6

On Thursday morning, I dig up a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn since before Cliffy was born and a white T-shirt that fits well but doesn’t look like I’m trying too hard. I brush my hair, and at the last minute I put on lip gloss. I tell my reflection in the bathroom mirror, “You have completely lost your mind.”

Ethan’s not at the dog park. I know this because I have walked the perimeter and crisscrossed both ways diagonally. I have been approached by Greer’s friend Caroline’s mom, who is the worst kind of snob, and my mom’s friend Mrs. Wagner. I have assured them both that I am absolutely fine, and I’ve exhausted all conversational avenues about the weather.

Ferris and I get back in the car. The sun has heated up my steering wheel and I rest my cheek on it. “Mom, seriously, what am I doing? I just spent an hour in lip gloss looking for a man who told me he doesn’t even live here.” Why not, she says. “There are a million reasons why not, Mom.” And I sound just like Greer.

I drive to town to buy ground beef because I promised Cliffy hamburgers for dinner. I don’t usually buy ground beef from the butcher because it costs a full three dollars per pound more than at the grocery store, but I do today. I tell myself it’s a treat, but in truth I do it because a single man visiting his family is not going to be at the grocery store, but he might be walking through town.

Ethan is not in town.

I drive home with my overpriced beef, and my mom and I have a good laugh. This feels a little like Where’s Waldo, she says. I am being absolutely ridiculous, but something about that quick dog park flirtation has me feeling unstuck.

When I get home, I see that Cliffy’s forgotten his lunch, likely because it was blocked from view by the giant package of toilet paper I didn’t put away last night. I get back in the car and find him at the far end of the rec center by the skate park and the tennis courts, where a group of kids have let loose a family of millipedes. Cliffy squeezes me with all of his strength, grabs his lunch, and disappears into the huddle.

I stand and watch because there’s a breeze blowing through the old oak tree just behind them, and I like the way the sun feels on my face. It feels good here. I never intended to end up back in Beechwood. In high school, I imagined a more cosmopolitan life filled with taxis and bodegas. I’d say “handbag” instead of “purse” and learn to race down subway stairs in impossible shoes. I was going to make a lot of money and have a single spreadsheet that tracked the balances in all of my many accounts. A career in accounting would be a beautiful vehicle for bringing order to chaos, balance to unsteadiness. But I got pregnant with Greer unexpectedly, and Pete and I got married. There were complications, and I left my job. Then we had Iris, and two kids and a dog started to feel like too much so far away from my mom. So we came back. Beechwood isn’t what I pictured for myself, but it’s a really nice place to live. The trees alone are worth it, and I’m rarely more than a mile from the water. An older couple is playing tennis on the courts to my right, in such an easy rhythm, back and forth. I like the rhythm of this life.

There are kids at the skate park, standing around the half-pipe. They’re mostly teenagers, sort of watching and waiting their turn. I wonder if Cliffy’s going to grow up and want to fly up a curved wall on a wheeled device with no seat belt. All eyes are on this one guy who skates up to the top of the half-pipe and flips up into the air and lands dead in the middle of his board. It’s almost like a choreographed dance where the skateboard is his partner and he knows exactly where she’ll land. I do not know why I just put that skateboard in the feminine. And I wonder if I’ve somehow just sexualized this skateboarder and the powerful way he controls his body, like he can fly. I walk closer, and by the time my hands are gripping the chain-link fence, I can see that the skateboarder is Ethan.

I feel the rush of excitement that comes from having found the thing you’ve been looking for. He hasn’t left town, and it’s a guilty pleasure to be able to stare at him from a distance. He is in complete control of his body as he moves up the half-pipe and into the air. There’s an athleticism to this that I haven’t associated with skateboarding before. The strength and rhythm of his movement make me think, just for a second, that skateboarding is the sexiest thing in the world. The thought moves through my body as I grip the chain-link fence and watch.

There’s a lightness to this man, and I have a feeling he knows how to have fun. I want to catalog every detail—the way his hair waves off of his face, how his navy blue shorts ride up the front of his legs and reveal the long muscles there. The way his white T-shirt grips the ridges of his back.

He finishes his turn, and I realize I need to go. This isn’t me casually running into him at the dog park, where I have every right to be. This is me standing there ogling him while he’s being oddly sexy wiping his brow in slow motion with the back of his arm. I have no way of explaining why I’m leaning against this chain-link fence watching skateboarders. He’s going to think I’m stalking him. Which, well.

I turn my back to the fence, and there’s Cliffy’s bug group in the distance screwing caps on jars. That’s my out. I could totally just be an overprotective mother watching my kid enjoy camp.

“Ali?” He’s right behind me, on the other side of the fence. He remembers my name.

I turn around and fail at trying to seem casual. “Oh, hey. Ethan, right? From the dog park?”

“Yeah, hi. What are you doing here?” He’s out of breath and a little sweaty in the most appealing way possible. He’s close enough that I can see gold flecks in his brown eyes. His hair is brushed back from his face, and the ends look like they’ve been dipped in blond, a leftover from last summer.

“Nothing really. Rec camp. My son’s over there. I dropped off his lunch. Toilet paper.” My voice trails off and I don’t know where to look, because looking directly into his eyes is going to make me blush. I can feel the heat bubbling up right under my skin.

“Ah, rec camp. That sounds fun.” His hands grip the chain-link fence and his fingers are right at my eye level. They’re elegant, if that’s possible. His hands are the hands of a man who works construction all day and then races home to perform a piano concerto. I may have had too much sun.

“I guess. They’re releasing millipedes and I sort of wish I wasn’t wearing flip-flops.” Not an interesting thing to say, but it does give me an excuse to look down at my feet. “So what was all that? Are you a professional skateboarder or something?”

He laughs. “No, I’m just a lifelong skateboarder. For fun.” He looks over his shoulder at the kids who are still skateboarding behind him and then back at me. I’m clutching the fence again, my fingers curled around the metal, and we’re closer than we would be if there weren’t a fence between us. He’s looking directly at me, into my eyes and then at my hair. I am out of my body being looked at like that. I am out of time and in some other, lighter, freer body. I don’t want to move.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I hear myself ask.

He barely blinks. “I bet everyone looks at you like this.”

“Just Cliffy.” Weird, weird, weird. This man is flirting with me, I am positive of it. And I compare him to my son. I look away toward the campers.

“Who’s Cliffy?”

“My son.”

“Then that’s definitely not how I’m looking at you.” His eyes are smiling. I want this to be the part where he asks if I’m free for dinner. And then I say yes, my dinner plans were just canceled. And then I race home to call Frannie to babysit and help me find something to wear. I smile back at him, embarrassed for myself for a hundred reasons.

“Do you want to do something with me later?” he asks.

I am so surprised by these words coming out of his mouth that, for a second, I wonder if I said the thing about Frannie babysitting out loud. “Tonight?” I ask.

“Yes. Tonight.” His eyes scan mine like he’ll see my answer there.

He’s asking me out. This attractive man who has beautiful hands and a brief history of flirting with me. This is a miracle, but it also feels like if someone told me I was going on safari in twenty minutes—I’ve always dreamed of going, but I’m not quite prepared.

“What would we do?” I ask.

“Something fun. Are you okay with surprises?”

I almost tell him that the last surprise I had was finding the carcass of a hermit crab in my bathtub. The surprise before that was Pete leaving. This feels different from those.

“Sure,” I say.

“Sure? Sure’s not yes.”

“Yes,” I say. And we’re just looking at each other, like we both can’t believe this just happened.

He smiles. “Great. I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“No,” I say, too quickly. “I mean yes to seven, but no to picking me up.” He doesn’t say anything. “It’s just that I have kids. I mean I’m not married. I’m separated, but I haven’t really been on a date, and I’m not sure my kids are ready for that. If this is a date. I mean, not to assume, it just sort of feels like one?” Where are all these words coming from? I can tell he thinks this is funny. “Say something.”

He’s smiling. “It’s definitely a date.”

“Okay.”

“Meet me here at seven,” he says. “Wear something casual. And you might want a hat.”