Page 14 of Just One Night (Just One Day 2.50)

“Okay. Maybe not in India. I wasn’t with you in India. He went to India for three months to see his ma,” Broodje explains to Allyson. “He was in a movie over there.”

“Are you famous in India?” Allyson asks.

“I am Brad Pitt in India,” Willem says.

“And maybe not since he came back. But shit, after he got back from Paris, he was a mess. And in Mexico, when he couldn’t find you—”

“Okay, Broodje,” Willem says. “No need to give away all the family secrets.”

Broodje rolls his eyes. “Far as I’m concerned, she’s family now.”

• • •

Speaking of family, Allyson loves watching Willem with Broodje. Not that she needs reassuring exactly, but seeing him with Broodje is reassuring.

“I was going to take you out to eat,” Willem says to her. “But Broodje beat me to it.”

“We can still go if you want,” Allyson says.

“I have to be at the theater in less than an hour,” Willem says. “We can go out after? Just us.”

“Not just you,” Broodje says. “W, Henk, Lien, they’re all coming. And they will all want to meet her.” He nods to Allyson. “You are like the business we all invested in and now you’re paying off so . . . you can be alone later.”

“Wren called, too. The friend I was in Amsterdam with” Allyson says. “She wants to meet up.”

And, Willem thinks, there would also be Kate and her fiancé.

Allyson and Willem look at each other, the invisible chain connecting them pulling hard. Why hadn’t they taken more advantage of those quiet hours this afternoon? Why had they just sat there, her feet in his lap, when there was a perfectly good empty apartment here?

Except Allyson wouldn’t have exchanged those hours with Willem for anything in the world.

And neither would Willem.

• • •

All too quickly, they part again. Willem will go ahead to his call at the theater. Wren is meeting Allyson and Broodje at the flat. Everyone will meet at the park, and after the play, they will all celebrate.

Saying good-bye is less fraught this time. They have done it now once, like normal people: leave, come back. It builds confidence.

This time Willem kisses her good-bye. It is quick, a peck on the lips. It is not nearly enough. He wants all of her. From her lips to her feet.

“I’ll see you after the play,” Allyson says.

“Yes,” Willem says.

But they both know they will see each other sooner than that. That they will find each other during the play, once more, in the words of Shakespeare.

• • •

Wren arrives not long after Willem has left. She squeals and hugs Allyson, squeals and hugs Broodje. She kisses the saints on her bracelet. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. Anthony, patron saint of lost things. She kisses all the saints. They all came through.

>“I miss you,” Allyson says.

It’s just what Dee needs to hear. “I miss you, too, baby.”

Mama swoops back behind him, forcing herself back into the screen. She blows Allyson kisses. “He does. My boy is pining.”

“I miss him, too.”

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