The First Husband

I headed to the table, taking the empty seat next to him, as Jesse let his tie go for a second and reached over to screw open the thermos for me, pouring some coffee into the cuplike top, handing it over.

The steam was piping out the top and I breathed it in, cupping it in my hands and taking a long sip.

“Whoa,” I said. “You weren’t kidding. This coffee is good. Out of this world good, actually.”

“You’re not wrong. I have approximately three things I’m really good at and making coffee is one of them.” He looked back down at his tie, tugging it into a knot, and then undoing it. “I brought my French press from home. It’s about a thousand years old. That’s part of the trick.”

I smiled as I blew on the top, took another sip. “And why the silver thermos?” I asked. “Is that part too?”

“No, just good for carrying it into Boston,” he said. “I have a meeting in Cambridge this afternoon.”

I stopped midsip. “Oh, I thought . . .”

He put up his hand to stop me. “Please, with my current behavior, offering up the good coffee is the least I can do,” he said. “It’s also, unfortunately, at this particular moment, the most.”

He gave me a sweet smile, his hand holding his lopsided tie, still completely undone.

“You need a hand with that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ll get it,” he said. “Probably when it’s already too late. But I’ll get it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

He was looking back down at his tie, going for it again, as I drank the coffee.

“But I would enjoy if you’d entertain me with the story of how you and my big brother fell in love,” he said. “I can’t believe I didn’t know anything about what was happening with you guys. In another world, I could be pretty pissed off about that.”

I laughed. “It just happened so quickly,” I said.

“ ‘The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.’ ”

I looked at him, completely confused.

“James Clerk Maxwell. The guy who created classical electromagnetic theory,” he said. “I like to think it’s another way of saying great things tend to happen all at once.”

I smiled. “I like that,” I said. “A lot . . . Is that what you’re in graduate school for?”

“In a way,” he said. “An updated version. I’m working with a scientist named Jude Flemming, have you heard of her? I’m guessing not unless you’re up on the world of optical physics.”

“Not so much recently, no.”

“Well, Dr. Flemming is amazing, inspirational really. She’s only in her mid-forties and she already heads the department. Not to mention that she’s considerably changing how we understand optical fields,” he said.

“Those of you who understand it,” I said.

“Exactly.” He laughed. Then he pointed it in the direction of the counter. “By the way, Griffin left you a little love note over there. He didn’t want to wake you, but he had to head over to the restaurant to meet a contractor. He left you directions in case you want to go by and say hello.”

I nodded. “Great, but I thought he told me he wasn’t heading over there until eleven or so,” I said. “What time is it?”

“It’s twelve forty-five.”

“Twelve forty-five?” I asked. I was in total disbelief. In my life, the entirety of it to that point, I had never slept that late. In the entirety of my life, I had never slept anywhere close to that late: work starting at 6:00 A.M. most days, work supposed to have started today at 6:00 A.M., so I wouldn’t be so late getting the latest column to Peter.

“It’s those brown curtains, right?” he said. “They’ll do you in if you’re not careful.”

“You’re not kidding,” I said.

“We got a late start too, and I’m now completely screwed for my meeting,” he said. “Unless I go eighty miles per hour all the way there. Who am I kidding? Even if I go eighty all the way there.”