a bit more of that heart-opening feeling. The yoga, probably. Either I was open, or I was lightheaded.
“When you’re wide open,” she said, startling me, “the world is a good place. Sharon Salzberg.”
“Oh,” I said stupidly, but she was smiling, and my face didn’t seem to be under my control, because I was smiling back.
“I haven’t been wide open for a long time,” she said. “Maybe ever. I think I may be getting there, though. All sorts of things come up once you let them, I’m finding. When they’re rushing out, like this morning, when I cried … that’s not comfortable. It made me feel a little crazy, in fact.” She looked out at the sea again, then said slowly, “Maybe you have to let yourself feel them, though, in order to feel the rest. I’ve been numb for a long time. Maybe for years. I’m not numb now. I’m feeling …” She spread her arms and smiled at me like the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky. Like all the light in the world. “Wide open.”
“Then let’s go home,” I said. “And have some more of this day.”
48
THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE TRUTH
Roman
