“No. I just thought you were sending a car. I didn’t know you’d be in the car.”
“Since I need to go to Philly too, I figured I could bum a ride with you. That okay?” he asked playfully.
“Of course.”
He held the door open, and I slid into the car. I smoothed out the soft folds on my green skirt as the driver turned on the engine and we pulled away.
“Glad to see you weren’t idling,” I said in an effort to be civil.
“If I were president, I’d sign a bill forbidding idling at the curb.”
I smiled despite myself. “Especially for people checking their phones.”
“Oh, well, idling and checking your phone would get you a jail term under my regime.”
“You run a tight dictatorship.” I kept up the volley because I could do better than mere civility. I intended to be so cool, casual and goddamn witty that words would become my shield to protect me from any stupid leftover feelings for him. Vestigial feelings, of course.
“Know what else I’d ban if I were president?”
“Cauliflower?”
He laughed. Damn, I was on fire.
“Actually, I was going to say those asparagus that have stalks the size of baseball bats. So you were kind of close. But I’d also abolish the word moist.”
I curled my nose. “That word must be destroyed. Along with slacks.”
He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Pants. Only pants!” Bryan gestured to the drink holder. There were three coffee drinks in it. “As promised.”
“Someone joining us?”
“No. I brought you the black coffee with a dollop of cream. And I also brought a caramel macchiato. In case you were just pretending you liked black coffee,” he said, then flashed a flirty smile.
“Why would I pretend I liked black coffee?” I kept my tone serious, even though he’d seen through me, and against my better judgement, I found I liked it. But I wasn’t going to let him know that.
“Who knows? But mostly, I just wanted to see if I could remember —” he started, then corrected himself. “I meant, guess. I wanted to see if I could guess what kind of coffee drink you really liked.”
I looked from the coffee to the macchiato to Bryan. I let my hand hover over the first drink, then the second, as if it were a shell game. “Hmmm. Did he guess right? I wonder, wonder, wonder.”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly. I reached for the coffee and took a drink. It tasted like bitter sludge. I wanted to spit it out. I wanted to wince. Instead, I took a long swallow and fixed on a fake smile. “Mmmm. There is nothing like a coffee to get the day going.”
He snapped his fingers in a win-some, lose-some gesture. “Damn. I really thought you were still a macchiato girl. I even got an extra shot of caramel in it too,” he added.
I took another drink. I’d never liked coffee, but somehow the harsh taste was the reminder I needed not to give in, even to the fact that he’d remembered the extra shot.
Soon, the car slowed to a stop and the driver came around to open the door. I gave Bryan a quizzical look. We’d only been driving for five minutes. “I thought we were going to Philly?”
“We are. By train,” he said, then held out a hand.
I waved him off. I didn’t need help stepping out of the car. We walked into the train station, down the escalator, to the tracks, and into the first class car. It was quiet and air-conditioned, with leather-backed dove gray seats.
“Would you like the window seat, Kat?”
I nodded, then sat down, wishing I didn’t find politeness, consideration and manners such a turn-on. He sat next to me, his leg brushing against mine. I should have shifted my body, moved a few inches away, but instead we simply stayed like that, legs touching, as the train pulled out of Manhattan and picked up speed. He answered emails on his phone, and I read some chapters in a business book that had been assigned in one of my classes.
As we sped through the suburbs on the way to his factory, I thought about the skater gal, and what I would ask her if she were my mentor. I’d want to hear the story in her own words of how she started her business. So I went with that, closing the book and speaking in my best curious student voice. Because that’s how I was going to act with him.
“Would you tell me the story of Made Here? I’ve read the version on your Web site, but I’d love to hear it from you.”
He put his phone away, and held my gaze, and in that second I felt an electricity, a tightly coiled line between the two of us. He had a way of making me feel as if he were touching me, even if we were inches apart. Maybe it was because he wasn’t afraid to look me in the eyes, or to hold onto the look. Nor was he afraid to be close. Whatever the reason, the effect was heady, and it was dangerous. Perhaps I should pretend he really was the skater gal. I pictured him wearing cat’s eye glasses and a black wig with pink streaks. There. I’d never been a fan of men in drag, so the image helped me focus.
“I suppose it all began when I was reassigned a few weeks after I started my first job out of graduate school. I was supposed to work in New York, but I was sent to Paris instead for a year…” he said and kept talking, but it was as if someone knocked me out of time. I thought he’d stayed in New York after he ended it with me.
“You were there for a year?”
He nodded. “Yes. I was sent there right after…” his voice trailed off. Right after he broke up with me.
“It’s okay. You can say it. I’m a big girl. Right after you broke up with me.”
He sighed deeply. “Yes. Then.”
I held out my hands. “See? That wasn’t so hard to say. We just get it out there in the open and move on.”
“Okay. So there it is. Out in the open.”
“And now we go back to the whole we just met routine. Good?”
He nodded.
“Where did you live?” I asked, shifting the talk back to Paris.
“In the Latin Quarter. Across the river from Notre Dame.”
“Me too.” I pictured the flat I’d lived in with a hip and trendy young French couple. The narrow staircase that wound up four flights. The cramped kitchen and even smaller bathroom. But it was Paris, and from the window in the second bedroom I had a view of the river and Notre Dame and farther beyond I could see Sacre-Coeur. A torch singer who lived across the street from me used to fling her windows open in the evenings, and she’d sing while cooking, songs about love gone awry. She had one of those voices like whiskey and honey, the best kind of voice for those songs. I half expected her to slink around her flat in a sexy, sequined red dress like a cabaret singer. “So you went to Paris for work. But this was before Made Here?”