London Is the Best City in America

“What ever happened to Peter Peterson?”

“I think he’s in jail,” Justin said.

“I think that’s right,” I said. Then I looked at him. “I’m sorry I wouldn’t kiss you. I’d be glad to kiss you now.”

“Sure, now that you know I don’t want to.”

“I didn’t say I know how to make things easy,” I said.

He leaned down, whispered in my ear. “You may want to work on that,” he said.

When we got inside Sevies, the first thing I did was head to the Slurpee machine in the back. Meanwhile, Justin ran up and down the aisles, grabbing all the other goodies: two packs of cigarettes and potato chips, a king-size bag of Charleston Chews, four cans of grape soda. I was halfway through filling up the second Big Gulp cup with blue Slurpee mix when Justin got a call on his cell phone.

“Is that Chicago?” I said.

“That’s Chicago,” he said, dropping all the goodies in a pile on the Slurpee table. “You’ve got all this?”

“I’ve more than got it.” I smiled at him. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

He started to offer me a cursory, Are you sure? But really, he was already halfway out the front door. His phone already up against his ear. I topped off the second large gulp—capping the rim with a dome lid—the whole time my eyes on our prizes, trying to figure out how I’d get them to the checkout counter. I knew I could take two trips, but I didn’t want to do that. It felt like a certain kind of failure.

So I maneuvered it like this: a pack of cigarettes under each arm, the sodas and Chews in my left hand, the Slurpees and bag of chips in the other. I looked like a scarecrow or a robot, or a fancy Christmas tree—or a little bit of all three.

And this was when I looked up and saw him.

Just standing there.

Right by the cashier. Looking down into his wallet. Wearing jeans and a splattered T-shirt.

Matt.

I looked back down again, before looking up again, just to be sure. But I was already sure. He was buying a pack of cigarettes, pointing to the ones he wanted. He hadn’t seen me yet.

“Oh, my God,” I said. For a second, I didn’t think I had spoken out loud. I was pretty sure I hadn’t spoken out loud. And I started looking all around me for a way out. He was between me and the exit. My only hope was hiding, quickly, behind the Slurpee counter.

But then he looked up at me—heard me, somehow—and I was still right where I’d been. In clear view.

At first, he didn’t do anything. He just stood in place without saying a word. He had all the same things: light eyes, dark skin, girl-waist. His hair still flipped behind his ears—that awkward in-between flip that always seemed a little too businessman, and a little too NASCAR driver at the same time. It was my favorite part about him.

I wanted to be the first one to wave or do something. But I couldn’t. My arms were too full of junk food. I couldn’t even foresee a graceful way to put any of it down, or do anything at all.

“Hey,” he called to me.

“Hey,” I called back, trying to match his tone, his intonation, as if that would help something.

Then I watched as he took his change from the cashier and put his cigarettes in his pocket. I knew he wasn’t going to yell or make a scene or do anything nasty, but I did think—truly—he was going to turn around right then, and walk right out the door. I thought he was going to walk right out the door as though he didn’t know me.

But what he did instead was walk right toward me, carefully removing things from my arms, one item at a time, until he was carrying all of it.

“You’ve been smoking?” he said, motioning to the cigarettes.

I shook my head. “Just today. Not usually anymore.”

He didn’t look like he believed me. It was one of his funny things—one of his requests—even though he smoked, he never wanted me to. Even though he might have done things to hurt me, he never wanted me to hurt myself.

I cleared my throat. “Usually now I don’t. I don’t smoke now so much is . . . my point.”

He nodded. “I saw Meryl earlier,” he said.