Lily and the Octopus(71)
“Is frozen yogurt okay?”
“Frozen yogurt is perfect.”
We sit across from each other with our yogurt, which is a better choice in the August sun than coffee. His is plain and mine is pomegranate. I’m surprised that he looks both exactly like and nothing like his pictures. The way he moves, the way he smiles, it makes him more handsome than anything a still photograph could capture. We run through the usual first-date banter and I start to tell one of my stories and even though it comes off okay, when I finish I tell myself to stop it.
This one is worth being present for.
He is from New Orleans. He used to be a TV news reporter in Las Vegas and I wonder how that is because his hair curls and it moves in the breeze and he kind of looks like the poet his name suggests and nothing like a TV news reporter, at least any that I’ve seen. He’s an uncle like I am an uncle. He’s close with his mother, but not his father. He’s sad about the death of Whitney Houston.
He loves dogs.
“Have you ever been in love?” Byron asks.
I pause and think of Lily, even though I know that’s not what he means. I answer yes because, even if there had never been a Lily, it’s true. I even go so far as to try to mask the pain of it. “You?”
He looks sheepishly at his feet. “I don’t think so.” And then he adds a hopeful “Not yet.”
I recognize in his face the look of someone who has been on a lot of these . . . dates, and I admire his ability to remain hopeful.
“How long was your last relationship?” he asks.
“Six years.”
“How did it end?”
I pause.
“I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. “I ended it.”
“Why?” And then with a chuckle, “I have a tendency to be direct.”
I look at him and weigh the advantages of several lines before deciding the best way to answer directness is by being direct in return. “Because I thought I deserved to be treated better.”
“GOOD! FOR! YOU!”
I look around at the crowd and wonder if someone is playing a cruel practical joke. Like I might see the octopus in human form five tables away, sipping an iced latte and saluting me with one of his tentacles. But the octopus is dead; I know that. And I don’t think this is a joke—I think this is who this guy really is.
“When did you know it was over?” he asks.
“In the days leading up to the election when marriage equality was on the ballot in California, he talked about us getting married. I had such a visceral reaction to tying my life to his that I thought about casting my vote to make gay marriage illegal, denying all gay Californians their basic civil rights, just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation at home.”
Byron laughs.
“I guess that’s when I knew it was over.” I put my hand on his forearm. I don’t know why I do this—and it’s not exactly natural, although it’s not unnatural—except that I really want to touch his skin. It’s smooth, and tanned just a little bit, and feels like summer—like something familiar and warm and good. Like my skin did on the first days aboard Fishful Thinking, before it salted and burned and peeled. “We broke up three years after that.” I sit back in my chair and give a sly smile. Relationships are complex, and sometimes you can’t really explain them to an outside party. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
“YES! YOU! ARE! LIVING! YOUR! FULL! LIFE!”
A third time. I’m not imagining it.
There you are.
This time my heart does skip a beat. I look down at his arm and we’re still touching and he has made no attempt to retract his arm or retreat.
All my surroundings—the red Formica tabletop, the pink yogurt, the blue sky, the green vegetables in the market—they all come alive in vibrant Technicolor as the sun peers from behind a cloud. I am living my full life.
“Honesty in all things,” Byron adds, lifting his cup of yogurt for a toast of sorts.
I pull my hand away from him and the instant my hand is back by my side I miss the warmth of his arm, the warmth of him. Honesty in all things. I should put my hand back. That’s where it wants to be. That’s Lily’s lesson to me. Be present in the moment. Give spontaneous affection.
I’m suddenly aware I haven’t spoken in a bit. “Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?” As soon as it comes out of my mouth I realize I sound like that kid from Jerry Maguire. Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds? I hope my question comes off even a fraction as endearing.
“No,” Byron says with a glint in his eye that reads as curiosity—at least I hope that it does, but even if it doesn’t I’m too into the inertia of the trivia to stop it.
“It’s true. One heart called the systemic heart that functions much like the left side of the human heart, distributing blood throughout the body. Then two smaller branchial hearts, near the gills, that act like the right side of our hearts to pump the blood back.”
“What made you think of that?”
I smile. It may be entirely inappropriate first-date conversation, but at least it doesn’t bore me in the telling. I look up at the winsome August sky, marred only by the contrails of a passing jet and a vaguely dachshund-shaped cloud above the horizon. I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in love at first sight. I don’t believe in angels. I don’t believe there’s a heaven and that our loved ones are looking down on us. But the sun is so warm and the breeze is so cool and the company is so perfect and the whole afternoon so intoxicating it’s hard not to hear Lily’s voice dancing in the gentle wind.