Chapter 26
“I hope you’ll enjoy this evening,” Henry tells me as he pulls the vintage Volvo he has on loan from Crisanto into the line of cars snaking off the ferry. The ferry crossing was calm and beautiful, the lights of Seattle twinkling and growing closer as we crossed Puget Sound and Elliott Bay.
“I can’t wait,” I reply. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” Henry smiles. “I think you’ll like it.”
He’s right. I wasn’t aware that Seattle had a fancy dinner-and-dancing venue, but Henry has managed to find one on the waterfront.
It’s an intimate, posh space with white tablecloths, waitstaff who speak in hushed tones, panoramic views of Elliott Bay, and a full band in white tuxedos playing big band–era jazz.
We are shown to a leather banquette in the corner of the room, the most desirable table, and Henry orders local oysters and champagne, salmon tartare, and some sort of complicated dish with smoked corn miso and fish roe.
There are no prices on the menu and the food is tiny, each bite superb.
I can’t imagine how much this all costs, but Henry seems unruffled by any of it.
“Try this. It’s delicious.” He scoops a generous bite of the fish roe appetizer onto my plate.
I nibble it cautiously, surprised to find it is delicious.
I’m not the most adventurous eater, a fact that always dismayed Romaine, but tonight I’m feeling bold and daring.
Henry makes it easy. He tastes everything in a way that does not seem as though he is a critic as much as an admirer of good food.
We savor and sip and I feel like I’m in a dream.
I can’t remember the last time I wore heels.
The other dates I’ve been on since I moved back have felt sloppy compared to this.
Henry speaks French to the sommelier, who recognizes him and thaws his snooty tone immediately, bringing us a very good bottle of white wine to go with our main course—sea buckthorn–glazed black cod grilled on a cedar plank.
I recognize the label on the wine. French and very expensive.
Henry seems completely at ease in these surroundings, unpretentious but comfortable.
It’s obvious that rarefied settings like these are familiar to him.
As the meal progresses, I want to feel at ease like Henry does, but I’m not sure I do.
Not entirely at least. Something feels a little off.
I can fake it. I got good at faking it with Romaine, but I never felt entirely like myself.
Now I find I feel the same way. I try to tell myself I’m just nervous, that I need to relax.
I have another glass of wine. But partway through the main course I have to admit what I know in my heart to be true, that this just doesn’t quite feel like me.
It’s not that I’m not having a good time.
I feel like Cinderella at the ball. It’s just that this doesn’t feel like me.
This isn’t my life. I wear jeans on a good day, yoga pants most days.
Now I wiggle surreptitiously in my chair, trying to adjust my support panties.
My Spanx are constricting me. This fancy version of me is not that comfortable.
I feel just a smidge like a child playing grown-up.
When did my urbane Parisian polish wear off?
Was it the grind of early motherhood, where even taking a shower felt like a self-care victory?
Or the years spent navigating my dad’s slow decline?
There is nothing glamorous or sexy about the long slog of a drawn-out terminal illness, the medication bottles and side effects, the mouth sores and bedpans.
Or was it the seven years of making endless batches of fudge instead of handcrafting gorgeous artisan chocolates?
Perhaps all of these have slowly chipped away at the sophisticated confidence I’d managed to acquire after years living in Europe.
Or maybe that was always just a facade. Truthfully, I always felt a little like I was playing dress-up, playing at being a cool girl in Paris.
Somewhere in my heart, I am just a small-town Pacific Northwest girl.
This evening highlights that to me. The food is gorgeous, Henry’s company warm and witty, but I don’t feel totally comfortable.
A small part of me wishes I were curled up at home with a bowl of Tillamook ice cream, watching Savor in my most stretched out pajamas.
Ashamed of the thought, I throw myself into enjoying the evening.
I laugh, I sparkle, I try to be at ease.
I fake it and tell myself this might be the best date I’ll ever go on, which is very possibly true.
“How’s the book coming along?” I ask Henry as we finish our perfectly grilled fish entrée.
“Slowly,” he admits, “but I’m getting there.
I already had a good bit of it written before I got here.
I think I have about a third of the book left to write, so that’s good progress.
” He spears a bite of black cod, swirling it through the bright orange sea buckthorn glaze.
“My goal is to be done with a first draft of the entire manuscript by the end of summer, and I think I’ll make it, or at least I’ll come close.
I can work on polishing it up over the course of the year.
I have a lot of time alone on the road to work in the evenings. ”
The mention of him going back on the road hits me like a punch.
I’m reminded that there is a ticking clock hanging above us.
I’m nowhere near ready to open my shop. At least I have a storefront and there is a subfloor now, not a gaping hole.
Jakob and Walt will be laying the hardwood floors on Monday. Still, time feels short.
“When do you leave town?” I ask lightly, chewing a bite of tender grilled sunchoke, which I just learned from Henry is the edible tuber of a species of sunflower. It’s tasty, with a nutty flavor.
“The end of August,” Henry says. “And from there I’ll head straight to Vietnam. We start filming the next week.”
“How long are you usually gone when you’re filming?”
“It depends.” Henry sighs. “Sometimes it’s a few months at a time with a break in the middle.
Usually about ten weeks of filming, a break for a week or two, then back at it.
I’ve been asked to do a special project this year that would keep me on the road longer though, a documentary about the migration and spread of popular foods around the world.
It sounds interesting, but it would require me to be gone all next summer.
” He frowns. “I’m not sure I want to do it.
I think I’m reaching a place in my life where I’m beginning to wonder just how long I can keep up this pace. ”
I see the opening and take it. “Do you ever think about a different life?” I ask curiously, sipping my glass of white wine. “Have you ever wanted a family or to settle down someday?”
Henry dabs at his mouth with a napkin and chooses his words carefully. “I very much enjoy my career, but if the right person came along, of course I would be open to settling down. I suppose the opportunity just hasn’t ever presented itself to me.” He gives me what I think is a meaningful look.
“And how would that work with your current job and travel schedule?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m interviewing him when that is exactly what I’m doing.
He considers the question. “I don’t know.
I wouldn’t want to give up traveling and filming entirely.
I imagine I’d still travel quite a bit. I know others in my profession who manage to juggle family and career if they have a partner who doesn’t mind solo parenting, keeping the home fires burning, so to speak.
I suppose I’ve always assumed it would have to be a situation like that. ”
I’m surprised by my internal reaction to his words.
I feel myself recoil slightly. What Henry is describing seems like a bleak picture of a marriage to me.
I’m already single parenting. The idea of a partner is appealing precisely because I want someone to share…
well…everything with. I long to wake up next to someone every day, maybe work with them in business or at least come home to them at dinner every night.
The image Henry presents feels…lonely. I don’t know what to do with how much I don’t like the idea.
This feels like a red flag or at least a yellow one, and that brings me up short.
I expected all green flags with Henry, but perhaps that is unrealistic.
No one is perfect. Every relationship takes work.
I know this, but I guess I just expected that I’d be in the same hemisphere as my partner most of the time.
Henry turns the conversation to other things—asking about my time in Europe, sharing about his childhood in Cornwall, pranks he and his brother played on their strict headmaster, his beloved pet rabbit Crumpet.
Before we order dessert he asks me if I’d like to dance, and we join a handful of other couples on the dance floor.
Henry is a good dancer (he tells me his mother made him and his brother take dance lessons when they were younger), and he guides me confidently around the space, his hand strong and sure on the small of my back.
We sway and glide and turn to a slow jazz song, and everything should feel perfect.
I’m living the dream, the fairy tale. What I saw in my vision is starting to come true.
I see how Henry looks at me, with care and interest and respect.
I wonder if he can see a future together, or the possibility of one.
I suspect perhaps he can. Which is why my ambivalent feelings this evening are so unexpected.
He’s everything I’ve ever said I wanted, but there’s just one problem.
Now that I’m here, in his arms, being wooed and won, I find myself lukewarm.
I feel affection for Henry, and respect and admiration, but I am beginning to worry about our compatibility.
It seems like perhaps we do not fit in each other’s worlds.
What if Henry and I aren’t actually all that great for each other?
This thought shakes me to the core. That would mean my vision is wrong, but how could that be?
The vision is always right. It’s a core truth I’ve grown up with all my life.
We stake our future happiness on those visions.
How could mine be wrong? It’s impossible.
I’m just tired and overwhelmed, or I’m getting cold feet, I tell myself.
I have to focus on what I saw in my vision.
It’s all coming true, my purpose in life.
How could it not be the best fit for me?
But as Henry pulls me a little closer and I rest my head on his shoulder, I can’t help but wonder.
If this is my destiny, why do my thoughts keep straying to someone else entirely?
As I turn and sway in Henry’s embrace, why am I wondering what it would feel like to be held in Jakob’s arms instead?