The table laughs.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Kate tells Allyson. “He was a miserable mess in Mexico after he didn’t find you.”
“He was even worse after the food poisoning,” Broodje says.
“You got food poisoning?” Kate asks. Willem nods. “The mystery meat? I knew it!”
“I got really sick right after you dropped me off,” Willem says.
“You should’ve called me,” Kate says.
“I ended up calling my ma, in India, and that’s why I went over, so it was a good thing, the food poisoning.” Sickness leading to healing. The truth and its opposite again.
“At least it paid off in the end, because at the time, that Mexico trip seemed like a disaster,” Broodje says. “At that New Year’s party, you were a mess, Willy.”
“I wasn’t a mess.”
“You were. You had girls coming at you and you didn’t want any of them. And then you lost your shoes.” Broodje looks at the gathering. “There were these giant piles of shoes.”
The hair on the back of Allyson’s neck goes up. “Wait, what?”
“We went to this party on the beach, in Mexico. New Year’s Eve.”
“With the piles of shoes?”
“Yeah,” Broodje says.
“And the Spanish reggae band. Tabula rasa?” Allyson asks.
It’s noisy in the bar but it goes quiet for a second as Allyson and Willem look at each other and once again understand something that they somehow, somewhere already knew.
“You were there,” she says.
“You were there,” he says.
“You were both at the same party,” W says. He shakes his head. “I cannot even begin to calculate those odds.”
She’d been thinking of him. But it had felt like ridiculous wishful thinking. Delusional wishful thinking.
He’d been thinking of her, too. In the water, he knew she was close, but not that close.
“I cannot believe you were at that party!” Henk says. “I cannot believe you went all the way there and you didn’t find each other.”
Kate and Wolfgang have only just met. But for some reason, they catch each other’s eyes.
“Maybe they weren’t ready to find each other,” Wolfgang begins.
“And so they didn’t,” Kate finishes.
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” W says.
Except that even W—mathematical, logical, analytical W—somewhere understands that it does.
The night goes on. Pitchers of beer. Bottles of wine. The novelty of the Allyson-Willem hunt takes a backseat to more prosaic matters. Soccer. The weather. There is a debate about what Wren and Winston should do tomorrow. Allyson tries not to think about leaving tomorrow.
It’s not that hard, because Willem’s hand has snuck under the table where for the last hour, it has been playing lightly on the birthmark on her wrist. (Allyson never knew her wrist had so many nerve endings. Allyson’s wrist has turned to jelly. Allyson can’t really think of much except for Willem’s hand, her wrist, except perhaps for the other places she’d like his hand to go. Meanwhile, both her feet are now completely wrapped around his right ankle. She has no idea what that is doing to him.)
Wolfgang gets up to leave first. He has to work tomorrow, not so early, because it is Sunday, but early enough. He kisses Allyson good-bye. “I have a sense I will see you again.”
“Me, too.” Allyson has a feeling she’s coming back to Amsterdam. She’ll have to get a job on campus, pull double shifts at Café Finlay during school breaks to afford the ticket. The thought of coming back makes her happy, but she can’t really think about the year of not being here. So she doesn’t. She just concentrates on her wrist, the little circles Willem is drawing, which are reverberating through her body in ever-growing waves, like when a pebble is tossed into a pond.
Kate and David, who have been doing their share of under-the-table canoodling, use Wolfgang’s departure to make their own excuses. There are hasty kisses good-bye.
Before she leaves, Kate says to Willem: “I’ll be in touch on Monday. We’ll have to start working on your visa paperwork right away, but we can get it expedited and probably have you out for October.”
“Definitely,” David says.
Willem has known since yesterday, since before he even asked Kate if he could join up with Ruckus, that this was the right thing, that it would happen, but now with David’s enthusiastic support, it has become very real.
“What visa paperwork?” W asks after Kate and David leave. Dutch nationals don’t need visas for tourist trips to the States.
At that moment, Allyson snaps out of her wrist-related haze (maybe because Willem has stopped caressing her wrist).
Willem has not had time to tell anyone about his apprenticeship with Ruckus, not his friends whom he will leave behind, and not Allyson, for whom the move has different implications. Which is maybe why he feels so nervous now. He isn’t sure how she might react. He doesn’t want her to feel pressured, like the move means he has expectations. (He has hopes, of course, especially now that he knows how close she is to where he will be, but hopes are different from expectations.)
Willem doesn’t realize he’s left them all hanging until Broodje says, “What’s going on, Willy?”
“Ahh, nothing. No, not nothing. Something big, actually.” The faces are expectant, even those of Wren and Winston, people he did not know of until tonight. “Kate and David run a theater company in New York City, and I’m going to be an apprentice there.”
“What does that mean?” Henk asks.
“I’ll train with them, build sets, do whatever is needed, and eventually, perhaps, perform. It’s a Shakespearean theater company.” He looks at Allyson now. “I forgot to tell you that.”
He forgot to tell her everything. He was terrified to. He is terrified now. The ominous silence hanging over the table isn’t helping. And Allyson having unraveled her feet from his ankle really isn’t helping.
Maybe they aren’t so in sync. Maybe what for him is good news, a reason to hope, is just too much too soon for her.
He vaguely hears people around the table offering congratulations.
But he can’t process it. He is looking at Allyson.
And Allyson is not congratulating him. She is crying.
Allyson sees Willem’s face, his panic, and she knows he is misreading her. But she is helpless to explain right now. Words have left her. She is emotion only.
And it is too much. Not Willem moving to American, not Willem moving a bus ride away from her. It’s that this happened at all. How it happened.
Allyson has to say something. Willem is looking so upset. The table is so quiet. The restaurant is quiet. It seems like all of Amsterdam is holding its breath for them.
“You’re moving to New York?” she says. She keeps it together for an entire sentence before her voice cracks and she dissolves into tears again.
It’s Winston who gently touches Willem on the shoulder. “Maybe you two should go now.”
Willem and Allyson nod, dazed. They offer halfhearted farewells. (It doesn’t matter; good-byes with these two aren’t to be trusted anyhow) and leave amid promises from Wren to call in the morning and Broodje to crash at W and Lien’s place tonight.
Silently, they walk to the bike racks outside in the narrow alleyway. Willem is desperately trying to think of something to say. He could tell her he doesn’t have to go. Except he does have to go.
This isn’t about her. It was catalyzed by her, and she’s woven up in it, but this is ultimately about him and his life and what he needs to do to make himself whole. He’s stopped drifting, he’s stopped being tossed around by the wind.
But he doesn’t have to see her. It doesn’t mean that. He’d like it to mean that. But it doesn’t have to.
Allyson is thinking about accidents again. Which aren’t accidents at all. Allyson’s grandma has a word for it: beshert. Meant to be. Allyson’s grandma and Willem’s saba could’ve
had entire conversations about beshert and kishkes.
Except Allyson doesn’t know about Saba (yet) or about kishkes (officially speaking, though she knows what they are and how to listen to them and she will never ever stop doing this). And she doesn’t have the words to tell Willem what she needs to tell him.
So she doesn’t use words. She licks her thumb and rubs it against her wrist.
Stained.
Willem grabs her wrist, rubs his own thumb against it. Does the same to his own wrist, just to make it clear.
Stained.
They slam into the wall then, kissing so intensely that Allyson levitates off the ground. (It feels like the kiss that is making her airborne, but really it is Willem’s arms, which have grabbed Allyson’s hips, though Willem can’t even tell that he’s lifting her because she feels weightless. Or like part of him.)
They kiss, mouths open, tears flowing, tongues licking. It is a devouring, consuming kiss. The kind of kiss that never comes off.
Willem’s knees press between her skirt and he can feel the warmth under there, and things are about to get pretty crazy in this alleyway. Even for Amsterdam.
A cyclist passes by, ringing his bell, reminding them that they are actually outdoors, in public. Neither wants to stop. But there is an empty flat somewhere with a bed and somehow, while still kissing her, Willem manages to unlock his bike.
Allyson had thought riding sidesaddle with Wren was fun, but with Willem it is something else altogether. She remembers the illegal bike ride in Paris, when she sat in the seat and he pumped in front of her and how much she’d wanted to touch him. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. And then they’d gotten pulled over by the police. But this, here, is perfectly legal. And there is a place for her to sit, and she can wrap her arms around his waist all she wants. She can nuzzle against his back and lick his vertebrae if she wants to. (She does, so she does.)
At the stoplights, she hops off the bike and he turns to her and they start kissing again and sometimes stay that way until the light turns green and cyclists and motos beep at them to get out of the way.
It is a torturously labored ride home like this. Allyson is desperate for it to end and would like for it to go on forever.
Willem is just desperate for it to end. He is so full of wanting that it is painful and Allyson keeps lifting his shirt and licking his back, which she shouldn’t do while he’s riding a bike because he might pass out. (But she shouldn’t stop, either.)
And finally they are back outside his flat and he can barely keep his hands steady to lock his bike and he is about to attack her in the hall when he remembers condoms. He doesn’t have any, hasn’t needed any in months, so he drags her to a store that’s still open and he buys a three pack.
“Get the nine pack,” Allyson says, and he almost explodes right there.
And then they are outside his building. And fuck because Mrs. Van der Meer is downstairs walking her dog and he doesn’t want to make small talk with her, but they do and he introduces Allyson, and Mrs. Van der Meer wants to talk to her about her trip to California back in 1991 and Willem has to position Allyson in front of him because it is like being twelve-years-old again, the lack of self control he has, but also at least with Allyson standing in front of him, against him, it’s bearable (and it is also unbearable).
Mrs. Van der Meer’s dog yanks on the leash and she goes out and they go in and he can’t even wait. They are on the stairs and she is under him and he’s got that wrist of hers in his mouth (finally!) but it’s not enough, he wants all of her (the feet!) and they both know they need to make it up to Daniel’s flat but the last stretch is the hardest, but somehow they do and Willem can’t find his key and at this point he is going to take her in the hall because he doesn’t care, and honestly, neither does she, but then she remembers she has the key! He gave her the key. It’s in her back pocket.
They don’t even take the key out of the lock. They don’t even make it off of the floor.
A year is a long time to wait.
And Allyson and Willem, they feel like they’ve been waiting a lot longer.
Only later, after they have pulled the key out of the lock and put back on their clothes only to take them off again and try things more slowly this time and are having a 3 a.m. snack in Willem’s bed, do things calm down enough for them to talk. They talk about things like birthdays and ice-cream flavors (March, August, chocolate for both) and scars (he fell on the deck of his family’s houseboat, the one his father built; he has much to tell her about Bram). They speak of Willem’s apprenticeship and Allyson’s college. They spend a fair amount of time discussing the geography and transportation options of the American Northeast.
“Four hours from New York to Boston on the bus,” Allyson says. “One hour to Philadelphia on the train.”
“I like trains,” Willem says as he nibbles her ear. “Busses, too.”
“And I could come to Brooklyn on weekends,” Allyson says shyly. Only not that shyly. Her hand is drifting down under the covers. Willem is glad she steered him away from the three pack. “And October is like nothing.”
“It’s practically tomorrow,” Willem murmurs.
“I think today has become tomorrow.” Allyson pauses. “Which means I’m supposed to fly home today. I have to get myself to Heathrow in like ten hours. Is that even possible?” (She hopes it isn’t possible.)
“Anything is possible,” Willem says. “You can take a train, or one of the budget airlines. Though we should probably book something now.”
He thinks about reaching for his computer, but at that moment, her hand has reached what it was looking for and he is useless. He closes his eyes. The girl he sees behind his lids is the girl who is in his bed. He has no desire to do anything to send her away.
Last year in Paris, she asked him to stay on with her, for just one day. He had wanted to, but he’d been ambivalent, too. And that ambivalence had cost him.
Or maybe it hadn’t. He thinks of what Kate and Wolfgang said. Maybe last year wasn’t their time. But now is. He knows it. Right in his kishkes.
“Do you have to go back right away?” he asks her.
She has the flight booked. And school starts in September. Though September is not for a few weeks, and flights can be changed.
“Can’t you stay,” Willem begins. “For just one—?”
Allyson doesn’t wait for him to finish the question—hour, day, week—because her answer is the same.
“Yes.”
Extract from IF I STAY
7:09 a.m.
EVERYONE THINKS IT was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that’s true.
I wake up this morning to a thin blanket of white covering our front lawn. It isn’t even an inch, but in this part of Oregon a slight dusting brings everything to a standstill as the one snowplow in the county gets busy clearing the roads. It is wet water that drops from the sky – and drops and drops and drops – not the frozen kind.
It is enough snow to cancel school. My little brother, Teddy, lets out a war whoop when Mom’s AM radio announces the closures. ‘Snow day!’ he bellows. ‘Dad, let’s go make a snowman.’
My dad smiles and taps on his pipe. He started smoking one recently as part of this whole 1950s, Father Knows Best retro kick he is on. He also wears bow ties. I am never quite clear on whether all this is sartorial or sardonic – Dad’s way of announcing that he used to be a punker but is now a middle-school English teacher, or if becoming a teacher has actually turned my dad into this genuine throwback. But I like the smell of the pipe tobacco. It is sweet and smoky, and reminds me of winters and wood-stoves.
‘You can make a valiant try,’ Dad tells Teddy. ‘But it’s hardly sticking to the roads. Maybe you should consider a snow amoeba.’
I can tell Dad is happy. Barely an inch of snow means that all the schools in the county are closed, including my high school and the middle school where Dad works, so it’s an unexpected day off for him, too. My mother, who works for a travel
agent in town, clicks off the radio and pours herself a second cup of coffee. ‘Well, if you lot are playing hooky today, no way I’m going to work. It’s simply not right.’ She picks up the telephone to call in. When she’s done, she looks at us. ‘Should I make breakfast?’
Dad and I guffaw at the same time. Mom makes cereal and toast. Dad’s the cook in the family.
Pretending not to hear us, she reaches into the cabinet for a box of Bisquick. ‘Please. How hard can it be? Who wants pancakes?’
‘I do! I do!’ Teddy yells. ‘Can we have chocolate chips in them?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Mom replies.
‘Woo-hoo!’ Teddy yelps, waving his arms in the air.
‘You have far too much energy for this early in the morning,’ I tease. I turn to Mom. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t let Teddy drink so much coffee.’
‘I’ve switched him to decaf,’ Mom volleys back. ‘He’s just naturally exuberant.’
‘As long as you’re not switching me to decaf,’ I say.
‘That would be child abuse,’ Dad says.
Mom hands me a steaming mug and the newspaper.
‘There’s a nice picture of your young man in there,’ she says.
‘Really? A picture?’
‘Yep. It’s about the most we’ve seen of him since summer,’ Mom says, giving me a sidelong glance with her eyebrow arched, her version of a soul-searching stare.
‘I know,’ I say, and then without meaning to, I sigh. Adam’s band, Shooting Star, is on an upward spiral, which, is a great thing – mostly.
‘Ah, fame, wasted on the youth,’ Dad says, but he’s smiling. I know he’s excited for Adam. Proud even.
I leaf through the newspaper to the calendar section. There’s a small blurb about Shooting Star, with an even smaller picture of the four of them, next to a big article about Bikini and a huge picture of the band’s lead singer: punk-rock-diva Brooke Vega. The bit about them basically says that local band Shooting Star is opening for Bikini on the Portland leg of Bikini’s national tour. It doesn’t mention the even-bigger-to-me news that last night Shooting Star headlined at a club in Seattle and, according to the text Adam sent me at midnight, sold out the place.