Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [144]
NOW THAT I’M BACK to worrying about more personal things, my thoughts turn to Tobias. He will leave soon, before I do. We’ve only been together a couple of months, but we’re about to be forced into some decisions. Either we go our separate ways and call this a summer fling, or we try to keep going. Staying together would involve either a long-distance relationship (which I don’t want) or one of us moving. Tobias is heading back to graduate school, to work on a doctorate. And I am—well, I don’t know yet. I guess I’m flexible. The truth is, neither of us is sure what we want. I genuinely adore Tobias. He’s smart, he’s sexy, and he makes me laugh. But I have no idea if we’d be a good match in the longer term. We’re at different places in our lives; my student days are long past and his are not yet over.
During Tobias’s last few weeks, we don’t have time to see much of each other, which makes our parting less dramatic. Still, resigned though I am to the logical end of our romance, I’m sad to see him go. Maybe he isn’t the perfect life partner for me, but a small part of me wishes we’d at least had time to let things run their natural course, whatever that might be. I never have an easy time saying good-bye. We set all of our concerns aside to spend one last night lying under my stained glass windows, in each other’s arms. Then he is gone. A group of us walk him to the taxi, and I am the last to hug him. In full view of my neighbors, the driver, and our friends, I stand on my toes and kiss him. “You’ll get in trouble,” he whispers. “I don’t care,” I say. And I turn away, before anyone can see my tears.
In the morning, I listen to the new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky. The first song reminds me of an empty summer day in a small New England town. The kind of day on which I had a lemonade stand to raise money to buy a water pistol, but no one passed by, and the air was still and quiet except for the occasional drone of a plane overhead or a passing fly. That feeling … like a pause in the middle of life, after which anything could happen.
I ESCAPE LONELINESS by burying myself in work, spending even more time with my staff as our time together shortens. Zaid can’t seem to make up his mind how he feels about me. One moment he’s telling me that I taught him everything he knows and that he reveres me, and the next he’s quitting again because I haven’t been respectful. But I’m still trying with him, still hoping that somehow he will manage when I am gone.
One mid-July closing day, he’s already quit once, so I’m surprised when he approaches me as Ali and I are finishing photo captions. “Are you going to the Bastille Day reception at the French ambassador’s house Saturday night?” he asks. I want to go, but I don’t have an invitation. Because I cannot legally be listed as the editor in chief on the masthead, all invitations now go to Zaid. Before he arrived, when they were still addressed to al-Asaadi, Enass passed everything to me.
“I have an invitation,” Zaid says. “Wanna be my date?”
“Okay, I’ll be your date.” It’s my peace offering. It is also a decision that will change the course of my entire life.
ON BASTILLE DAY, the day of the French ambassador’s party, I have an unusually productive day. I edit all three health stories, including Adhara’s piece on the danger of listening to headphones in a lightning storm. She mistakes thunder for lightning, however, and keeps referring to “thunder strikes.” I also edit Jabr’s surprisingly adequate report on the harassment of women by taxi drivers. Near and dear to my heart.
My male reporters are terribly excited about the French party (the women