“You’re gorgeous,” I said.
“Ditto.”
I ordered a glass of white wine. She ordered a club soda with lime.
“I don’t drink anymore,” Celia said. “It’s not sitting with me the way it once did.”
“That’s fine. If you want, I can toss my wine right out the window the moment it gets to the table.”
“No,” she said, laughing. “Why should my low tolerance be your problem?”
“I want everything about you to be my problem,” I said.
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” she whispered to me as she leaned across the table. The neck of her blouse opened and dipped into the bread basket. I was worried it would graze the butter, but somehow it didn’t.
“Of course I realize what I’m saying.”
“You destroyed me,” she said. “Twice now in our lives. I have spent years getting over you.”
“Did you succeed? Either time?”
“Not completely.”
“I think that means something.”
“Why now?” she asked. “Why didn’t you call years ago?”
“I called you a million times after you left me. I practically knocked down your door,” I reminded her. “I thought you hated me.”
“I did,” she said. She pulled back a bit. “I still hate you, I think. At least a little bit.”
“You think I don’t hate you, too?” I tried to keep my voice down, tried to pretend it was a chat between two old friends. “Just a little bit?”
Celia smiled. “No, I suppose it would make sense that you do.”
“But I’m not going to let that stop me,” I said.
She sighed and looked at her menu.
I leaned in, conspiratorially. “I didn’t think I had a shot before,” I told her. “After you left me, I thought the door was closed. And now it’s open a crack, and I want to swing it wide open and walk in.”
“What makes you think the door is open?” she asked, looking at the left side of the menu.
“We are having dinner, aren’t we?”
“As friends,” she said.
“You and I have never been friends.”
She closed her menu and put it down on the table. “I need reading glasses,” she said. “Can you believe that? Reading glasses.”
“Join the club.”
“I can be mean sometimes when I’m hurt,” she reminded me.
“You’re not exactly telling me something I don’t know.”
“I made you feel like you weren’t talented,” she said. “I tried to make you think you needed me because I made you legitimate.”