Page 40 of All That We Are Together
“I haven’t done much to speak of.”
“You changed jobs, didn’t you?”
“I’m still illustrating, but I’m pickier with the jobs I take. The rest of the time I’m at the gallery, though I don’t have a set schedule.”
“How’d you wind up there?” she asked.
“You really want to know the story?”
Leah nodded and crossed her legs. I looked away from the road a second. If she’d done that three years before, I thought, my hand would already be between her thighs, even just to hear her laugh and knock me away.
“Last year at New Year’s, I drank more than I’d like to admit. I was alone. My brother, Emily, and the kids had gone to celebrate with some friends, my parents were on the opposite end of the world, and I didn’t want to see anyone else, so I went to the most expensive restaurant I could think of…”
“That’s sad,” Leah interrupted me.
“Why?”
“You could have called Oliver.”
“He still wasn’t talking to me, but that’s not the issue, Leah. I could have gone out with friends if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t. So I had dinner by myself. And it was good. Remember when we were talking about being conscious of the moment and enjoying it? Well, that’s what I did. Then I went to the boardwalk, and I ordered a couple of drinks. I didn’t realize I’d drunk too much until this guy sat down and started talking to me. He told me his family lived in France, and he had spent the night alone, too, because work had kept him from going home. And guess where he worked…”
“At the gallery…” she whispered.
“Turns out he was the owner. And with all the drinks I’d had, I started running off at the mouth about how half the pieces they displayed there were mediocre, and we ended up talking about art and what they were trying to do there, and when the night was over, I had a job offer, but since I could barely stand up, I didn’t take it too seriously. I left, I didn’t even say bye, but then Hans showed up at my door a day later, and you can’t imagine how fucking stubborn the guy is.”
Leah smiled timidly. “That’s typical of you.”
“What, exactly?”
“That. Going out one night with nothing else in mind, getting drunk, saying something offensive to a guy you just met, and getting lucky.”
“Offensive?”
“Unnecessarily sincere, let’s say.”
“You’ve lost me. Tell me what you mean.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s silly. Let it go.”
“Would you rather people lie to you, Leah?”
“Of course not. But that sincerity…”
“Tell me! I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t think that sincerity is real.”
Leah bent forward to up the volume and put an end to the conversation, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her. She pushed me away quickly.
“You don’t feel like talking anymore?”
“Did you have something else to say?”
“Let’s see…” I said, turning thoughtful. “I live in the same place, I have the same phone number, and I still wear the same size clothes. Since I’m so uninteresting, why don’t we talk about you? You must have done something fun these past three years.”
“Axel, I’m tired…”
“That sounds like an excuse.”