No Time Like the Present

You've never been good at dating.

Choosing a time and venue is the first challenge. You waffle between alternatives until your potential date has lost interest. It's easier if they suggest the when and where – tomorrow night, 6 o'clock, Cheesecake Factory. You agree immediately, so you don't have to think about it anymore.

In the run-up to the date, all you can think about is how you'll dress, what you'll do with your hair, whether to wear sneakers or fancy shoes, and you think about what you'll say, which jokes to tell, which anecdotes from your childhood and which dreams for your future. You always plan to show up early but you show up late, and your date is always already there, annoyed, looking at their phone to see if you've texted, to check the time.

You've already decided what you're going to order, so you don't need a menu, and while your date is still choosing, you tell the server you want the crispy chicken costoletta, the well-mannered dirty martini, or they might as well already bring two, because you know you'll have two, and you know what you want for dessert, too, the ultimate red velvet cake cheesecake. You drum your fingers as your date thumbs, slowly, through the menu, maybe trying to punish you for showing up late, or maybe they've never been to a Cheesecake Factory before, even though they suggested it.

Your date mentions they've just finished reading Clarice Lispector's Água Viva and you proceed to list Kurt Vonnegut and Tom McCarthy and Ted Chiang and Jorge Luis Borges and Alan Lightman as your favorite writers, a list you've already rehearsed at home, before the date, and you wonder how long it will take for your martinis to arrive, and then the chicken and the dessert, when this date will be over and what you can do next, with or without your date, a walk on the beach or a fumbling night at home, and you're worried whether there will be another date, marriage, kids, drama, divorce.

It ends up being without your date, and you spend the rest of the long evening walking along the beach, anxious about tsunamis and beach erosion, replaying every beat at the Cheesecake Factory in your mind, wondering what you should have done differently, what you should have said instead, what you can do better next time, because you believe in self-improvement.

The problem, of course, doesn't have anything to do with you: It's that the present is so small. Compared to the vastness of the past and the future, even if you haven't been alive that long or don't have that long to live, it's just a tiny sliver in time, something that hardly happens, a couple seconds at most and a couple milliseconds at worst, and usually there's so much else going on in the past and the future, your memories and regrets and your hopes and dreams and anxieties, that it's over before it begins.

You head back to the Cheesecake Factory and sit at the same table where you sat with your date and order another martini, and another, and another.

You wake up. You turn your head and there's someone's head on the pillow next to you. Their eyes are closed. The sheets are satin, green. You gently pull the sheets off. The head is attached to a body, naked but alive, because the body moves towards you when the sheets are off.

The eyes on the head open – they're green, like the sheets. The lips on the head pucker and move to kiss you. You find yourself kissing back. You know this person. Her name is Parker.

Parker's head is on the pillow.

"How'd you sleep, K.C.?" Parker asks.

"Good." You hear the words coming out of your mouth. They're definitely your words. K.C.'s words.

Parker smiles. Her smile hovers between tenderness and sadness, but that's just the way Parker smiles.

"I'll make you breakfast," Parker says, rolling out of bed and putting on her clothes. "Last night was wonderful," she says, touching your cheek before leaving the bedroom. You feel the afterglow.

You put on fresh clothes – fresh, because they're not crumpled on the floor beside the bed, they're in the closet, folded and hanging up. You brush your teeth in the bathroom. Your toothbrush is blue, Parker's is green, like her eyes. You take a shower. Your skin is soft. The water is soft, too. Not too much calcium. It's just the right temperature.

You enter the kitchen. Parker is there, sitting at the table, a plate in front of her with Greek yogurt and blueberries and kiwi. Granola. There's a photo album on the table next to her, a plate across from her, in front of the empty chair. It's Parker's photo album. It's your plate, your chair. On the plate, there's a pile of bacon, two poached eggs.

You sit at the table in the chair across from Parker and eat the eggs, the bacon. Everything is delicious.

"Everything is delicious," you say. "Happy anniversary."

"Happy anniversary, K.C." Parker's eyes well up. She brushes a tear away. That's the way Parker is.

It's the tenth anniversary of your first date.

"You remember, right?" Parker asks. "What our first date was like, I mean."

"Of course," you say. "You talked about Clarice Lispector. She's your favorite author, but you prefer The Hour of the Star to Água Viva, which you had just finished. When you came back, we shared a key lime cheesecake, even though I had already had a cheesecake. Key lime cheesecake is your favorite."

"How did it taste?" Parker asks.

"Good. But these eggs and bacon are amazing."

"The best you've ever had?"

"The best."

"We kissed after the key lime cheesecake," Parker says.

"Of course we did. It was a good kiss. I was drunk."

"Yes, you were drunk. I probably took advantage of you."

"No you didn't. I knew I was kissing you."

"It was a great kiss," Parker says.

Parker leans across the table. She kisses you on the lips. It's a great kiss. An amazing kiss. Everything is so fresh. It's like a first kiss. You want Parker more than you want anything. You kiss Parker back and she closes her eyes. She loves the way you kiss her.

"I'm glad I came back that night, even though you were drunk."

She leans back. She opens the photo album to the first page. It's the first picture of Parker and you, at the beach after the Cheesecake Factory. Parker looks happy. You look happy. It's dark, but there's a full moon. Waves are cresting in the background. There's a rollerblader at the edge of the picture, blurry. The rollerblader looks angry, in a hurry. Your eyes are red, because of the martinis. Parker's eyes are green.

She flips the page. It's a selfie of Parker and you in bed, smiling at the camera. You look like you just had sex. Which you did.

"The morning after," you say. "I had a headache."

"But it was all worth it," Parker says.

"It was all worth it."

Parker flips through all the pages. Ten years of highlights, documented. You know all the details of those highlights. You entertain Parker with some of those details.

You point at one of the pictures: "That was the day you lost your keys. We looked all over for them."

"I did? We did? I don't remember." Parker furrows her brow. She's pretty when she furrows her brow.

"We found them in Riley's stroller. She probably grabbed them out of your pocket and we didn't notice."

Parker's eyes well up. She doesn't hold back the tears. They flow down her cheeks. You wipe the tears off her cheeks.

You pick up the dishes from the table. You put them in the sink. You wash the dishes by hand. You put them in the rack next to the sink. Parker hugs you from behind. You don't see her, but you know it's Parker. It can't be anyone else.

"Make love to me," Parker says.

You wipe your hands on the dishcloth. You go to the bedroom. You take off Parker's clothes. Parker takes off your clothes. You make love. You're attentive to every touch, every move, every moan, every sigh. You're a good lover.

You lie on your backs. You look up at the ceiling. You would smoke a cigarette, but you don't smoke.

Parker turns her head and looks at you. "What's it like?" Parker asks.

"What?" you say.

"What's it like when you think of our first date? The last ten years?" She pauses.

"I remember every detail," you say.

She turns away. "I know." She pauses. "But what does it feel like?"

You try to parse the question. You know what now feels like. You feel Parker's hand on your thigh, your heartbeat, hers, satisfied exhaustion. You feel good.

"Blankness," you say. "All those details are blankness."

"Even Riley?" Parker asks.

"Even Riley," you say. Parker doesn't cry, but you know she's sad.

"And what about the future? Our future?"

It's a sentence you hear, but it doesn't make sense. You know it makes sense to Parker. You know it has to do with time, like the way the photo album has to do with time. The way Riley has to do with time. Time you can't travel to. Time you can't feel, because it's not now.

"Blankness," you say.

You look up at the ceiling. You would smoke a cigarette, but you don't smoke.

Parker moves her hand away from your thigh. She props her head up and looks at you.

"Where do you go when you're like that?" she asks.

You think, for a second. You travel forward in time, one second per second. And then the second is gone.

"Where do you go when you're like that?" Parker asks.

"Here," you say to Parker. "I'm here."