At a wedding with hair curled and waist cinched into a rust-colored dress and you’re there, too
No one told me you’d be here and why would they? I don’t know why I’m here either. I wonder whether the thought of you triggered the thought of me or vice versa, whether we were the final two on the last lines before the cut-off, names hovering over empty space. I have flown across the country. We’ve all gotten awkward and forgotten what it’s like to see a mouth move. Standing at a cocktail table you tell a story about a perceived personal injustice involving money; you always hated unreasonable people and pennies wasted and your annoyance annoys me but I smile and scoff along.
Your laugh is easy; your beard is long; I don’t even know you. I want to ask about your music and your brothers and your trivia team but familiarity is against the rules so instead your girlfriend shows me a picture of an apron you gave her and I confuse turmeric with paprika then can’t think about anything else. I like your bracelet, I tell her, and she says it’s not a bracelet; it’s a hair binder. Binder, I repeat, pretending not to understand. You take the bait, tease her about the word choice and seem amused but I feel cruel and I can’t enjoy it, not for a moment.
It doesn’t matter; it’s been too many years and now I dance in the gaps on the dance floor. I leave my glasses on the table so that everyone blurs, but still through the bodies I see you seeing me. I dance until my tongue is tacky and my feet are flat. When my dress slips I fix it. By the bar I shove you, knock my palm into your shoulder to demonstrate how someone had shoved me the night before but it hits too hard and I don’t know if I’m angry or if I just wanted to touch you but we’re both startled and I’m sorry.
Your city is sinking and mine is choking on smoke. I think maybe I’ll never see you again in my whole life. I think this every time we say goodbye and one of these times it will be true and we won’t know until later. The DJ announces the last song, puts on something slow and everyone shifts at once, planets pulled into orbit. I ask a friend to dance because we’re both alone and we’ve never been this old before but he seems uneasy so I find a folding chair and place it on the grass just past the seam of the dance floor.
I watch all the couples with their hands clasped and their curls limp, see them shrink into shared gaze, easy quiet or quiet conflict, whatever waits when the music stops. You both sway in beige in the corner and you’re whispering something and who knows how long any of it will last but for this moment I love you and her and the peculiar privacy of partnership and I love myself, too — no nails in flesh, no self-talk, no fake distraction — sitting exposed outside the romance, unafraid of what exists there, perhaps for the first time.