Page 96 of Backslide
We never discussed it, all those years ago, each letting the other believe that our first meeting was on the sidewalk (at least after Noah confessed to recognizing me in Ben’s kitchen). I never wanted to admit that I’d seen him first from afar and pined. It sounded crazy.
We gape at each other now, not unlike we did on that first night. I examine his changeable eyes, the faint scar on his cheek, the pout of his lower lip. Only now, instead of our view being obscured by bodies, what’s in our way is something harder to name.
“I saw you,” he says.
“I saw you first,” I say.
And it’s maybe true if only by a few minutes.
“It’s weird though,” he says. “There were so many of those parties. I met so many people, so many girls.”
“Yes, yes,” I say, rolling my hand. “I know. You were very popular.”
“No. What I’m saying is, I remember you so well. Even though we didn’t speak. I saw you. I didn’t know you. But I couldn’t look away.”
The impact of his words thunders through me. We really did feel inevitable in that moment and even in the period afterward, when I lay in bed at night, imagining him.
With this irrational sense of knowing him.
Neither of us knows what to say.
“The magazine I work for is folding,” I confess. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud to anyone and it feels like heaving a gigantic weight off my chest.
Noah’s brow furrows like he actually cares. “Shit. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” I drop my head back, my hair falling away from my face. “I’m starting to think it might be a good thing.”
“I get that.”
That’s all I really want to say for now, and he seems to sense this.
He lets it go.
The rain is coming down now. In sheets. In pillowcases. In winter-weight duvets. The once muddy farm beyond is now streaming with water, rushing past in newly formed creeks.
I guess it’s cold, but I don’t feel it.
“What else is on that list?” Noah asks me, nodding his chin toward where my phone lies between us on the table.
Right. Reality. Cara and her errand list.
I grab my phone and scroll through to her email. “The flower farm. A chocolatier. And then a dinner reservation at some place called Nick’s Cove where, apparently, we have to try the deep-fried saltines.” I look out toward where our car is parked a distance away.
“I don’t want to leave here like… ever,” I say. “But maybe we should get going.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Noah nods, that crease popping between his brows. “This looks kind of intense. Maybe we should try to escape before dark.”
As we start to rise, stretch, a blueness comes over me. I guess I’m sad that this is ending. Likely seeing movement, Maggie pops back out through the door. “How was everything, folks?”
“Incredible,” I say. And I mean it.
“We figure we should probably grab the cheese and get on the road,” Noah adds. “We’ve got to get back to the Healdsburg area tonight.”
Maggie’s eyes go wide. “Well, I’m afraid that’s not in the cards,” she says, sighing like she’s often the bearer of bad news and is sick of it. “There was flooding on the pass. It looks like it should subside by tomorrow morning. But there’s no getting off the coast tonight.”
“What?” Noah and I exclaim in unison. And it would be comical if it wasn’t real.
Suddenly, I flash to a yellow sign we passed on the road in: FLOODEDDURINGSTORM.
