Already somewhere else

“I can’t see who they are,” he said, “and I can see who they were.”
She looked at him.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I see the kid. The teenager. The person they might still become.”
“That’s wild bullshit,” she said. “Are you saying you’re clairvoyant? Or just an idiot?”
He shrugged. “If you want to tag along, I can show you.”
“You mean sit in the car with you?”
“It’s more than that. And you know it.”

They weren’t that far from the car. They’d just gotten coffee at Daytime.
He’d made small talk with the androgynous barista, present, decent, nice in a way that felt almost intimate for thirty seconds. Not flirty. Just open. The kind of nice that still existed outside Cleveland.
He was aware that it didn’t last.
That kind of openness thinned out the longer you stayed in this town,
In the density, people learning to ration attention.

Back home, you talked to whoever was in front of you because that’s what there was.
Here, everyone was already somewhere else.

Later, they were parked, watching the street.
He noticed her hair.
She’d cut it short. She touched her neck, knowing he was registering it.
He’d loved it long, how he could spot it from a block away, spilling out of her green parka as she came up from the F train, walking down the hill toward him.
Now it was choppy around her face.
Sharper.
Her face seemed wider.
And her eyes were a pale blue, like something rich and faded, with yellow sun-kissed rings.

“How long do we just sit here?”
“Sometimes it takes a while, but it’s worth it.”

The air got sticky. Heavy.
But even as he imagined something relaxing between them, he realized he’d slipped, quietly, from possible romantic partner into friend. Friend zone. Not rejected. Just… redirected.

School was letting out on the corner of Windsor and whatever the fuck that other street was.
Kids spilling out. Color everywhere. Parents waiting.

“See that guy?” he said. “Out of work.”
“You jerk,” she said. “You won’t say that about the moms.”
She was right.
They weren’t out of work.
They were just in the middle of one of their ten jobs.

A crossing guard reached out and touched her jacket—light, automatic—then guided herself back from the curb. Automatic.

“You’re right—that guy’s not out of work. Probably a writer,” he said.
She smacked him.
Not affectionate.
Not angry.
Just enough to register.

She eyed the crossing guard. “Five more minutes and she’d be smoking with the security guard. Pretending she was waiting for a kid in detention, but she’s really just killing time. Saying to the guard, she hates riding the train when kids are on it.”

“Hey,” he said. “You’re getting good at this.”
She smiled. “Who else?”
“What about the guy on the bike. Loose tank top.”
“That’s easy,” she said. “He’s freezing his tits off. And he’s hoping to ride past that boutique on Prospect and flirt with the cute boy who works in the bookstore. He would mention that he ran into Jennifer Egan.”
He laughed.
“Except,” she added, “he’s not totally sure the kid’s gay.”

They watched him pedal by, pretending not to look.

She pointed again.
“Man with flowers. Six o’clock.”
“He’s having an affair.”
“Bammm.”
“He lost his job.”
“Bammm.”
“He forgot her birthday.” (less confident)
“Bammm. Bammm. Bammm.”

She waited.

“Okay. He still has the job. It wasn’t her birthday. But tonight, over dinner, he’s going to keep looking at those flowers like they mean something. Like they mean he might have had the guts to say no to Tulum. He hates the friend’s partner,” he said. “Always one-upping. Never does a dish. Still coasting on something he designed fifteen years ago at Prada.”

“Prada guy,” she said.
“So he buys the flowers,” he said. “Not because he screwed up.”
“Because he’s still going to Mexico,” she said.
“Yeah. To soften the landing for himself.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And she’s going to think that they mean he really does care and that he has real moments of grounded tenderness.”
“And what do they actually mean?” she asked.
“Seventy-five bucks for some tulips and white stuff,” he said. “That’s all he’s going to see.”
She smiled. “Cold.”
“No,” he said. “It’s the last thought he remembers having that felt authentic. And it didn’t require a conversation to convince him he was just having complicated feelings.”

She nodded. “Keep going.”

“And then Prada guy shows up in his mind, and he’s at the table while he’s looking at her and the flowers,” he said.
“Oh god. Not Prada guy.”
“Prada guy starts his spiel—Did I tell you about Milan?” he said, mimicking him. “A meeting. A screening.”
“Sofia Coppola,” she said.
“Wes Anderson,” he said.
“Some twink,” she said, “whose name no one remembers until he stars in something huge like the Jonathan Richman biopic.”

They both nodded at the same time.

“He’ll nod too,” he said. “At all the right places.”
“And think,” she said, “the flowers and biting his tongue are cheaper than saying I don’t want to go to Tulum.”
“Definitely cheaper than the flight,” he said.

They watched the man adjust the bouquet, careful not to bend the stems.

“So he is still going?” she said.
“Of course he is,” he said.
“And now,” she added, “his wife also has flowers.”

He held up his hand.
She high-fived him.

Then silence.
The car is idling.
The street is moving.

He wondered if she’d cut her hair herself like Ellen Burstyn in The King of Marvin Gardens, that moment by the bonfire, greeting the day with her face naked, no mink eyelashes. Johnny Unitas slipped into his mind, too. His brother had a signed black-and-white photo that came in the mail once, an autograph that felt ceremonial just by arriving. He remembered the careful way it was opened, how meaning attached itself simply because someone, somewhere, had taken the time to sign their name.