.
“No,” I say .
She frowns . “What do you want to do?”
“ Actually, I t hink I want to be a gym teacher, ” I say . Her eyes fall , s o do her shoulders , and even her chest loses some of its giddy sparkle .
I have to contain my smile . I’m off the hook . She’s no longer interested and for the first time tonight, I’m beginning to enjoy myself . Hopefully she won’t want dessert . Too fattening .
***
I drop Kari off an hour later . I’m tired from forcing too much conversation , crabby from a date that bombed and sixty - forty dollars poorer with nothing to sh ow for it . And my steak was over cooked . Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself.
I end up driving down Sage Street , like a magnetic force pulled my car in this direction . I slow down when I pass Dylan’s apar tment and see a light through the curtains. I t ’ s soft and welcoming and before I know it, I park along the curb . I hear music coming from inside as I walk up the cobblestone pathway to her door . I knock and s he yells to come in .
D ylan is sitting cross-legged on the floor with a mess of photos spread out around her . She’s wearing a pink tank top , gray sweatpants and bright blue , fuzzy socks that look like fur . I already feel my mood lightening, just walking into her world.
“What ’s up ?” she ask as she turns down the stereo .
I point at her socks . “How many Muppets did they have to kill to make those?” I wonder .
She gives me one of her killer smiles and it makes me shrink back. W hy can’t Kari have this e ffect on me ? It would be so much more convenient . But if love w ere convenient there wouldn’t be millions of songs and movies and book s obsessing over it , or therapists and doctors consoling all the people falling in and out of it .
I walk around the edge of the room, taking in the simple, open space , and tell her I was in the neighborhood . She scoots over and makes room for me on the rug . I stare at the space next to her . What happened to my brilliant avoidance plan ? That idea lasted a wh ole twenty-four hours . Amazing self- discipline , Gray .
I slump down on the floor and lean against the edge of the futon . I notice her critiquing my outfit.
“Fancy date?” she asks . I ignore her question and pick up one of the pictures hogging the floor space. I t’s just a shot of a tree trunk .
“What are all these f or?” I ask , and she tells me she’s making a scrapbook for her grandma’s birthday .
“Cat helped me get a few baby-sitting jobs so I could afford to print them out.”
I examine the black and white photograph. A t first I’m not very impressed , but as I look closer, it appears Dylan climbed the tree and took the shot from inside the branches, angle d up to the sky to catch the ov erhanging leaves . A ll the knots of t he bark are exposed and textured by sunlight , and it looks like old, leather y skin, wrinkled with age . It gives it this human quality . Something about the picture is tranquil . Fantastical . I want to walk inside the shot and lie underneath all th e contrasts of light and dark .
“It’s taken from a squirrel’s point of view ,” she says. I ask her what she means and sh e tells me it was a creative challenge she gav e herself. F or a day she tried to capture images from a squirrel’s perspective . She climbed trees . She took picture s from the ground . She ran out in front of moving cars . The more I look at her photos the more I see what she means . She hands me one and explains how she crawled underneath a dog’s head to take a picture of the bott om of its mouth . Its droopy jowls take up most of the shot and a shiny, quizzical eye peer s down at the camera lens .
I look at her and smile . She flinches a little, like I jolted her with an electric shock .
“What’s wrong?” I ask . She’s just staring at me, all wide-eyed and surprised .
“That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me since I’ve been back,” she says .
I wrinkle my eyebrows at this
“No,” I say .
She frowns . “What do you want to do?”
“ Actually, I t hink I want to be a gym teacher, ” I say . Her eyes fall , s o do her shoulders , and even her chest loses some of its giddy sparkle .
I have to contain my smile . I’m off the hook . She’s no longer interested and for the first time tonight, I’m beginning to enjoy myself . Hopefully she won’t want dessert . Too fattening .
***
I drop Kari off an hour later . I’m tired from forcing too much conversation , crabby from a date that bombed and sixty - forty dollars poorer with nothing to sh ow for it . And my steak was over cooked . Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself.
I end up driving down Sage Street , like a magnetic force pulled my car in this direction . I slow down when I pass Dylan’s apar tment and see a light through the curtains. I t ’ s soft and welcoming and before I know it, I park along the curb . I hear music coming from inside as I walk up the cobblestone pathway to her door . I knock and s he yells to come in .
D ylan is sitting cross-legged on the floor with a mess of photos spread out around her . She’s wearing a pink tank top , gray sweatpants and bright blue , fuzzy socks that look like fur . I already feel my mood lightening, just walking into her world.
“What ’s up ?” she ask as she turns down the stereo .
I point at her socks . “How many Muppets did they have to kill to make those?” I wonder .
She gives me one of her killer smiles and it makes me shrink back. W hy can’t Kari have this e ffect on me ? It would be so much more convenient . But if love w ere convenient there wouldn’t be millions of songs and movies and book s obsessing over it , or therapists and doctors consoling all the people falling in and out of it .
I walk around the edge of the room, taking in the simple, open space , and tell her I was in the neighborhood . She scoots over and makes room for me on the rug . I stare at the space next to her . What happened to my brilliant avoidance plan ? That idea lasted a wh ole twenty-four hours . Amazing self- discipline , Gray .
I slump down on the floor and lean against the edge of the futon . I notice her critiquing my outfit.
“Fancy date?” she asks . I ignore her question and pick up one of the pictures hogging the floor space. I t’s just a shot of a tree trunk .
“What are all these f or?” I ask , and she tells me she’s making a scrapbook for her grandma’s birthday .
“Cat helped me get a few baby-sitting jobs so I could afford to print them out.”
I examine the black and white photograph. A t first I’m not very impressed , but as I look closer, it appears Dylan climbed the tree and took the shot from inside the branches, angle d up to the sky to catch the ov erhanging leaves . A ll the knots of t he bark are exposed and textured by sunlight , and it looks like old, leather y skin, wrinkled with age . It gives it this human quality . Something about the picture is tranquil . Fantastical . I want to walk inside the shot and lie underneath all th e contrasts of light and dark .
“It’s taken from a squirrel’s point of view ,” she says. I ask her what she means and sh e tells me it was a creative challenge she gav e herself. F or a day she tried to capture images from a squirrel’s perspective . She climbed trees . She took picture s from the ground . She ran out in front of moving cars . The more I look at her photos the more I see what she means . She hands me one and explains how she crawled underneath a dog’s head to take a picture of the bott om of its mouth . Its droopy jowls take up most of the shot and a shiny, quizzical eye peer s down at the camera lens .
I look at her and smile . She flinches a little, like I jolted her with an electric shock .
“What’s wrong?” I ask . She’s just staring at me, all wide-eyed and surprised .
“That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me since I’ve been back,” she says .
I wrinkle my eyebrows at this
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