“It’s really no problem,” Amie said kindly. Then she glanced at Ben, stifling a laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re just . . . you’re very wet,” she said.
“Well, you timed your entrance well.” Ben smiled, attempting to fling his damp hair from his face. “You missed the part when I was headfirst in a geyser.”
After the plumber arrived, the old man walked Ben and Amie into the hall and thanked them again profusely.
“That was very heroic,” Amie told Ben, as they carried the pile of dirty towels to the laundry room.
“We mathematicians are known for our bravery,” he joked.
“I hope you’re also known for your discretion,” she said, “because we can never tell Nina that we used her fancy guest towels to clean up a flood. She gets nervous if I even drink water too close to the couch.”
“The secret’s safe with me.” Ben smiled.
“Well, I’m assuming you’d like to go home and change your clothes,” Amie offered.
But Ben didn’t want to part just yet. Something inside him told him to stay.
“Actually . . . what I’d really like is a drink,” said Ben. “And maybe some company?”
Drinks blended into dinner at a trattoria around the corner, which Amie suggested to pretend that they, too, were in Italy.
“I asked Nina to bring back gondola key chains for all my students,” she explained, after they’d polished off their food.
“That’s really nice,” said Ben. “Sounds like something my mom would’ve done. She and my dad were both teachers, too.”
“So, I remind you of your mother?” Amie teased, just as the waiter arrived with two steaming cappuccinos. “Girls love that.”
Ben thought that he and Amie had been toeing the line between friendliness and flirtation. Had Amie just intentionally crossed it?
Was this what a first date felt like? It had been so long that Ben had nearly forgotten.
Suddenly he was nervous that he might spill his drink or get cappuccino foam stuck on his lip. Was he crunching the biscotti too loudly? All these trifling little worries of the time before, the nagging insecurities.
It was almost a luxury to feel them again.
As Nina and Maura enjoyed their journey abroad, Ben stumbled into something of an adventure himself, a whirl of outings with Amie.
They met again at Nina and Maura’s apartment, so Ben could finish taking his measurements, then Amie accompanied him to the frame shop, helping him pick something her sister would like.
In the span of just over a week, there were dinners and walks in the park. Morning bagels and evening drinks. And after Ben leaned in to kiss her one night, Amie asked if the date had to end. In an incredible feat of willpower, Ben invited her to a nearby café instead of back to his apartment. He couldn’t take that next step yet, at least not without feeling guilty.
Not when Amie still didn’t know.
But they had spent all this time together, and the topic of the strings had never come up. Amie seemed content to avoid the subject, and Ben didn’t know how to address it.
Over coffee that night, Amie pulled out her phone, scrolling through the recent messages, while Ben’s eyes traced the curve of her profile. As an architect, he strove for symmetry, but he was oddly delighted by the fact that she had a small constellation of freckles on her right cheek, and none on her left.
“Look at this,” she said, holding up a photo of the Italian countryside. “Nina just sent it to me. Isn’t it gorgeous?” Then she cupped her hands around her mug and let out a contented sigh. “Do you ever think about moving to some small village in Europe? Like, just leaving the frenzy of New York and living in a cottage, where you can bike into town, and everybody knows everybody else, and you can eat fresh breads and jams and cheeses for the rest of your life?”
“Honestly, not very often.” Ben laughed. “But it does sound nice when you describe it.”
“I’m sure the fantasy is nicer than the reality,” Amie said with a shrug. “It’s strange, because people often talk about that dream of ‘the simple life,’ or focusing on ‘the simple things.’ But just because you live in the country, away from all the superficial stuff, I guess that doesn’t really make life any less complicated.”
Ben nodded knowingly. “At least you get to face it while eating fresh breads and cheeses.”
Amie smiled. “Nina and Maura are going to Verona tomorrow, for their last day,” she said. “And I keep thinking about Romeo and Juliet. Did you know there’s actually this tradition in Verona of writing letters to Juliet?”