“I know.” I watched as the boy said something to Andrew, Andrew replied, and the boy ran off, excited.
“She found a way to meet him already,” Jan said. “I knew it. Amy, you owe me ten bucks.”
But her voice was behind me, because I was walking across the park toward Andrew. I picked up a lawn chair from a stack leaning against a tree and carried it with me, downing the last of my plastic glass of wine.Now or never, Tessa.
Andrew didn’t turn as I approached, but the line of his shoulders tightened. Just a little. I noticed.
I unfolded my chair next to his and sat down. He was wearing jeans and a navy blue tee, a plaid navy flannel unbuttoned over it. He had a plastic cup of beer in his hand. His beard was trimmed all the way down, almost to stubble, and he’d had a haircut. He glanced at me, just the briefest look from his dark eyes. “Tessa,” he said.
I swallowed and tried to find a spine. Tried to think of something to say. “What did you say to that kid?” I finally asked.
Andrew glanced at me again, and I stared at the line of his throat where it disappeared into the neck of his tee. “I told him that Lightning Man is real, he’s my friend, and he’s watching him, especially on Halloween,” he said.
I felt myself smiling. “That’s very devious, Andrew.”
He shrugged. “Someone has to teach kids manners. It may as well be Lightning Man.”
Everything hung in the air around us—everything important and unsaid. “You’re drinking a beer,” I said.
“I’m sipping a beer,” he corrected me. “Apparently you can’t come to one of these things without drinking something. Everyone insisted.” He looked at his cup. “It’s piss warm, but if I get rid of it, someone will just give me another.”
“Well,” I said, my throat tight, “I’m glad you’re here at all.”
He looked at me then—not just a glance, but a look. There were so many things in that look: anger, fear, raw hurt. There was the humor and the strength he carried with him all the time. And he was glad to see me; I could see that, too. I could see that my presence made things better for him, just like his did for me, even if he didn’t want it to. I could see that I was making this whole situation easier for him, just by sitting next to him in this lawn chair, feeling the breeze on my face and commiserating about his warm beer.
I wanted to sit next to him like this in every situation, make him feel better every day. Just like he did for me.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I came here?” he asked me.
“Okay,” I said. “Why?”
“Because I thought it was time.”
I bit my lip and nodded. I had a lump in my throat.
“Also, I wanted to impress you.”
That made me laugh. “Andrew, you always impress me.”
“With my remarkably bad humor and my shitty life, yes.”
“And your sexual skills.”
“Those too, of course. But I wanted to impress you some other way for once.”
I was nearly sagging in my lawn chair. This was the Andrew I knew, witty and tough and funny. I was so glad to see him. But I kept up the conversation, because I knew the last thing he wanted was to see me get sappy. “Well, it worked. I am impressed. So are the neighbors. You’ve won them over, especially the women.”
“They’re curious about me,” he said with a dismissive wave. “One old lady talked to me at top volume, as if being in a wheelchair means I’m hard of hearing. Another guy said ‘I’m sorry, dude,’ at least four times. I had to call Bea Arthur on both of them.”
I laughed again. “Did you actually say ‘Bea Arthur?’”
“I did. It was singularly ineffective. Now my neighbors think I’m an avidGolden Girlsfan instead of the dignified intellectual I really am.”
I leaned back in my chair, my eyes watering with laughter. “Oh my God, you are so badass.”
“Obviously,” Andrew said. He ran a hand through his hair. “You know, I don’t know what I was avoiding all this time. Except for the yelling lady and the sorry dude, it isn’t all that bad.”
I watched his gorgeous hand as it moved through his hair, wishing avidly that hand was on my skin instead. Then I remembered that his hair was shorter than it was a few days ago. “A haircut!” I said, sitting up straight in my lawn chair. “That girl who came to your house gave you a haircut!”