Do I Know You?(83)

Pausing in the doorway to the bar, I smooth down my dress. It’s the white one I packed for our anniversary dinner. The costume choice, I recognize, is high stakes. If this goes wrong, I’ll feel stupid, dressed up in my wishful thinking.

If it goes right . . . it’ll be the sort of perfect I hardly dare to hope for.

With my heart pounding, I work to calm my jumpy nerves. Is this how Graham felt right before he proposed? No, this is definitely worse. Because I don’t just have to pop one iconic four-word question. Having my epiphany was one thing, but doing it is something else entirely. I have to make real, vulnerable changes. I have to open up.

Mustering my strength, I walk in.

I find Graham and David seated at the bar, in practically the same stools as the first night I found them here. The night one innocent misunderstanding sparked the game we’ve spent the week playing. Hit with overwhelming déjà vu, I shake off the feeling. The bar might look the same, the way my husband is sitting, his friend with him—fine, pretty much everything seems the same—but I’m not the same. We’re not the same. We’re not in the same spot we were a week ago.

I remind myself of the differences. The ways I’ve changed, the ways we’ve learned how to be better with each other. The reasons why we’ll work.

These thoughts carry me up to the bar with my head held high, projecting confidence I’m still working on feeling. It’ll come, though. I know it will.

David notices me first, glancing up from his empty glass. “Hey, Eliza,” he says. “Want to join us?”

Graham follows his friend’s gaze to me. I watch his double-take when he registers what I’m wearing, my white dress lit up under the dim overhead lights. Questions I can read easily spring into his eyes. They begin with, You changed into your dinner dress for our six-hour drive home? But where they end is somewhere else, some realm of closely guarded hope.

When he opens his mouth—probably to point out the car attire thing—I cut him off, holding my hand out to David.

“David, I want to introduce myself for real,” I say. “Hi. I’m Eliza Cutler, Graham’s wife. Thanks for being such a great friend to my husband this week.”

David blinks. I have to smile. He wears his bemusement at my unconventional second introduction right on his sleeve, just like everything else. Rewriting this moment feels sort of strange—playing out my conversation with David without the crossed cues, the mixed signals, the sudden pivots. It reminds me of the weird clashing juxtapositions of getting coffee with classmates right before running some traumatic Shakespearean death scene with them in college.

But this is right. It’s time to be me. It’s time to do this for real.

David takes my hand, his eyes darting uncertainly to Graham. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Eliza. You’ve got a good guy here.”

I look to Graham, my smile softening. Nothing, I think to myself, is more real than that. “I know,” I say. I turn back to David, who’s watching my husband, no doubt trying to figure out what’s going on here. “Do you mind if I interrupt you two?” I prompt gently.

David searches Graham’s expression before replying. It’s endearing to see their silent exchange. When Graham introduced me to Nikki, it didn’t take long for Nikki to become more my friend than his. I’m glad Graham has David now—glad Graham has more proof of how easy he is to love. If tonight goes the way I hope it will, I’ll make sure David’s invited down to San Diego for long weekends. Maybe they can go camping in Joshua Tree, making up for the trip I made Graham cut short.

Graham dips his chin in the subtlest of nods, and David stands up. “Of course not,” he says, his eyes returning to me. “I should go back to my room and pack anyway.” He claps Graham on the shoulder on his way out.

“I’ll text you later, man,” Graham says to his friend.

David grins. Behind Graham’s back, David shoots me two encouraging thumbs up before walking out.

I don’t take David’s now-empty seat.

“Are you really going to wear that for our drive back?” Graham asks. “It’s six hours, you know.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling at the question I just knew Graham has been thinking since seeing me tonight. It’s nice, to have this small moment of knowing what he was going to say. Of knowing him. It feels like the universe’s tiniest tongue-in-cheek promise that things will be better now, or they’ll start to be.

“No,” I say. “Would you come with me, Graham? Please.”

I know he’s hesitant, frustrated, even hurt. But his expression betrays him. He must hear the lifetime I meant to promise in my short, simple request, because his eyebrows rise, and when hope steals into his eyes, it sparkles like stars scattered in the night sky. He looks like it’s surprised even him.

“Why?” His question is scarcely audible over the noise of the bar. “We were going to head home.”

I reach for his hand. When mine finds his, his expression flickers, like it’s nearly too much for his heart to bear. I feel the same way.

“I was thinking,” I say, “we could celebrate our anniversary.”





52


    Graham


I FOLLOW MY wife down the now-familiar path toward the suites, not knowing where we’re headed. I feel like I’m very high up but haven’t looked down yet. The risk is there—the precariousness of my position—but the thrill is there, too, the dizzying clarity of my heart starting to soar. I’ve never felt more frightened of falling, but I’ve never felt closer to heaven, either.