14

A “Splendid” Good-Bye

“I’m really going to miss your ass, I mean, um, you,” Liam is saying, as he runs his fingers through my hair. We’re on my couch, the scene of what will most likely be our last encounter (the sheer acrobatics of it have exhausted us both) for a month. I love the way his fingers feel on the base of my skull. I love the way he looks in a reclining position. It has been a whole month and I am still feeling tingles from every touch, rather than being bored or put off by his presence, as I normally am at this point in a relationship. In all honesty, this is the first time since high school that my interest has been focused so strongly on just one person. And Liam is smart and funny and successful, too. I really think this could be it for me.

Lying here with him now, the thought that I'll have to concentrate on the article when he leaves flits in and out of my mind. I’m wishing we could just lie here forever, even though holding in my stomach like this could become painful. It occurs to me again that I would give up this article for him, if that's what it would take to feel this way every day of my life.

I'll bet the job at Beautiful will start as soon as he comes back. So I ask him about this.

"I don't want to talk business now, Lane. Let's just enjoy each other," he says, so soothingly I’m ashamed to have brought it up.

He continues, "When I'm sleeping all alone in my lonely bed in London, I'll be thinking of you. I'll have only your love to keep me warm.”

It's not really that cold now, since it's spring and all, but it is a wonderful thought—imagining him imagining me. Besides, he probably has central air-conditioning, which can often feel chillier than a winter’s day!

I lay back into his chest, thinking over the last month, sighing at the dreamy haze over the whole thing. The memories weave together in the most beautiful patina. We fit together perfectly. The candlelit dinners, the exquisite lovemaking, the randy late-night telephone calls from his office imploring he come over immediately. And then there was that hint about going to Provence (which was never brought up again, but of course, the summer is very far off), and other future-oriented allusions, like restaurants we must try and movies we must see. Then there are the gifts and the compliments: “You are so beautiful," and "My god I love the way you kiss!" and most of all, the feeling—there is no way in the world I can feel this much without him feeling the same way. There must be some law of physics under which this is just not possible.

Before Liam leaves, he takes a full hour to gush over how much he’ll miss me. Even though I know he’ll be gone, it’s so romantic I can’t help but feel supremely satisfied. He takes another half hour merely to kiss me good-bye, and when, finally he’s at my door, and grabs both sides of my neck, looks me in the eye, and shakes his head, I can only assume, it’s a gesture of disbelief at the intensity of this farewell, this thing we’ve built, finally, wonderfully.

"Splendid," is what he says. And then he turns to go.

I watch him walk to the elevator, watch him until the door slides to conceal him; I run to the window and watch him turn right, past the deli, wondering why he’s going in the wrong direction, and feeling a preview of what it will be like to be disconnected from his whereabouts, his to-dos and me-dos. “Until we meet again,” I say wanly to his figure, disappearing behind the flower display at the corner bodega, the one in competition with my regular deli below, as if he’s gone to them, the other team, and out of reach. Silly thought, isn’t it?