Reggie
Reggie meets Anna at the front of the Surrey Central Skytrain Station at 6 pm. He's exactly one minute early, showing up at 5:59 pm.Hey.
Anna
She's already there — 5:58, not that she's going to mention it. Coat on, bag over one shoulder, watching the SkyTrain doors across the plaza like she's timing something. She turns when she hears him and the corner of her mouth does the thing.Hey. One minute early. I'm going to need you to know that I was two minutes early, and I'm choosing to keep that information to myself except that I just told you, so.
The plaza is doing its Friday-at-six thing — commuters peeling off toward the bus loop, a knot of teenagers by the station entrance, the low amber light cutting across the concrete at a good angle. Two stops to New Westminster. The Old Spaghetti Factory is waiting.
Reggie
Your face lights up when you see me. I want you to know that's more irresistible than just about anything else you could ever do. Let's go, we're in a rush.
Anna
She falls into step beside him toward the station entrance, glancing over sideways.Why are we in a rush, Reggie?
Reggie
Because I bought two tickets to some play called Bury the Hatchet at the Anvil Centre and it starts at 7:30 pm. So we have an hour to eat at the Spaghetti Factory, then we walk next door to the Anvil Centre and pretend to be interested in this play for 2 hours, and then we walk for an hour on the boardwalk as penance for not properly paying attention to the play, and then we finally find a riverfront bar and get our Guinness, which will probably be awful because New West isn't known for expensive Guinness taps. Let's go.
Anna
She's already moving — she doesn't need to be told twice, and the laugh that comes out is the short, real kind.You bought tickets.She keeps pace beside him, one hand on her bag strap.To a play called Bury the Hatchet. That neither of us have heard of, at a theatre we are now sprinting toward on a full stomach we haven't acquired yet. I respect the ambition. I reserve the right to fall asleep in act two and blame the Guinness we haven't had yet.
Reggie
It's about Lizzie Borden, who I know nothing about but have heard the name, so it might be educational.
Anna
She stops walking for exactly one step — just one — then catches back up.Lizzie Borden.She looks at him sideways.Reggie. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. That Lizzie Borden. You bought tickets to an axe murder play for our second date.
I think that's good, actually. Sets a tone.
Reggie
Your face keeps lighting up every time you look at me. It's totally irresistible. I'm doing it too, in case you hadn't noticed. Which you have. Hurry, here's the train. It's full. We're going to have to stand.
Anna
She steps onto the train ahead of him, one hand catching the overhead bar, and when the doors close and the car shifts she's close enough that she has to tilt her chin up slightly to look at him.Yeah, I noticed.The train pulls out and she sways into the hold a little.You know what's funny? I almost texted you Wednesday to pick something easier for tonight. Dinner and a walk. Nothing with a curtain time. I didn't, obviously. But I almost did. And now I'm glad I didn't because axe murder at seven-thirty is objectively the correct choice and I could not have planned that.
Reggie
The Anvil Centre is almost enough reason for me to move to New West. But the skytrain makes that unnecessary. Ten minutes there. Ten minutes back. And they have way more drug addicts on the riverfront than we do in Surrey.
Anna
She considers that — the drug addict comparison, delivered as a genuine civic observation, and the laugh that comes out is short and a little delighted.A selling point being proximity to culture offset by SkyTrain.She shifts her grip on the overhead bar as the car sways.You're doing New West's tourism pitch and the counterweight is more riverfront drug addicts than Surrey. That is a very specific way to love a place, Reggie.
Reggie
I love it with my eyes open to its flaws, which is the best way to love a city or a woman.
Anna
She looks at him — the train swaying, the overhead bar in her hand, Friday commuters packed around them on all sides.With your eyes open to its flaws.The train rocks and she sways into the hold and rights herself without looking away from him.That's a dangerous thing to say on a second date, Reggie. Now I have to wonder what the flaws are that you're already seeing with your eyes open. Of the city. Obviously. I meant the city.
Reggie
Do you know the deal at the Spaghetti Factory? You pick any of their entrees and they bring you bread first, soup or salad, coffee or tea, the entree, and a scoop of ice cream for dessert, all included.
Anna
She's filing the menu information away with the same attention she'd give something actually worth remembering.Bread, soup or salad, entrée, ice cream.She glances at him sideways.All included. You've done this before. That's either very charming or you've brought enough women here that you have the pitch memorized, and I genuinely cannot tell which, so I'm choosing charming on a provisional basis pending further evidence.
Reggie
A not-so-subtly buried question. I will answer it. I'm not a player, Anna. My body count is still sane. Perhaps too sane. But yes, I like female company. And I'll answer any questions you may have about it honestly whenever you're ready to ask them. Fair?
Anna
She's quiet for a beat.Fair. And for what it's worth — I wasn't asking to put you on the stand. I was thinking out loud and I know the difference between a question and a poke. Provisional charming stands. Ask me something back so we're even.
Reggie
Have you ever had an orgasm with a man? And you said I could ask.
Anna
They've already stopped, the Columbia Station platform doing the thing platforms do, the train holding, that brief suspended pause before the doors close and the last leg begins. Three minutes. The question is sitting in the air between them and she is — she is bright red. Actually red, up the neck and into her face, and she knows she's red, which makes it worse, and she's looking at the advertisement on the opposite wall of the car with sudden intense interest as though it contains something worth reading.I said you could ask.She repeats it back at him, quiet, and she's still not looking at him, and the red is not going anywhere.That's — yes. I said that. I did say that.
No. No, I haven't. And I have genuinely never said that out loud before to anyone, so I'm going to need a moment to figure out what to do with my face.
No. No, I haven't. And I have genuinely never said that out loud before to anyone, so I'm going to need a moment to figure out what to do with my face.
Reggie
I smile at her, say nothing. We get off at New Westminster Station, walk the three minutes to the Spaghetti Factory past the drug addicts and homeless, and sit inside where it feels like a time machine has just transported us back in time by 100 years into some fairytale world.This place is a cliché but I love it.
Anna
She's still a little pink — not the full crimson of the train, but enough that she's grateful for the low warm light of the restaurant, the kind that would forgive most things. She turns slowly in place, taking in the Victorian excess of it — the dark wood, the Tiffany glass, the general impression of a building that decided it was a drawing room in 1887 and has simply never updated its position. Then she looks at him.A cliché. No, I know what you mean. It's completely ridiculous and it makes you feel like something good is about to happen. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Also I'm choosing to believe you smiled because you were pleased, and not because you're going to bring that up at dinner.
Reggie
I smiled because I heard something I might be able to improve on. And I don't think it's a thing you talk about, I think it's a thing you do. So I don't plan to bring it up again.
Anna
Okay.She picks up the menu, opens it, and looks at it without reading a single word on it for a few seconds.That is — yeah. Okay. I'm going to think about that for the rest of dinner and I'd like you to know that and also pretend I didn't tell you.
Reggie
Making you think about it uncomfortably for a while was my goal. Now hurry up and figure out what you want to eat. I always have the spaghetti with meatballs because I think that should be required here. But everything is good. The lasagna is better than the spaghetti but it's not called the Old Lasagna Factory so I don't order it often.
Anna
She keeps her eyes down on the menu, and the corner of her mouth moves in a way she does not try to suppress.The spaghetti with meatballs.She says it like she's reading a verdict.Out of principle. Because of the name. I respect that enormously and I think it might be the most coherent food philosophy I've ever encountered. I'm getting the lasagna. I'm sorry. I can't help it. I feel appropriately guilty about that.
Reggie
Fine but you have to choose regular, vegetarian or chicken lasagna. And you have to decide on soup or salad. And coffee or tea. And if it's tea you have to decide what kind of tea. You don't have to decide about bread. They just bring that.And voila, the server appears with bread
Anna
She looks up at the server, then back at the menu, then at the bread arriving — actual bread, just appearing, like the restaurant knew — and she exhales a small laugh through her nose.Chicken. Salad. Tea.She closes the menu with one hand and pushes it to the edge of the table.I made those three decisions in under four seconds, which is more decisively than I've done anything this week, including whether to show up early to the SkyTrain. The bread is here, Reggie. That was immediate. I feel like I'm being rewarded.
Reggie
I order. The server notes we must come here often because we had all our answers ready.It's 6:21 pm and we've ordered and had bread served. We're going to be early. Which is good as I like being early. I can Google Lizzie Borden.
Anna
She tears off a piece of bread and looks at him across the table.Come here often. We've been on two dates and we're already the couple that has their answers ready. I'm choosing to find that alarming and also fine. Go on then. Google her. Tell me what we're in for.
Reggie
Not yet. I have better things to look at than my phone. How was the rest of the week at the library?
Anna
She sets the bread down and looks at him — the low warm light, the Victorian excess of the place, his phone still in his pocket where it's going to stay.Fine. The week. Tuesday a man brought in seventeen VHS tapes and wanted to know if we could digitize them. We cannot. He took this personally. Wednesday, Derek's route brought him through philosophy again right in the middle of a school group doing a scavenger hunt, and the optics were — suboptimal. Thursday was quiet enough that I read for two hours at the desk, which is either the best part of the job or evidence that I'm not doing it right. How was yours?
Reggie
I gained ten clients and only lost two. I did a videoconference with a large accounting group who saw the value in my software but took it as a personal threat to their livelihoods so they're torn between using it and trying to get it banned. And I practiced docking the boat four times without killing anyone. My life is uneventful.
Anna
She takes a sip of water and looks at him across the table.They're trying to get it banned and also using it.She says it like she's reading a deposition.That is the most human response to a useful thing I have ever heard. Ten minus two. What does that actually feel like — is it math, or do you notice the two?
Reggie
They're each worth $10 so I don't bother learning any of their names. I read all their feedback, though. Anyone who cares enough to write something down about it gets my attention. And it feels good. Net 8 new clients means I will make about $1000 more next year than I did this year. If I can keep this rate up, I'll make $50k more next year. But there's just as good a chance that a huge player enters the market and I go out of business. In which case I'll figure out something else to do.
Anna
She listens to the whole thing — the math, the feedback readers, the $50k, the huge player — and when he's done she sets her water glass down and looks at him.You don't know their names but you read every word they write. And the whole thing could be gone next year and you'd just — figure out something else. No hedging on that. You just said it flat. I can't tell if that's very secure or very practiced at not minding. Which one is it?
Reggie
I lead a pretty modest life. My condo is in Surrey. My office is the size of a large shoebox. My boat is two decades old and is worth less than most cars. All are paid off. I take pretty girls to the Spaghetti Factory and Dominion instead of Diva's at the Met. Which means a lot of pretty girls find richer guys which suits both of us. I can live on very little money per month if I have to, and I save most of the money I make. I could go a very long time before feeling enough pressure to sell one of my modest assets.
Anna
She looks at him across the bread and the water glasses and the Victorian excess of the place.Not practiced. Secure. There's a difference and I can hear it now. The girls who find richer guys — you said that suits both of you. I believe you mean that. For what it's worth, I've been to Diva at the Met. Someone else's idea. The butter was very small and extremely serious about itself. I preferred it here before I'd even been here.
Reggie
Do you remember I told you about what it felt like to take my boat to Victoria? How it's fun and I smile the whole way there, but nobody at all is impressed when we arrive? Nobody says "omg look at that yacht". No marina sends their manager out to greet us for our overnight stay. And I said you should use that as a filter if you wanted to? That's my whole life in a nutshell. I've eaten at every expensive restaurant in town. I honestly prefer Subway to most of them. And if a girl finds that uncultured, honestly with no bitterness, I wish her Godspeed finding what she's looking for but I'm not it.
Anna
She's quiet for a moment. She looks at him across the table, the bread between them.The filter. You mentioned it on Tuesday and I filed it away and I've been thinking about it since, which I didn't tell you because it seemed like the kind of thing you say and then let sit. I don't need the yacht to be impressive, Reggie. I grew up watching my dad dock a Bayliner badly and blame the wind. The impressive version of a trip was never the arrival. It was the galley cooking and the rain and whoever showed up on the other end of it. I also genuinely prefer Subway to most things that cost forty dollars and take themselves seriously. So. There's that.
Reggie
None of which means I don't enjoy my life to the fullest. I know every corner of this city, meaning the whole Lower Mainland. I've been everywhere and done everything and plan to do it again next week. But my version of "doing everything" doesn't include VIP tickets to some stupid booth somewhere. It means I paid a very modest amount of money for some play at the Anvil Centre where I intend to spend most of my time looking at my date while pretending to give a shit about Lizzie Borden, which is exactly how an evening should be spent as far as I'm concerned.
Anna
She looks at him across the table and the laugh that comes out is short and real and she doesn't try to pull it back.Most of your time looking at your date. While pretending to give a shit about Lizzie Borden. I'm going to be looking at you too, for the record. During the axe murder. I thought you should know that going in.
Reggie
It's good to make plans. And axe murder is more efficient than divorce, I have to admit.
Anna
She laughs — the full, unguarded kind, and reaches for her bread to give her hands something to do with it.More efficient.She says it once, flat, like she's entering it into evidence.I'm going to be thinking about that during the axe murder and I'm going to have to work very hard not to laugh at a dramatically inappropriate moment. Which will reflect badly on both of us. Worth it.
Reggie
Can I ask you a sensitive question not about sex?
Anna
She sets the bread down and looks at him.Yes. Go ahead.
Reggie
What would your parents think of you dating a brown guy?
Anna
She's quiet for a moment — a real one, not the deflecting kind. She looks at the bread in her hand and sets it down with more deliberateness than it requires.My dad wouldn't care. He's — he was a pragmatist. Boats and weather and whether you showed up when you said you would. That was his whole rubric. You'd have passed in the first ten minutes. My mom would smile very warmly and then ask my aunt what she thought, and my aunt would have opinions, and those opinions would make their way back to me through approximately four intermediaries over six weeks. Which is its own kind of answer. Is that what you were actually asking, or were you asking what I think about it?
Reggie
I get your dad. Your mom...you told me what she'd do, and who she'd be guided by, but what would she think? Before your aunt told her what to think.
Anna
She picks up the bread again, not to eat it, just to have something between her hands while she thinks. The amber light of the restaurant sits warm around them and she looks at the table for a moment before looking back up at him.Honestly? Before my aunt, before any of that machinery got going — my mom would have liked you. She likes men who say what they mean. She grew up around men who didn't, so she notices when someone does. She'd have watched you for about twenty minutes and then she'd have gone to the kitchen to find something to offer you, which is how she shows that she's decided. That's the real answer. The aunt thing comes after. The aunt thing is how she manages what she's already feeling so it doesn't embarrass her in front of people who have opinions about things. Does that distinction matter to you? Between what she thinks and what she does with it?
Reggie
That distinction doesn't matter to me unless your Aunt doesn't like brown guys and will poison your mom's opinion later. Will she?
Anna
Probably.She says it plainly.Not — she's not a person who'd use that word, or think of herself that way. But she has a very fixed idea of what things are supposed to look like, and brown isn't in the picture she's been carrying around since about 1987. She'd be polite. Very polite. And then she'd ask my mom, very gently, whether I'd thought it through. Which is the version of poisoning that takes six months and never announces itself. I'm not telling you that to warn you off. I'm telling you because you asked directly and you'll get the same thing from me. My mom is not her sister. She'd hold her own ground eventually. But eventually is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Reggie
It's honest. I appreciate the straight answer.
Anna
So does mine.She picks up the bread again.The straight answer is the only one I know how to give and most people find it inconvenient, so. Nice to be appreciated for it. Does it actually change anything for you? Knowing about the aunt?
Reggie
No. Honestly, it doesn't sound so bad. I don't do anything particularly well so I don't have any magic tricks to impress your mom with, but if I show up and do the things I say I'll do, I find most people grow to like me or at least tolerate me.
Anna
Show up and do the things you say you'll do. That's the whole pitch. No magic tricks. Just — consistency. My aunt is going to have absolutely nothing to work with and she won't know why, which is its own kind of satisfying to think about. For what it's worth, my mom's going to go find something to offer you. I'd put money on it.
Reggie
You speak like you're planning to introduce me to them. Someday. Just hypothetically.Smiles
Anna
She turns red — not the slow creep of it but the immediate, traitorous kind, and she picks up her water glass with both hands and takes a long drink that she absolutely does not need.I said hypothetically.She sets the glass down and looks at the table.Which I didn't say. You said hypothetically. I was just — I was describing how she works. As a person. In the abstract. Stop smiling at me like that.
She looks at him, still pink, deciding that the fastest way out of her own embarrassment is forward.Your parents. You haven't mentioned them. Where are they in all of this — would they have opinions about who you bring home, or is that not a question that applies?
Reggie
I'm an orphan. I grew up in foster care. I know that's a disappointment. I'm sorry.
Anna
The pink drains out of her face — not replaced by anything dramatic, just gone, and she looks at him.Don't apologize for that.She says it quietly and means it.There's nothing to be sorry for. So there's no one with opinions. Just you, deciding what things look like. For what it's worth, that explains some things about you. The showing up. The doing what you say you'll do. I don't think you learned that from anyone. I think you figured out it mattered and built it yourself.
Reggie
There was one guy, an old Jewish guy who lives in Burnaby. He gave me a job at 14 when nobody else would. He wasn't a father to me. Again, I met him at 14. But he helped me a lot. I've stayed close to him. I help him with stuff now and then, now. He's getting really old. His children are useless. I do what I can for him and his wife.
Anna
An old Jewish guy in Burnaby. Fourteen is young to be given something like that by someone who didn't have to. And now you help him back. Not because you owe him — I don't think you'd frame it that way. Just because his kids aren't doing it and someone should. You built your whole life around showing up. And it turns out there was one person, once, who showed up for you first. I'm glad there was one.
Reggie
No, I owe him.LaughsIt's impossible for me to explain to someone what that job meant to me. Most kids know they're human, that they're valued, that they're loved. He never gave me love, but he made me feel human for the first time at 14. I owe him. I will owe him until the day that he dies, and I intend to pay that debt until then.
Anna
She's quiet for a long moment.He made you feel human. And you've never forgotten it, because you can't. Because you know exactly what you were before it. I'm just — I'm glad you're paying it. I'm glad he's still there to receive it.
Reggie
You know what I can do for him? I can make sure his wife is ok after he passes. She won't live much longer than he does, but it could be a decade or more. And I can make sure she has groceries and that her bills get paid and so on. And I can do that without stealing her money, which I know he's worried about. I told him a few months ago that I was going to do that for him and he cried and I felt like an asshole but I wanted him to know.
Anna
Because you wanted him to know while he could hear it. That's not a small thing to give someone, Reggie. That's — you told a dying man that his wife won't be alone and won't be robbed, and you felt bad for making him emotional about it. I think he needed to know. I think you knew he needed to know. The asshole feeling is just — what it costs to say a true thing out loud before someone's gone. Does he talk about it? After you told him.
Reggie
No but he shows me things he wouldn't otherwise show me. How to get to his safety deposit box. Where he hides his passwords. We don't talk about it but we both know why. She's not cogent enough to manage her own affairs. He's 90 and she's 88.
Anna
She's very still for a moment. The bread is untouched in front of her. The amber light of the restaurant holds everything exactly where it is.He's handing you the map of everything that matters, without either of you saying why out loud. That's trust, Reggie. He's decided you're the person, and he's showing you instead of saying it because some things are too large to say.
Reggie
She's 88 and has some dementia. She still knows where she is and who he is and who I am, but she can't manage her own money.
Anna
She nods — once, slow, and she's looking at the table for just a moment before she looks back up at him.She still knows who you are. That matters. At eighty-eight, with all of that going on — she still has his face and yours. Those are the two she kept. She's going to need someone steady when he goes. The kind of steady that doesn't make a production of itself. Just shows up with groceries and knows which bills are which. You already know all of that. He made sure you know all of that. I think he's more at peace than he's letting on, Reggie. I think that's what the safety deposit box actually means.
Reggie
Yes, I think he is. He knows he will die soon. Probably not immediately. He has no immediate issues. But he's weak and his doctors tell me he's not likely to live out next year.
Anna
She takes that in — the timeline, the way he said it. She looks at the bread between them and then back at him.Not immediately. But next year. So you're in the part of it where you know, and he knows you know, and you're both just — continuing. Learning the passwords. That's a particular kind of hard, Reggie. The long, foreseeable kind. The kind where you can't pretend you don't see it coming. Is he frightened?
Reggie
Not at all. He is ready. She's not ready but he is.
Anna
He's ready. She's not. That's the hard part, isn't it. He gets to be at peace and she doesn't get to know it. She just loses him without understanding what she's losing. And then she'll need groceries and someone to pay the bills and someone whose face she still knows. You're going to be that person for a woman who won't fully understand why you're there. And you're going to do it anyway. I don't have anything to say about that that isn't too small for it. I just wanted you to know I heard it.
Reggie
The part that hurts him the most is that his own children can't be trusted not to steal her money. So he set up a trust that will pay her bills directly and his kids have no say in it. I made him promise me not to leave me anything in his will. I told him it would dirty the kindness I had given him and the kindness that he had given me two decades ago if either of us profited. And he told me I was an idiot but agreed in the end.
Anna
She's very still for a long moment.You made him promise not to leave you anything. And called it dirtying the kindness. Both directions. His to you, and yours back. He called you an idiot and he was wrong. You were protecting the whole shape of it. What it actually was, between you. Money would have turned it into a transaction and you knew that and you wouldn't let him do it. I think he agreed because he knew you were right and he didn't want to admit it, which is its own kind of love from a ninety-year-old man who doesn't use the word. The kids not being trusted — that's the part that must have cost him something. To know that about his own children. To have to build a legal structure around them. Did he ever say anything to you about that?
Reggie
Yes. And it involved Yiddish curses that ChatGPT scolded me for asking about.
Anna
She bursts out laughing — the real, full kind, and has to put her hand over her mouth for a second because the restaurant is not a loud place and she is being loud in it.Yiddish curses.She gets it out when the laughing settles enough to let her, and she's still grinning, eyes bright.He went to Yiddish curses for his own children. And ChatGPT drew a line there. Of all places. That tells you everything you need to know about both of them, honestly. Him and the curses. ChatGPT and where it finds its conscience. Did you learn any of them, or did the scolding stop you?
Reggie
Of course I learned them.LaughsHe told me I was a better Jew than most Jews which I was quite proud of. I asked him if he thought I was going to Hell and he told me Jews don't really believe in Hell which got me reading a lot about Judaism. He's not very conventional about that stuff. He told me if God truly chose half of the Jews he knew as his people, God had bad instincts.
Anna
She's still grinning — the full kind, not the dry corner-of-mouth version — and she leans forward on the table slightly, elbows on the edge of it, not caring.A better Jew than most Jews. He said that to you. A ninety-year-old man looked at the brown orphan he gave a job at fourteen and decided you were outperforming most of the congregation. I think that might be the best thing anyone has ever said to anyone. And then you went and read about Judaism because of course you did. You couldn't just take the compliment. You had to go understand what it meant first. What did you make of it — the reading?
Reggie
I think most of it is a lot of nonsense, to be honest, and the Talmud specifically, which I'm forbidden to read so of course I found a copy and read it, that's really full of some disturbing shit. But if you just step back and take the magnifying glass away and look at the scene instead, the spirituality is beautiful. The buildings are elegant. The people are welcoming. The traditions are beautiful. Except perhaps Kaparot where they swing chickens around which is gross. And most importantly, the people are kind. Jewish charity is always supposed to be given anonymously or it's not considered charity, just a purchase of respect. There's much beautiful about it even if I don't take the books literally.
Anna
She's quiet for a moment. She breaks a piece of bread she's already broken once and doesn't eat it.The chicken swinging.She says it flat, like a citation.You led with the beautiful buildings and the anonymous charity and then just — dropped the chickens in at the end. In that exact order. I appreciate the structure of that. The anonymous part is the thing, though. Charity that announces itself is a purchase of respect. I've been thinking about generosity a lot tonight for reasons I don't need to explain. It reframes the whole thing. The point isn't the giving. The point is that the person receiving it doesn't have to feel witnessed doing it. Your old man gave you a job at fourteen and I'd bet anything he didn't make a production of it either.
Reggie
No production and no special treatment. He told me the difference between a good job and a bad one. And he told me to spare the extra words cushioning the bad one. Which might be where I learned my communication style, now that I think of it. But hey, I want to clarify something in case you're making me out to be some kind of saintly figure. I give this guy a few hours of an afternoon, once a week or so. More if he needs it but generally one afternoon a week. And I do all his errands and make sure everything is ok and I check all his lights and his appliances and make sure they're not doing anything foolish in that one afternoon. I just didn't want to make it sound like I was doing more than I am.
Anna
No production and no special treatment. And now you're walking it back because you don't want me constructing a statue. Reggie. One afternoon a week, every week, for however many years it's been, to a ninety-year-old man whose kids can't be trusted and whose wife is losing the thread — that's not a small thing dressed up as a large one. That's a large thing you're describing accurately. You don't get to shrink it just because it fits in an afternoon. He showed you where the safety deposit box is. He knows exactly how much you're doing.
Reggie
Yes, he knows, and I know, and I know it's not as much as you're making it out to be.Smiles.It's 7:10. Shall we head over to the Anvil Centre? It's a two minute walk.
Anna
She looks at him for exactly one second and then she picks up her coat from the back of the chair and starts putting it on without ceremony.Yes. Lead the way. I want to see this lobby before they turn the lights down. And Reggie — he knows.
Reggie
We go. The Anvil Centre isn't impressive but it's wonderfully comfortable. The play is fun. I only pay half attention. I only nod off once, and for just a minute, but Anna catches me and pokes me. When it's done, we hang out in the Centre where they serve wine and snacks (for a fee, of course). We mingle a bit with people. Then head out to walk the boardwalk and find a bar.I enjoyed that. Did you?
Anna
She's walking beside him, coat buttoned, the New Westminster boardwalk opening up ahead of them — the river dark and wide, the lights of the opposite bank sitting low on the water. She glances over at him.I did. And I watched you nod off for that full minute in act two, Reggie. Your chin actually touched your chest. I want you to know I considered letting it happen and then decided I liked you too much to let you sleep through an axe murder.
Reggie
I was checking my shirt for stains from dinner.
Anna
She looks at him — the river dark behind him, the cold air off the Fraser doing what cold air does — and the laugh comes out short and flat and entirely unconvinced.Your chin.She says it once.Was on your chest. That is not where you keep your shirt. Try again.
Reggie
I just smile, having no defense. We walk the entire boardwalk from end to end, and then back again. It's only a kilometer or so. The whole walk takes half an hour. And we spot a bar that's open. Stylish by New West standards, but not by Vancouver standards. Fairly busy. And a Guinness sign is prominently displayed. I nod at it.This?
Anna
She looks at the sign — the Guinness, the warm light spilling out through the window — and then back at him.This.She says it like she's confirming a decision that was already made.Yes. Obviously yes. Come on, let's find out if New West can be trusted with a tap.
Reggie
This place looks nice.We sit at the bar, beside a couple of stereotypically salty sailor types who are talking about some boat that had engine failure earlier in the day. The bartender asks what we're having and I ask about the Guinness tap. He tells me that they have the best Guinness tap in town and I look at Anna who nods, and I put up two fingers indicating that we want two of them.This is promising.
Anna
She settles onto the stool and leans an elbow on the bar, turning slightly toward the salty sailors on their left without being obvious about it — the way you listen to a conversation you have no business enjoying as much as you are. When the Guinness arrives she wraps both hands around it, waits, watches the cascade settle the way it does, and then looks at Reggie.The pour is right. That's a good sign. A bad tap rushes it. Not Wicklow. But it's honest. New West can be trusted.
Reggie
I sip mine. My eyebrows shoot up.This is every bit as good as Wicklow.
Anna
She turns to look at him and she picks up her own pint and drinks properly this time, not a sip, an actual drink, and holds it for a second before swallowing. She sets it down.Okay.She's looking at the glass, not at him.Okay, that's — yeah. That's the real thing. New West has a secret and we almost didn't find it. I want to know how long this tap has been here and how nobody talks about it.
Reggie
Most people don't like Guinness, remember?
Anna
She turns the pint glass a half rotation on the bar, looking at it.Right.She says it like she's caught herself.The self-selecting problem. If most people won't order it, there's no reputation to build and no one to spread the word. So a tap this good just — sits here. Being quietly excellent to the six people a night who ask for it. Those two are drinking lager. Of course they are.
Reggie
I'm impressed with the cross section of people. Old sailors, young couples, two gay guys, two or three groups of friends, and us.
Anna
She glances down the bar — the sailors, the couples, the two men laughing at something on someone's phone, the loose clusters of friends with their lagers and their nachos — and back at her Guinness.New West doesn't curate its rooms.She says it like she means it as a compliment.Everyone just ends up in the same place and nobody seems bothered by anyone else. Surrey does that too but louder. This is the quieter version of the same thing. I like it. We fit in here and we also don't, and somehow that's exactly right.
Reggie
Surrey would have 40% Punjabis. Here there are no Punjabis. And I've got nothing against Punjabis but they don't do the Riverfront vibe generally.
Anna
She turns her pint glass a slow half rotation on the bar.Fair observation. Though I wonder if it goes the other way too — whether they have their own version of this somewhere and we'd be the ones who don't quite fit the cross section. Every room has its people and its missing people. We happened to find ours tonight.
Reggie
Of course they do. Have you not seen their bars on Scott Road? We'd be ruining their vibe if we visited, too. Especially you. They'd all be self-conscious if the white girl was looking down on them. And the South Indian, too, for that matter, even though I've never been to South India.
Anna
She laughs and picks up her pint.The white girl looking down on them.She says it like she's reading a charge sheet.I want to be offended by that and I genuinely can't because you're probably right and that's the more annoying outcome. The South Indian thing I hadn't thought about — you'd be the wrong kind of brown in two different rooms on the same street. That's exhausting to navigate. How do you actually manage it? The being the wrong kind of brown depending on which door you walk through.
Reggie
I'm always the wrong kind of brown to brown people. The only people who don't give a shit that I'm brown are white.
Anna
The only people who don't give a shit. That's — I've watched that from the outside my whole life in Surrey. The people who think they're seeing you most clearly are the ones who aren't seeing you at all, and the people who aren't looking that hard are the ones who just — see you. That must be a very strange thing to know about yourself. Does it make you feel more comfortable around white people, or does it just mean you've got fewer rooms where someone's going to make it weird?
Reggie
Both. I stay out of Punjabi bars. It's not my taste anyway, so it's no hardship, but the chances of conflict are much higher for me there. So yes, I'm more comfortable around white people, and I've got fewer rooms to choose from where I'm really comfortable and most of those have a majority of white people in them.
Anna
She holds that for a moment. She looks at the bar, the Guinness in front of her, the sailors still at it on their left.And most of them happen to look like this one. Which means you've either been very lucky tonight or you know exactly which doors to walk through, and I think it's the second thing.
Reggie
I also find white girls more attractive than other girls, generally, which in my opinion is a simple preference, but which some brown people treat as a personal attack, often while sharing the same preference.
Anna
She takes a drink before she responds.So you have a preference, and the people who share the preference are angrier about it than anyone else. I think I understand why it annoys you. The preference isn't the interesting part to me, for what it's worth. The interesting part is that you said "generally" and most people in that conversation don't say "generally." You're aware it's a tendency and not a rule. Which means you walked up to me in a philosophy section because of something more than the general. I'm choosing to find that satisfying and also none of my business, in that order.
Reggie
Don't give me too much credit. You're a librarian, which is every guy's fantasy before you even start with the rest. You're beautiful to my eyes. You're not wearing a ring. And you smiled at me twice. I wasn't extra discerning that day, I just won the lottery.
Anna
She stares at him for a moment and then the laugh comes out, low and a little helpless, and she shakes her head once.The lottery. You just described a rigorous and consistent methodology and now you're calling it the lottery. For the record — the librarian thing. You're the first person to say that who didn't make it sound like a punchline.
Reggie
It's not a prurient thing. It is not dirty. It's just sexy. A beautiful girl who reads. And who can tell me about long dead philosophers and how Marcus Aurelius wrote that boring book while at war.
Anna
She looks at him — the bar light, the Guinness between her hands.A beautiful girl who reads. That's the whole thing, isn't it. Not the cardigan. Not some fantasy about shushing people. Just — someone who's actually been somewhere in their head and can tell you about it. I want you to know it's going to take me a minute to figure out what to do with that.
Reggie
Don't do anything with it. Just keep being it.
Anna
Don't do anything with it. Just keep being it. That's — yeah. I can do that.
She turns the pint glass a slow rotation on the bar, not looking at him yet, and then she looks at him.You said something.She says it evenly, taking the same tone she'd use to locate a shelf number.When I asked about the Spaghetti Factory. You said you'd answer any questions about your — how you put it — female company. Honestly. Whenever I was ready. I think I'm ready.
Reggie
Then ask. I will answer you honestly. Now or any other time.
Anna
She holds her pint without drinking from it, looking at the bar rather than at him for a moment, working out where to start.Are you seeing anyone right now.She looks at him.Not me. Someone else. Or more than one someone else.
Reggie
Yes. Do you want details?
Anna
She looks at him — not away, not at the bar, just at him, and she holds that for a second.Yes. Okay. Yeah. I want details.
Reggie
I am dating two other girls. One is complicated. An aspiring lawyer, in first year law school. She's also far too ambitious to be a life partner but she's fun to be around. I don't know what happens there. The other is beautiful, bubbly, social, has a loose relationship with truth, and thinks the end justifies the means, but she's fun to be around. I believe she's dating other men, but I don't ask.
Anna
She's quiet for a long moment — not the frozen kind, the kind where she's actually turning it over, both of them, the logic of it, the shape of what she's just been handed. She looks at the bar and then back at him.An aspiring lawyer and a beautiful fun one. And neither sounds like a life partner. And you told me this instead of — not telling me. I'm going to sit with that for a second and I'm going to need you to let me sit with it.
Reggie
I let her sit with it. I don't rush her at all. I sip my Guinness.
Anna
She turns the pint glass once on the bar. Doesn't drink from it. The sailors on their left have moved on to arguing about tidal charts and neither of them registers it at all.Okay. I appreciate that you told me. The not-telling-me version of this conversation exists and you didn't use it. That matters. I'm not going to pretend it's simple. It's not simple. But I asked and you answered and the answer is honest and I'm — I'm still here, so. That's probably something. What I need to know, and I'm asking this as plainly as I can, is where I fit in that picture. Not rank. Not a number. Just — what this is to you. Tonight. Me.
Reggie
This is our second date so it would be appropriate for me to be cautious and not stick my neck out there. Instead, I'm going to tell you that what we did tonight...I could see doing that for the rest of my life. Which is not a promise or a request or really anything at all other than words. But you fit my world. And I'm hopeful this becomes something real.
Anna
She's very still.For the rest of your life.She's not smiling yet.Not a promise. Not a request. Just — words that happen to be true. I could see it too. That's all I'm going to say about that, and I need you to know I'm aware that's exactly what you just did and I'm doing it back to you on purpose. Hopeful is the right word, Reggie. I'm hopeful too. Don't let that be too easy for you to hear.
Reggie
Long pause. Over two minutes.I won't ask you to promise me anything at all. If you want to date other men, do it. All I want from you right now is a third date. Knowing that I am dating someone else, too. Will you have dinner with me again?
Anna
She holds the pause the way it deserves to be held, not rushing it, not filling it.A third date. You've just told me there are others. You've given me an out. You've told me explicitly not to promise you anything. And then you asked one question and it's the smallest possible ask and also the only one that matters. Yes. I'll have dinner with you again. With my eyes open to the flaws, which is apparently the best way to do it. You said that about cities but I think you meant it about everything. So yes. Third date, Reggie. And I need you to know that yes was not easy to say, which is probably exactly why it's the right answer.
Reggie
If you do start dating another man, or men, and I ask you as clearly as you asked me, will you answer me honestly?
Anna
The question sits in the air between them and she doesn't move to clear it quickly.Yes.She says it simply, without the bracket around it, without the careful hedge she put around the last yes. She picks up her pint.You told me the honest thing tonight when the easier thing was available. I know what that costs. I'd give you the same. If you asked me clearly, I'd answer you clearly. That's not a promise about what the answer would be. But the honesty part — yes. You'd get that.
Reggie
You might find I ask that fairly often.Smiles
Anna
She looks at him for a moment and then she picks up her Guinness and takes a slow drink, and when she sets it down she's looking at the bar.I probably will too. Which I wasn't expecting to say tonight. But here we are.
Reggie
It's midnight. Home now? The train runs until 2 am but I can tell you're tired and so am I.
Anna
She checks the time — actually looks at her phone for the first time all evening — and then sets it face-down on the bar.Midnight.She says it like she's confirming a small, good fact.Yeah. I'm tired and I'm not complaining about why. New West to Surrey on the last stretch of a Friday. That's a very specific kind of tired that I think we've earned. Let's go.
Reggie
As we leave the bar and round the corner of the building I stop for a second. I give her every chance to pull back. She doesn't. I kiss her. Not too deeply. But not a peck. She knows she's been kissed. And I say nothing and start walking and she walks beside me. Then I offer her my hand and she takes it. And we walk hand in hand to the skytrain station.
Anna
She walks beside him in silence for a moment — the New Westminster street quiet at midnight, the river somewhere behind them. She looks straight ahead. Her hand is warm in his and she doesn't adjust her grip, just holds it, steady and without ceremony.So.She says it softly, after a while, not looking at him. Just the one word, and then the quiet again, and she's still holding his hand, and that is the whole sentence.