Chapter 15

At 6:55 I was next to the balcony sliding glass door with my phone in my lap. That was where we got the best cell reception.

Would Jack call right at 7:00? Or would he wait a few minutes to try to play it cool? What would I do?

Call at 7:00. Definitely.

6:56.

6:57.

The door opened and Ranée walked in wearing her scrubby clothes and increasingly tattered Vans. Was that…? I squinted. “Why do you have straw on the bottom of your shoe again?”

She glanced down, plucked it off, and threw it in the trash on her way to the fridge. “That’s a boring story.”

6:58.

I held up my phone. “There’s an interesting story about why I’m sitting here waiting for my phone to ring. I’ll trade you my interesting story for your boring one.”

She cracked open a can of sparkling water and took a few huge guzzles. It was like watching a beer commercial parody. I half expected her to belch and smash her sparkling lime La Croix can on her head when she finished.

6:59.

“I’ll take that trade,” she said. “I’ve been volunteering at a horse barn.”

Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that. “In San Francisco.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s small, but there’s a stable near the equestrian course by Golden Gate Park. I help out.”

“With the horses?” I knew she’d ridden growing up in Nevada, but I hadn’t heard her talk much about it.

“No, with underprivileged kids.”

I couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t wanted to tell me about that. “Were you afraid I’d recognize you as the good person you are if you told me that’s what you’re up to?”

“No, of course not.”

7:00.

My phone rang with a Portland area code. I’d looked it up.

I help it up. “Sorry, but my interesting story is that Jack and I are going on a phone date right this second, and I need to take this.”

She grinned, and I turned away from her before I picked up the call so that my sudden nervous energy didn’t make me giggle.

“Hi,” I said. And then cursed myself for not thinking through the greeting first. “Hi” is what you said when your roommate or mom’s number came up, not when a number you didn’t know came up. Maybe I should have said, “This is Emily.” But no, that was too business-y. Or maybe, “Hello?” like—

Before I could spiral into any more self-doubt, a warm male voice said, “Emily? This is Jack.”

“Hi, Jack.” His voice was the perfect pitch, which I didn’t know I had an opinion about until I heard it. It wasn’t too deep or high, just a middle tone with…I didn’t know how to explain it. His voice was a perfect summer night. Or caramel apple dip.

“Are you someone who likes to have a guy show up with a date planned or do you like to be involved in choosing?” he asked.

His voice was both, I decided before considering the question. His voice was perfect summer nights and caramel apple dip. “First time out, I like a man with a plan.”

“Glad I have one then,” he said. “Do you prefer Rome or Mumbai?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I’d begun to figure out that it was entertaining to just go with it. “I’ll be a cliché and say that since I’ve been to neither, I pick Rome.”

“That was a trick question where both choices were right. Next question: do you have easy access to a laptop?”

“I’ll get it,” I said, climbing up to fetch it from my bed. “It’s my work laptop. I’m curious whether your plans will make me forget that.”

“I’ll try,” he answered. “Also, you’re going to hear a knock on your door in about twenty minutes. Sorry, but I got your address from Sean, so I hope that doesn’t freak you out. He had it because he and Ranée send each other cat T-shirts. Did you know that?”

“I definitely knew that.” She’d worn one to bed last night picturing a gangster cat pouring out a glass of milk on the ground. It was captioned, “For the homies.”

“Anyway, you should get a delivery soonish. You okay with that?”

“I’m okay with that.”

“You are very chill,” he said. “I can’t believe you aren’t asking me a million questions or trying to get the details out of me.”

I considered this. “True. I’m a project manager, and I like planning and knowing what’s going on, but recently I’ve figured out that maybe I need to be more focused on the journey than the destination. You know, all that fortune cookie wisdom kind of stuff.”

“Maybe I should’ve picked China,” he said.

“I have no opinion on that since I don’t know what we’re doing, but I’ll go ahead and say I’ve heard Rome is nice this time of year, so that’s still fine with me.”

“I’m going to send you a link.”

A second later it popped up in my chat box, a long string of gibberish my coders would’ve deciphered without even clicking. Not me. I had to open it. “I’ve got a picture of the Colosseum.”

“Not a picture, exactly. It’s the street view from Google Earth. I thought maybe we could walk around and talk.”

A laugh bubbled out of me as I noticed the compass and dashboard on the lower right of the screen. “I can’t believe it. You actually took me to Rome. This is a little bit genius.”

“Ah, thanks. Glad you like it. See that guy straight ahead in the red shirt? I thought maybe we’d start there and see what we can see. Too bad I didn’t book a tour guide.”

“That’s okay. I know a lot about the Colosseum. More than you’d guess,” I said, tapping some keys as I talked. “Like for instance, did you know that this is built from travertine, tuff, and brick-faced concrete?”

“I didn’t, but did you know that it was begun in 72 AD and completed only eight years later?” he said, reading the next line of the Wikipedia article I’d opened on “Colosseum.”

“I think I read that somewhere,” I said, smiling

“Should we look around some more?”

We did, exploring sections of the building inside and out. Jack took over as tour guide, and I provided color commentary for several minutes until he suggested we step outside and stroll over to a restaurant for some fresh pasta.

“Do you like gnocchi?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve had it.”

“Are you an adventurous eater?”

“I think so.”

“Then I say we take a picnic dinner over to this Pamphili Park I heard about.”

“Sure. Let me grab my gnocchi. It may look and smell like Cup ‘o Noodles but—” I broke off as a knock sounded at the door, forgetting he’d warned me but simultaneously realizing what had happened. “You didn’t.”

“I definitely did.”

I checked the peephole and opened the door to a delivery guy with a sack of food for me. “Let me guess,” I asked him. “This has already been paid for, including the tip?”

“You got it,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, closing the door behind him and nestling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I carried the bag to the counter. “And thank you, Jack. Whatever this is smells delicious.”

“I gambled on gnocchi and Yelp told me where to find the highest rated in the city,” he said.

“Well, that’s lucky for me, but what are you having?”

“Pizza.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not your fault there’s no Italian restaurant scene miles and miles outside of Portland. But I did make this myself, from scratch—and no kidding this time—I’m a good cook.”

I opened one of the containers and scents of garlic and pesto rose up. I took a bite. “I think I might die. This is so good. It’s so different from regular pasta.”

“It’s a potato pasta. I’m glad Yelp didn’t lie about it.”

“No, it told deep truth. But I’m sad you don’t get to try this.”

“Don’t be sad for me. I…I promise that’s the least correct way to describe my mood right now.”

It was the first touch of awkwardness I’d heard from him, and as much as I’d been having fun exploring the Colosseum with him, that slight hesitation was the first moment I felt total ease.

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah, Emily?”

“I know we’re only a half hour into this, but this is my best first virtual date ever.”

“Hey, Emily?”

“Yeah, Jack?”

“I know we’re only a half hour into this, but me too.”

We “strolled” through Pamphili Park while we ate. It was green and lovely until Jack said, “Check out that bird.”

“I don’t see a bird,” I said, scrolling around my end of the street view. “What kind is it?”

“I’m not sure. It’s right in that tree with the weird knot on the side.”

“I don’t see that either. Wait. This whole time I thought we were taking a walk together but now I’m thinking we haven’t been in the same park at all. I’m so confused.”

“Try this,” Jack said, pinging me with a link, and when I opened it, I could see the knotted tree and the bird.

“Okay, I’m with you again.”

“Whew,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe I was walking too fast. How tall are you?”

“5’7, with long legs.” I cringed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I’d only meant that I could keep up, but it sounded kind of flirtatious.

Jack let it go. “I’m 6’1, so I guess I didn’t outpace you. I’m glad. That would be rude.”

“Maybe,” I said, now distracted by the fact that this hot man was deliciously tall. “But just so you know, I would never run to catch up. I’m full of dignity and stuff.”

“I respect that since I’m full of dignity and stuff too. But also good manners, so I’d never make you catch up.”

“There’s a solution,” I said, thinking about a tool we used at work. “We could share screens so we’re both looking at the same thing.”

“I don’t know what to say. That feels so…forward of you.”

My cheeks went hot, and I was grateful he couldn’t see it. “Right, I guess it sounded that way. It’s not what I meant.”

A warm laugh came over the line. “Sorry, I was teasing. I used to screenshare at work all the time. It’s a good idea, but I don’t have the app.”

“I’ll send you a link if you’re okay with me driving.”

“I have less than zero problem with you taking control.”

My cheeks heated again because I was giving his words a subtext that his tone didn’t seem to imply, but I sent him a link, and a minute later we were sharing my screen.

“You ready for a walk?” I asked.

“I’m done with my pizza, so yeah. Good to go.”

“Want to go anywhere in particular?”

“Nah. Let’s wander through the park and work off some of this dinner.”

I laughed and navigated along the path that ran down the middle of the park. It was quiet and green. “There’s not much to see here,” I said.

“Sorry. I picked a boring park.”

“I didn’t mean it as a criticism, I promise.” I rotated the view completely but that only gave us a view of the street parking. “But now I feel the pressure to come up with something to say because these trees are exactly alike, so if you comment on one, you’ve commented on them all.”

“Sort of like castles and cathedrals.” He pauses, then laughs. “That sounded fancy. It’s just that I did a study abroad in England, and the castles and cathedrals all look like each other after a while. I had the exact same thought.”

“England,” I said on a sigh. “I loved London. My mom and I went there for my college graduation trip.”

“Let’s go back,” he said. “Let’s skip this park and go hang out in Hyde Park.”

“I did really like Hyde Park. Okay. You talked me into it.” And within a minute we were in the middle of Hyde Park.

“Kind of chilly all of a sudden,” Jack said as the Google Earth photos filled the screen. They’d been taken during autumn, obviously, as several of the towering trees were turning colors and the ground was half green lawn, half fallen yellow leaves.

“I hardly noticed. It’s pretty much that temperature here in San Francisco most of the year.” I slowly rotated the view to show an empty paved path stretching in both directions. “Sorry I dragged you out into a deserted wood on our first date. I hope you’re not too nervous.”

“I’m carrying pepper spray, but I’ll be honest: you don’t really give off a scary vibe.”

“I resent that,” I said, sending us down the path toward more trees. “I’m super intimidating and fierce.”

“I don’t believe you for a second. I’ve seen your smile.”

Oh. Oh, swoon again. This was getting ridiculous.

“Still, you’re in the woods with a relative stranger,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you for feeling nervous. I’m going to distract you by smoothly asking you some conversational questions to put you more at ease.”

I smiled. “Go ahead. I already made awkward small talk about the weather as promised.”

He cleared his throat. “Would you rather live without the internet or give up heating and air conditioning?”

“Whoa. You’re starting with trick questions right out of the gate?”

“I am?”

I knew he hadn’t meant to, but the truth in that moment would put me in a very awkward position. “Pass.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“All right.” He was quiet for a minute. “Okay, would you rather go back in time five hundred years, or into the future five hundred years?”

“Ooh. Tough one. Can’t we talk about our favorite colors?”

“Blue. And no.”

“Also blue, and fine. I think I’d rather go to the future. What about you?”

“The past for sure.”

“Wait, really? That’s what history books are for. And so many bad things happened in the past.”

“Yeah, but in the past, I’d know how everything turns out. I’d know that there’s going to be hard things over the next five hundred years, but also mind-blowing advancements. You could watch it all happen and know that it works out okay. That we figure out better medicine and technology and nutrition. So it wouldn’t be as depressing.”

“But maybe going to the future means that you could see how all the stuff we’re doing wrong now works out too.”

“Or maybe I’d see that it doesn’t. That there’s nothing five hundred years in the future because we’re screwing it up so much now.”

We both fell quiet. He broke in with a rueful laugh. “Sorry. That was grim.”

“Maybe. But your reasoning about seeing the past was weirdly optimistic, so it balances out.”

“Good. Next question. Would you rather donate your body to science or your organs to someone who can use them?”

“Jack? Aren’t these questions supposed to make me forget I’m alone in the woods with a relative stranger?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Job hazard. I’ll think of something else.”

Job hazard? “What kind of job makes you ask questions about what to do with dead bodies?”

“I’m a mortician. Didn’t Sean tell you?”

“Um, no?”

“Probably because it’s not true. And I guess it’s not really a job hazard anymore. But that’s all boring talk. New question: what do you think is the closest thing to real magic?”

“That’s a good one. Let me think.” I wouldn’t let him avoid the job question forever, but I’d leave it alone for now. I clicked on the screen to send us along our path while I considered magic. The trees grew thinner as the path opened to the bank of the Serpentine River. “Closest thing to real magic? Google Earth maps.”

“Agreed.” I heard the smile in his voice, and maybe just the creeping edge of a yawn. The voice of my high school drama teacher echoed in my head for a minute. Always leave them wanting more.

“Hey, it’s getting late and I should go, but thanks for taking me out this evening.”

“Thanks for coming. Can I take you out again some time?”

I smiled. “Let me put it this way: after a night like this, you can have my central air. There’s no way I’d give up the internet.”

And I heard the smile in his voice again as he said goodnight.