Come As You Are(38)

“I do believe that. Is that cheesy?” she asks nervously, her right hand fluttering to her hair, patting her silver bow-shaped barrette. Her phone’s not recording, and I like that we can enjoy a few moments just for us, not for print.

“No. You actually made sense of something that I saw as kind of pointless, to tell the truth. I don’t know that I now consider it art, but I guess it does make me think a little more deeply about what we ignore. I’d like to believe I don’t ignore the people who matter. I went to see my sister and her baby earlier this week. I try to see them every week,” I say, maybe because I’m looking for points.

Sabrina’s warm smile tells me I’ve tallied several with that. But her smile disappears as she returns her focus to the display. “That’s good, because no one wants to be ignored. I don’t like it. I don’t like being discarded.”

I draw a deep breath to ask a hard question, since I think she wants me to ask it. “Did someone do that to you?”

“Yes,” she says sharply, then fixes a pinched smile on her face as she spins and faces me. “And I didn’t like it. But that’s that. I’ve moved on.”

As I wonder who he was, a spark of anger ignites in my chest. Because some guy hurt her, and that pisses me off. What kind of idiot would let a woman like Sabrina become displaced?

Whether she wants to talk in detail or not, I won’t stand by and let her think I don’t care, when I care deeply—more than I expected I would.

I touch her shoulder. “I’m glad you’ve moved on and I feel one hundred percent confident that whoever he was, he’s a complete jerk who tramples on people, and tubes of toothpaste.”

Her smile is genuine now, and she whispers a wobbly “thank you” then squares her shoulders. “Speaking of discarded things, let’s put your brainpower to use.” She raps her knuckles against my head.

“Activating brain power for your usage,” I say robotically.

Her laughter is pretty, like bells. “Want to chat about your college days now?” She holds up the phone, ready to record.

“I was wondering why you haven’t hit that button yet.”

“We were just talking for fun before.” She shrugs playfully. “Besides, I figure all this pre-talking will get you buttered up and ready to spill all.”

I laugh. “Thanks for the warning. So the museum is a warm-up act to me sharing everything about college?”

“It sort of frees both our minds from the usual grind, don’t you think?”

I consider this, then nod my agreement. She does make a good point.

“By all means.” I gesture to the sidewalk and we stroll through Tribeca, passing shops and bakeries, boutiques and hip stores. I tell her about my days as a math major, the things I learned, and how that set the stage for starting my first company, and at a corner bodega, I stop, pointing to a pineapple for sale.

“Do you like pineapple?”

“Duh. Isn’t it impossible to dislike pineapple?”

“It is. But did you know pineapples are math?”

She squints. “Explain.”

I grab a spiky fruit, hand a few bills to the vendor, then spot an artichoke and a cauliflower. I add those to the order, and soon we find a table at a café up the street.

She shoots me a quizzical look. “We’re making artichoke, pineapple, and cauliflower salad? I’m admittedly a little skeptical.”

“No salad is forthcoming. But this pineapple is why I studied math,” I say, spinning the fruit in a circle.

She takes out her phone and hits the record button once again.

This is the interview portion, the reminder that even though the time at the museum felt like a quirky little date, Sabrina and I are now on the clock for her article. Hell, I need the reminder because it’s too easy to get lost in how I feel with her.

Carefree. Happy. Easy.

As if I’m simply enjoying getting to know someone I like.

Someone I like a lot.

I can’t have that someone, though, and that’s why I need these moments. These reminders of who we are when she clicks on her recording app. But maybe these not-dates, these work-slash-fun slivers of time, are what I need more than falling for someone. Maybe I need to have fun with a woman and not worry about what she’s after.

With Sabrina, I haven’t felt that worry since the night at The Dollhouse. I didn’t experience it on the subway, and I don’t feel it tonight either. The time with her is like a rejuvenation. It’s refreshing, as if her curious spirit and inquisitive mind are restoring my faith in humanity.

She pokes the pineapple and looks at me expectantly, waiting for my explanation.

I turn the pineapple around, showing her the spirals that comprise its hard, rough skin. “See? They fall in patterns.”

“They do?”

Enthusiasm courses through me, and my geekery emerges in full force. This shit is awesome. “Mother Nature is amazing. Mother Nature loves math. Plants love sequences. The Fibonacci sequence is one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, and so on. Basically, you add up the prior two numbers to get to the next one. And what you have here is the Fibonacci sequence. Pineapple spirals only appear in one of the numbers in this sequence.”

I take her hand and bring her index finger to one of the spirals, dragging it down the scales. Silently, her lips move, counting. A row of five. A row of eight. A row of thirteen.