A floppy disk
A coffee cup with someone else’s name (or your own name, wildly misspelled)
A car with a parking ticket
A view from up high
The best pizza in the city (your choice)
A tourist doing something a local would be ashamed of doing
An umbrella (we all know real Seattleites don’t use them)
A tribute to the mysterious Mr. Cooper
7:03 p.m.
“EATING CREAM CHEESE straight out of the tub,” Neil says with a shake of his head as we drive down Fremont Avenue. “You barbarian.”
“No one has manners when they’re eating alone,” I say as I pull into a parking spot. “I’m sure you have plenty of terrible habits.”
“I’m actually quite sophisticated. I put things on plates before I eat them. You’ve heard of them, yeah? Plates? See also: bowls.”
Toward the end of dinner, we strategized: the Fremont Troll (the big guy at the center of the universe) and then a view from up high. When I suggested Gas Works Park, made famous by the paintball scene in 10 Things I Hate about You, he scoffed. “Is that really the best view in Seattle?” he asked. “It’s a view of Seattle,” I said. “It doesn’t need to be the best one.”
Fremont is busy on Friday nights. It’s not dark yet, and voices spill from bars and restaurants. Next week, during the summer solstice, Fremont will celebrate with a parade and a naked bike ride. The troll, which is nearly twenty feet tall, has a hand wrapped around an actual Volkswagen Beetle and a hubcap for an eye.
I check the time on my car’s dash for about the tenth time in the past minute. Delilah Park’s signing is in an hour, and I am now officially panicking.
She’ll be elegant, of course, like she is in all her photos. And kind. I’m sure she’ll be kind. I’ve met my parents’ author friends, but it’s not quite the same. Delilah is someone I discovered for myself, not someone my parents have over for late-night drinks whenever they’re in town. Horrified, I realized I forgot to swap my stained dress for something clean. I pray it’ll be dark in the bookstore. I don’t want to sit in the front row, but I don’t want to sit in the very back, either. What do normal people do when they go to events alone? Maybe I’ll leave my backpack on the seat next to me, pretend I’m saving it for someone.
“You have somewhere else to be?” Neil asks as we search for parking. “You keep looking at the clock.”
“Yes. I mean, no. I just—there’s something I want to do at eight.”
“Oh. Okay. Were you… planning on telling me?”
“Yes. Now.”
Even after his mini romance-novel spiel at dinner, this signing is something I have to experience on my own. If he’s there, I won’t feel like I can fully be myself, though I’m unsure who that person is, the one who’s able to love what she loves without shame.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Where is it?”
“Greenwood. It’ll only take ten minutes to get there, and I’ll only be gone about an hour. And we’re already so far ahead,” I say, aware I sound like I’m trying to defend it. “We can meet back up and finish the game then. Unless you think you’ll be too tired?”
“I’m in it for the long haul.”
“Good. Me too.”
A bit of an awkward silence follows. I have to change the subject before I dissolve in a puddle of nerves.
“You and your sister seemed close.”
“We are,” he says before biting back a smile. “Except for the six months I convinced her she was an alien when she was eight.”
“What?” I sputter, laughing.