The Game of Love and Death(32)

Time passed. It was hard to tell how much. There were no stars or moon visible to measure the spent minutes. Light from the streetlamps reached the roof, polishing the planes of Henry’s face. She studied it and concluded that she liked it. Very much. What would she be thinking if Henry weren’t white? Would he be a possibility?

She scolded herself silently, first for thinking in terms of possibility, and second for thinking she would change anything about Henry. She’d never want anyone to try to change anything about her. What’s more, there was something so right about him. The way he’d been with Annabel. The way he paid attention to her music and asked her about flying and her family. And something else she couldn’t identify. Some people, like some songs, simply added up to more than the sum of their parts.

She pretended to inspect her fingernails, embarrassed that her teeth had started to chatter. She stood.

“You’re cold.” He stood next to her.

She nodded. Her body shook, but more from trying to keep herself from pressing against him. He put his coat around her shoulders.

“Thank you.” It was a miracle that she’d been able to control her voice, especially when a shy grin spread across his face and he pushed that one stray curl on his forehead back up where it belonged. The gesture pierced her. He just wanted to keep things in order. She could relate. She concentrated on the warmth and scent of his coat until her body stopped shaking.

“We should probably head home, shouldn’t we — back into our regular lives and such. Believe it or not, I have a test tomorrow. Then a baseball game.”

She nodded, surprised that, for once in her life, she wasn’t the one pulling away.

“Unless,” he said.

She looked at him, puzzled.

He whistled the opening line of “The Blue Danube.”

“A waltz? You can’t be serious.”

“As serious as scurvy for pirates,” he said. “I know we should go, but I want just one more minute of this, and I’m cold too. One more minute, a tiny bit of warmth. It’s all I ask.” He put on a grave look. “Please?”

She laughed. “You’re such the tragic figure.” Still, she hesitated. What would it be like if she were still in school, studying for tests and going to dances and such? Would it be like this? Or would she still be chasing other, bigger dreams?

She reached for his upraised hand and looked into his eyes, whose color reminded her of that sharply curving part of the sky at the horizon’s edge, the part she always aimed her plane toward. But it wasn’t just that. It was the openhearted kindness in them, so much that she forgot the loneliness that overwhelmed her most of the time.

He closed his left hand over hers. He moved his right to the hollow of her back and it was almost more than she could take, the warmth of his touch, this connection in two spots. He moved his feet. She moved hers in response. And then they were dancing together on the rooftop, wrapped with an invisible thread that she needed to snap before it killed her.

“A request, Henry.”

“Anything.” He looked into her eyes and it was a moment before she could work her mouth.

“No more whistling.”

“But we need music.”

“How about you leave that to me? Music’s more my thing than yours, after all.” If she could find her voice, she could find her equilibrium.

He smiled and looked as if he was about to speak, but he didn’t. Then she hummed the rest of the song as he moved her in circles. She put her own spin on the melody, so it was more swing than waltz, and he picked up on her cue, releasing her only to draw her back in, closer than he had before. Behind her, the black cat that had found its way to the edge of the rooftop meowed.

The sound brought her back to herself. What she was doing? It was a mistake for so many reasons, not the least of which was the fact of Grady. And then there were their different backgrounds, the wrongness of thinking of a white boy as anything other than someone to be wary around. But this wasn’t just any boy, or any white boy. There was something about him. Something worth knowing. That much was certain.

The cat hissed and slipped over the edge of the roof, and the feeling that had overcome Flora during her performance rushed back. She pushed away.

“What did I do?” he said.

“Nothing. We can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Maybe,” Henry said, “some things just aren’t meant to be thought about.”

“Still,” she said, “we can’t do this. We can’t. For so many reasons.”

“What about someday?” he asked.

She couldn’t help but wince, as if the word itself had been formed to hurt her. Henry did not reply, but the look in his eyes shattered her.



As they made their way down the ladder, Henry looked straight ahead. He was glad Flora still wore his jacket. He’d have perspired clean through if he’d been in it. His fear of heights embarrassed him. He’d long wondered how something that existed only in his mind could so affect his body. But then again, fear wasn’t the only emotion that worked that way. Love was nothing you could see or touch. It lived entirely inside of you, invisibly. Even so, it could change everything.

One step at a time, one step at a time. And then he was down and walking behind Flora, reveling in the scent of her hair, feeling happier than he had in ages. She reached for the doorknob, jiggled it, and looked at Henry.