Page 73 of Meet Me in the Garden

“It isn’t enough that we’re going out together?”

“Honestly,” she says, “you make it hard not to want everything.” I should laugh, it’s such a line, but she’s earnest, and I long togiveher everything. Her car smells faintly of soap, also of a grassy field, and flowers, and she reaches into the back seat and hands me a small bouquet. “Wildflowers on your kitchen table.”

Forget-me-nots and daisies and California poppies, tied together with a piece of twine. Years later, and she remembers our conversation, what I pictured for my life. “You picked them for me?”

She nods.

“They’re so pretty. Thank you. I’ll run them inside.”

Back down the steps I go, the flowers in my hand. I find my smallest vase and set them in. Then I’m in her car again, dizzy from my lack of resistance, nothing tethering me to my good sense, feeling like the balloon Nathalie wanted for her eighth birthday, slipping from her hand, set loose and drifting higher and higher. It was so beautiful floating away like that, so right that she didn’t even cry.

“Have you been to Rick’s Place?” Ginny asks. I shake my head. “You’ll like it.”

The host greets us at the door, shows us to our table. It’s in the middle of the dining room, set for two with a tablecloth and a candle in a red holder between us. Ginny takes her seat, her face and body in low light. So close to me. Like one of my secret paintings, mine just for tonight. “This is the only time I can do this,” I say. “I want to tell you now, so you don’t get the wrong idea, or wonder later.”

Her brow furrows. “Okay.”

My ribs press against the table as I lean in. “What have you had to give up to live the way you do?”

“A big question before the drinks have even come.”

“It’s just that I have this fear that the night’s going to be over and I won’t have found anything out. Or at least not enough. But I can start smaller. Where do you live now?”

“Near Lionel, right off Central Avenue. In a fourplex. Just a one bedroom but it’s plenty. Your neighborhood is pretty. Lots of trees.”

I can’t help smiling. “Yes,” I say. “Lots of trees.”

She laughs. “Well, I don’t know what to ask or say about the other parts.”

I cock my head. “What would those parts be?”

“The husband, to start.”

“He isn’t—” I say. “It isn’t—” I stop myself before saying it isn’t a real marriage. It’s real in its own way. Our companiable days and nights. Sleeping in the same room, tending to the children and the home. More than simple friendship.

The waiter is here now, hovering over us. I haven’t even glanced at the menu.

“The gin punch is good here,” Ginny says.

“Sure.”

“We’ll have two gin punches. And the shrimp cocktail?” She looks to me, I nod, and the waiter is gone. The tables are far apart, the music just loud enough to drown out the other diners’ words. Ginny chose well for us. I’m suddenly fascinated by everyone here, wondering who they are to each other. Wondering how they see us. “So you were saying… about your husband?”

“He’s like us.”

“Oh.” She studies me in a new way, like she’s reevaluating all she’d assumed before.

I like that I can surprise her. I lean back, fish a cigarette from my purse. She lights it for me from across the table. “This way,” I say, “we can have it all. Family and church, good jobs, a house.”

She’s watching me closely. “Why have you avoided me for so long, then?”

I take a drag. Smoke in my throat. A tremble starts in my hand as I lower the cigarette. “I don’t date.”

“But Felix wouldn’t stop you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”