Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch Page B

because I had no reason to believe that there was anything more he was willing to swim toward anyway.
    Tonight, I shrug. “I just meant that he’s the one who proposes, that’s all.”
    Josie shrugs back, a tacit admission that indeed I might be stuck, and then surveys the scene looking for her own lost ghosts. I glance around, swiveling my head in search of a familiar face, and then I see one.
    We lock eyes, and he moves toward me, hacking through the thicket of partygoers, he moves right toward me.
    It’s Henry, of course. Here and now, present and past. Why did I ever believe that I could stop the collision of time?

    M Y FEET ARE seemingly made of lead. I want to move them. I so urgently want to raise them and flee, and yet, I cannot.
    He is getting closer, and I’m starting to panic.
I’m not ready for this! I am supposed to have my sweet time with Jackson, figuring out the Henry question when I’m ready to figure it out!
I feel a flare of hives snare itself around my neck, marring my collarbone like a Jackson Pollock painting and clashing with the starkness of my silver strapless dress.
    He is moving in slow motion, and I see the flop of his deep-sandy hair ride over his forehead, and he reaches up to push it back out of his eyes. As I learn to love him, I discover that this is his tell: the sign that he’s nervous or bluffing or, occasionally, lying. Not that I’d catch him lying all that often, but yes, sometimes, I’d trap him in one. That he had to stay late for work, when, in fact, he was golfing at our club; I’d hear about it two days later when Ainsley and I would take the kids for a toddler swim, and the valet might mention it in passing. Or that he hand-selected my ruby anniversary bracelet, which he’d present to me over merlot and candles at the finest restaurant in Rye, only to have his secretary ask, with her tongue so planted in her cheek it’s remarkable that she can speak at all, how I enjoyed the gift that
Henry
picked out. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. She’d emphasize the “Henry,” just in case I hadn’t picked up on the insinuation.
    Tonight, he is nearly in front of me, again, swatting at his hair, attempting to tuck a strand that’s too long to hang properly yet too short to reach his ear, into place, when my brain finally connects to my legs. I turn to go, desperately, urgently, but there is literally no place to run. Around me, clusters of hobnobbers block my way, like brick walls on all sides, and the only viable exit is directly where he is coming from. I look to Josie beside me for help, but she has long since faded on me, wistfully sipping her rum and dreaming of her youth while scanning—still scanning—for Bart.
    Too soon, and finally, he is here.
    “You’re the girl from the bus, right?” he says, smiling and extending his free hand. The band has stopped playing, and a buzz of electric silence fills the dead space.
    “What are you doing here?” I reply. It’s out too fast for me to take it back. But of course, Henry’s not supposed to be here. This isn’t where we meet. This isn’t how it all plays out. In a flash, I wonder how many near misses I’ve had with Henry in my former life . . . if he were someone whom I’d see around my neighborhood, at the grocery store, in the gym,
on the bus,
who just went unnoticed or to whom I’d occasionally nod, but who wasn’t meant to play any significant role in my life other than a familiar face with whom I would exchange glances from time to time in passing.
    “Uh, excuse me?” He tries to take a step back, but instead, just elbow jousts with someone behind him, and finds himself on the losing end.
    “I . . . just . . .” I find that I’m unable to speak. Henry.
Henry! This is what he looked like when we met,
I think. His eyes are still drowned with hope. His teeth seem whiter, his posture taller. No fine lines creaking into his forehead or around his eyes. Everything about his veneer seems glossier, more