Tonight he’s looking at me like he’ll never get enough of me. Tonight, the sight of me is wine and all he wants to do is drink of the cup. Tonight, I no longer envy the orchid. Tonight, I’m the one blooming. Paul hasn’t looked at me like this since the beginning. But this is another beginning, remember? With him, this man who looks like Paul in certain lights. A lot of lights, frankly. Light of the theater but those are tricky. Light of his basement, but again that’s off—not a lot of natural light in a basement. Light in this restaurant, frankly. But he isn’t Paul, I checked his driver’s license while he was showering to remind myself. Even looked up his crimes on the internet. They were more serious than I thought. I thought maybe marijuana possession or trafficking. Maybe some dabblings in cocaine. And there were drugs, yes, but there was also a count of assault. Aggravated. With a weapon, no less. I imagined the knife, imagined him gripping it. I stared at his mug shot on my laptop screen, his young face washed out by that grim light, the deep, dark hollows under his eyes, which looked not green at all but gray and drugged. His blond hair dark and hanging lank around his face like Briana’s does now.
An accident, I thought. Or self-defense. Or maybe that person just deserved it, you never know. I wanted to tell him that no matter what he’d done, I’d understand. That sometimes these things happen, of course they do, I know that now. It didn’t even scare me, seeing his mug shot. If anything it made me feel closer to him, closer to Hugo himself. In that picture he didn’t look like Paul at all.
Everything okay? he said to me when he came out of the steaming bathroom. I snapped the laptop shut. Gazed at his long, wet hair slicked back from his face.
And what could I do but fuck him again?
The restaurant’s track lighting shines down on him now like a spotlight. Doing something weird to his hair, to his eyes, the cut of his jawline. So that he really truly looks like— “What? What’s wrong?” Hugo says.
“Nothing. Why?”
“Just you’re looking at me funny again.”
“Am I?” I say.
“Yeah. Almost like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just the light,” I tell him. “Just in this light, you look like someone.”
At first he frowns, but then he smiles. “Someone good I hope,” he replies.
“Yes,” I say. “Someone very good.”
He’s smiling at me over his menu. That grin-shaped scar on his lip. Paul didn’t have a scar like that but everything else is uncannily the same. Clothes are a bit off though. Paul wouldn’t wear a Mot?rhead shirt or lumberjack plaid. But apart from that. He reaches out and takes my hand. All I had to do was hold it out, palm up, and he took the cue.
“What do you think you’ll have?” Paul says.
“The eel, like always,” I say. “And you’ll have the sunshine roll, of course.”
“I will?” He laughs. “How do you know? I haven’t even really looked at the menu yet.”
“Because it’s the best. Because I know your taste.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Should I trust you?”
“You should absolutely trust me.”
“All right,” he tells the waiter when he arrives, “the sunshine roll. And a Sapporo, please.”
“The cold sake is really good.” I take his hand and squeeze.
“Okay. Sake, then.” I order my usual.
The waiter leaves, and I look at Hugo. Perfect. Perfect, except the clothes.
“Did you get those shirts I left in your mailbox?” I ask him.
“Shirts? Oh yeah. The shirts. Yeah, I got them.”
“I just felt so bad about the one that got torn,” I say.
“Just a few buttons missing, really. Still a good shirt.” He grins.
“Well, these new ones I got you have snaps. So you don’t even have to worry about—”
“They’re cool. Just not really my style, Miranda. I mean I like them, don’t get me wrong, but I’m all about this combo right here.” He tugs on the plaid shirt, then on the T-shirt beneath. “Much better for my kind of work. Wearing those fancy shirts, I’d feel afraid to do anything, you know.”
“Well, those shirts wouldn’t be for working. They’d be for going out.” With me.
“Still. They’re just… I don’t know. Not me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Please. It was really thoughtful of you. I’ll still hang on to them.”