THIRTY
DANIEL
Three weeks after coffee, I stood outside Hannah’s blue door for our first date after the divorce.
She had chosen the night. I had sent two restaurant names, both opened within the past year, and she selected the smaller one in a neighborhood where we had never lived.
Before I made the reservation, I asked whether she wanted quiet or busy, early or late, and whether her answer about the maple coffee meant her tastes had changed in any other ways I should know about.
Her reply had been brief.
Quiet enough to talk. Seven. I still eat almost everything.
I made the reservation for seven and left the rest alone.
At six forty-five, Hannah opened the door in black pants, a green blouse, and a coat I had not seen before.
Her hair fell loose over one shoulder. For years, she had gotten ready while I answered email or searched for my keys.
I had told her she looked nice from the doorway as if the words completed my part of the evening.
“You look beautiful,” I said.
“Thank you.” She stepped outside and locked the door. “You found the place?”
“I drove past it yesterday.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“The parking instructions online were unclear,” I said. “I didn’t go inside.”
“I wasn’t accusing you of rehearsing the date.”
“I may be accusing myself.”
That earned a small smile. She walked with me to the car.
The restaurant occupied the first floor of a converted corner store. The tables were plain wood, the menus were one sheet of paper, and the open kitchen sent the smell of garlic and roasted tomatoes into the dining room. A server led us to a table beside a brick wall painted dark blue.
Hannah took off her coat and sat across from me.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
We ordered wine, then changed our minds about two dishes after the server described the specials. Hannah chose the pasta with mushrooms. I ordered chicken and asked for an extra plate so we could share the roasted potatoes.
“You still steal those,” she said.
“You still claim food offered in the middle of the table is theft.”
“The plate isn’t an amnesty program.”
I laughed. The tension left my shoulders, and I sat back.
The divorce stayed out of the conversation for almost forty minutes.
Hannah told me the school office had spent the morning searching for a sixth grader who was not missing; his father had collected him for an appointment and forgotten to sign him out.
She had found the boy’s backpack, called both parents, and stopped the assistant principal from contacting the police by nine fifteen.
“What did the father say?” I asked.
“That the appointment was on his calendar.”
“Of course it was.”
“I suggested he put the school office on his calendar too.”
She delivered the line with a straight face, then took a sip of wine. I remembered how often I had mistaken her restraint for endless patience. Across this new table, I could see the pleasure she took in being exactly polite enough.
I told her my department had moved back into the office after the carpet fumes cleared. The man who went to the gym with me had brought in two air purifiers and placed one on either side of his desk like security guards.
“Does he stretch now?” she asked.
“He bought a foam roller. He uses it as a footrest.”
Our food arrived. Hannah tried the potatoes first and pushed the plate closer to herself.
“Amnesty revoked,” she said.
I took one before she could move it out of reach.
Grace entered the conversation because she was part of both our lives, but she did not consume it.
We discussed the late activity bus, the plant recovering on my kitchen windowsill, and her new habit of correcting the way I loaded the dishwasher.
Then Hannah told me about a movie she wanted to see, and I told her about a used bookstore near my apartment that Grace and I had found while looking for poster supplies.
My phone’s screen lit beside my wallet.
I had silenced everything except Grace and true emergency contacts before leaving the apartment. My assistant’s name appeared above a message.
The figures in the client deck don’t match the signed addendum. Do you want me to hold it or log back in and rebuild the slides tonight?
Hannah had stopped speaking.
“It’s work,” I said. “A document for tomorrow has the wrong figures.”
“Do you need to take care of it?”
I read the message again. The client expected the deck by ten the next morning. Nobody was waiting for it tonight. My assistant had already stayed late twice that week because I had failed to give her a clear answer before she went home.
“I need to tell her to stop working,” I said.
I called. She answered on the first ring.
“Hold the deck,” I said. “Put the addendum and your draft in the client folder. I’ll review both at seven thirty tomorrow and send the final by ten.”
“I can fix the slides now if you tell me which numbers to use.”
“Go home. The deadline is tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Thank you for catching it.”
I ended the call and put the phone beside my wallet again.
Hannah turned the stem of her wineglass between two fingers. “Seven thirty?”
“I don’t have Grace tomorrow morning.”
“And if you did?”
“I’d review it after school drop-off and tell the client eleven.”
She studied my face for a second, then picked up her fork. “The potatoes are getting cold.”
I took another one.
We ordered one dessert and two forks. Hannah ate most of the crisp edge and left me the center, as she always had with anything baked.
The server set the bill between us in a plain black folder. No anniversary message appeared above the total. There was only food, wine, tax, and the date.
Hannah slid it toward me. “You can get this one.”
I placed my card inside.
On the drive to her townhouse, we talked about the restaurant. The conversation slowed when I turned onto her street. I became aware of her perfume beneath the fading scent of dinner and of her bare hand resting near the console.
I parked at the curb. The porch light shone above the blue door.
“I’ll walk you up,” I said.
Hannah nodded.
The air had cooled while we ate. She held her coat closed with one hand as we crossed the narrow strip of sidewalk. At the porch, she unlocked the door but left it closed.
“I had a good time,” she said.
“So did I.”
Her face was turned partly away from the light. I could see the soft shine of her mouth and the pulse at the side of her neck. Every part of me that remembered her came awake at once.
I put my hands in my coat pockets.
“Good night, Hannah.”
I stepped back.
“Daniel.”
She caught the front of my coat, pulled me toward her, and kissed me.
For one stunned second, I felt only the pressure of her mouth. Then she kissed me again, harder, and the restraint I had carried through dinner broke open.
My hand closed around her waist. Her lips parted under mine, and I tasted wine and the sweetness of dessert. She made a low sound against my mouth and pressed closer until her breasts met my chest.
I knew the curve of her waist beneath three layers of clothing. I knew the way she tilted her head when she wanted my tongue and the small impatient pull she gave my coat when I was not close enough. My body answered before memory could finish naming any of it.
Hannah kept kissing me as she turned the key. The door opened inward. She backed through it, bringing me with her by the lapels, and kicked it mostly shut once we were inside.
The entry was dark except for the porch light coming through the narrow window. Her purse slid from her shoulder and landed beside the stairs.
I framed her face with both hands and kissed her the way I had wanted to since she sat across from me at the coffee shop. She rose onto her toes. Her fingers moved into my hair, holding me at the angle she wanted, and my back struck the closed door.
“God, Hannah.”
She answered by biting lightly at my lower lip.
Heat drove through me. I turned us, put her against the door, and covered her mouth with mine. Her hips met mine. The contact dragged a rough sound from my throat, and her breath caught when she felt how hard I was.
Her hand moved down my chest, over my stomach, and stopped at my belt. She curled her fingers around the leather and pulled me tighter against her.
I kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the place below her ear that had always made her knees soften. Her head tipped back against the wood. The sound she made was low and unmistakable.
My hand slipped beneath the hem of her blouse.
Warm bare skin met my palm. I traced her waist, the shallow dip above her hip, then moved upward over her ribs. She arched into my touch. My thumb found the lower edge of her bra, and I felt her nipple tighten through the thin fabric when I stroked across it.
“Daniel.”
My name in her voice nearly undid me. I kissed her again, deep and hungry. She hooked one leg around mine, and I pressed my thigh between hers. Her body moved against me once, an involuntary roll that made both of us gasp.
I wanted the stairs behind her. I wanted her bed, her skin, every sound we had once known how to draw from each other. The wanting came with an old confidence that had no place here. This was Hannah’s home. Our marriage had never entered it.
She moved against my thigh again. My fingers tightened at her waist.
Then her hand flattened against my chest.
“Stop.”
I pulled my hand from beneath her blouse and took one full step back. My breathing was loud in the small entry. Her lips were swollen, her blouse lifted slightly on one side, and a strand of hair clung to her cheek.
She fixed the hem with unsteady fingers.
“That’s as far as I want to go tonight,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
“I know.”
“I still want you.” The admission seemed to anger her and steady her at the same time. “That doesn’t decide anything else.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
I bent to pick up her purse and set it on the entry table. Then I opened the door.
Cold air reached the sweat at the back of my neck. Hannah stood several feet away now, one hand gripping the edge of the table.
“Good night, Daniel.”
“Good night.”
I stepped onto the porch. Hannah drew the door shut between us and turned the lock.
In the car, I sat until my breathing eased and the windshield began to fog. I drove to my apartment, put the ordinary restaurant receipt in the recycling, and left my phone charging in the kitchen while I took a cold shower.
At eleven fourteen the next morning, Hannah sent a message that contained a date, a time, and the name of another restaurant.
Thursday at seven thirty. I picked this one.
I checked my calendar before I answered.
I’ll be there.