34
ROBINSON AND I stood, our fingers intertwined, and stared at the ruins: crumbling buildings, burned-out houses, litter-strewn sidewalks, and the empty hulk of an old Ford factory.
“Welcome to Detroit,” Robinson said happily. He was feeling much better today, and I was hoping our location had nothing to do with it. “Motor City. Motown. I could have been stuck growing up here if my parents hadn’t left.”
“It was probably a little nicer back when they were growing up here, huh?” I said, all the while hoping it wasn’t symbolic that the first place Robinson and I visited together as a couple (because that’s what we were now, right?) was in total shambles.
With the tip of his boot, Robinson sent an empty can of Red Bull arcing into the summer air. “Yeah, probably it was.”
I took a picture of a mildewed sofa with a bunch of pigeons perched on it. To our left, a tree was growing out the side of a building.
“I guess it could be beautiful, in a way, if you were into romantic decay or steampunk or something,” I said. “Or maybe we should imagine it like the Parthenon in Greece. A bunch of grand old ruins.”
Robinson nodded thoughtfully. “That old Ford factory is where my grandma and grandpa met and fell in love,” he said. “On the assembly line.” He gestured off vaguely in another direction. “And down that way was the Chrysler plant where my mom and dad did the same thing.”
I bent down and plucked a dandelion from a crack in the pavement. “So I guess this used to be a pretty romantic place then,” I said.
Robinson was quiet, gazing out on the desolation. Thinking, maybe, about his family, wherever they were. So it took me completely by surprise when he whirled me toward him. He held me close for a moment, his arms tightening around me. And then he bent down and kissed me, long and deep, until I felt that familiar softening inside, my legs going wobbly. Like maybe if he didn’t keep holding me up, I might dissolve.
When he pulled away, he smiled. “What do you mean used to be?”
I kept my arms around his waist. I wanted to be as close to him as possible, for as long as possible. “I stand corrected,” I said, looking up at him, backlit by the sun, so the ends of his dark hair looked like they were on fire. “Two generations of your family fell in love here. That’s pretty amazing.” Thinking: Now three.
He nodded, but he didn’t elaborate. His eyes had that faraway look in them again.
“I guess you come by your car obsession naturally, then,” I continued. I wanted him to keep talking, because he was always so tight-lipped about his family that I knew almost nothing about them.
“My dad always said his first baby was his 1967 Mustang,” Robinson offered.
“So you grew up here?” I asked.
Robinson began to whistle that Sufjan Stevens song about Detroit.
I jabbed him in the ribs. “Seriously, you’re not going to answer? You tell me you love me, but you don’t want to tell me where you were freaking born?” I was laughing, but I was a little offended, too.
When Robinson looked down at me again, his face was clouded. “I’m just not … in close touch with my parents these days. It makes me sad to think about them. So I try not to.”
Seeing as how he’d had enough hardship lately, I decided not to press the issue. “Just give me a natal city.”
Robinson smiled. “You and your fancy words. Natal. World, I ask you: Who says natal besides Alexandra Jane Moore?”
I jabbed him in the ribs again. There wasn’t anyone but pigeons to answer him.
“No, I wasn’t born here,” Robinson said finally. “Chrysler moved the plant before I was born. My parents went to North Carolina, and that’s where I showed up. My dad worked for a steel company for a while, and then he opened up his own auto repair shop.” Robinson began to whistle some other song I didn’t recognize, ending our conversation.
I sighed. “At this rate, it’ll take me fifty years to learn about your childhood.”
He reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips. “Oh, Axi-face, who cares about the past? We have now.”
“Axi-face?” I repeated. I took his hand and brought his fingers to my lips. Smiling, I kissed them on their tips, one after the other.
He nodded. “It’s new. You like it?”
“I’ll get back to you on that.” The truth was, I’d like any pet name he came up with. But I wasn’t going to admit it.
For a while we just stood there, being quiet with each other, our fingers touching lightly. We watched birds circling overhead, and the clouds shifting. It struck me then that the earth could be covered in trash and wreckage, but you could always find something that seemed clean and perfect. Maybe that was a metaphor for something.
After a while I leaned in to give Robinson a gentle kiss. He took my face in his hands. “So,” he said, “can I buy you dinner or what?”
I smiled. “Does that make it a date?”
Grinning back, he shrugged. “Depends. Am I going to get past first base?”
“Pig,” I said, laughing.
“Pig!” he repeated. “Speaking of which, let’s go eat some.”