Laura Dave: The Last Thing He Told Me

“Looks fine to me,” he said. “We good here?”

Then, before I answered, he headed outside.

Owen, on the other hand, was mesmerized. He did a slow sweep of the whole workshop, stopping to study each piece.

I watched him as he walked around. He was such a confusing picture: This long-limbed guy with shaggy blond hair and sun-drenched skin, in worn-out Converse sneakers. All of which seemed at odds with his fancy sports jacket. It was almost like he fell off a surfboard into the jacket, the starched shirt beneath it.

I realized I was staring and started to turn away just as Owen stopped in front of my favorite piece—a farm table that I used as a desk.

My computer and newspapers and small tools covered most of it. You could only make out the table beneath if you were really looking. He was. He took in the stiff redwood that I had chiseled down, gently yellowing the corners, welding rough metal to each edge.

Was Owen the first customer to notice the table? No, of course not. But he was the first to bend down, just like I’d often do, running his fingers along the sharp metal and holding the table there.

He turned his head and looked up at me. “Ouch,” he said.

“Try bumping up against it in the middle of the night,” I said.

Owen stood back up, giving the table a tap goodbye. Then he walked over to me. He walked over to me until somehow we were standing close to each other—too close, really, for me not to wonder how we’d gotten there. I probably should have felt self-conscious about my tank top and paint-splattered jeans, the messy bun on top of my head, my unwashed curls falling out of it. I felt something else though, watching him look at me.

“So,” he said, “what’s the asking price?”

“Actually, the table is the only piece in the showroom that’s not for sale,” I said.

“Because it could cause injury?” he said.

“Exactly,” I said.

This was when he smiled. When Owen smiled. It was like the title of a bad pop song. To be clear, it wasn’t that his smile lit up his face. It wasn’t anything as sentimental or explosive as that. It was more that his smile—this generous, childlike smile—made him seem kind. It made him seem kind in a way I wasn’t used to running into on Greene Street in downtown Manhattan. It was expansive in a way I’d started to doubt I’d ever run into on Greene Street in downtown Manhattan.

“So, no negotiating on the table then?” he said.

“Afraid not, but I could show you some different pieces?”

“How about a lesson instead? You could show me how to make a similar table for myself, but maybe with slightly kinder edges…” he said. “I’ll sign a waiver. Any injuries acquired would be at my own risk.”

I was still smiling, but I felt confused. Because all of a sudden I didn’t think we were talking about the table. I felt fairly confident that we weren’t. I felt as confident as a woman could who had spent the last two years engaged to a man whom she’d realized she couldn’t marry. Two weeks before their wedding.

“Look, Ethan…” I said.

“Owen,” he corrected.

“Owen. That’s nice of you to ask,” I said, “but I kind of have a no-dating policy with clients.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I can’t afford to buy anything you’re selling then,” he said.

But that stopped him. He shrugged, as if to say some other time, and headed toward the door and Avett, who was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, still on his phone call, yelling at the person on the other end.

He was almost out the door. He was almost gone. But I felt instantly—and strongly—the need to reach out and stop him from leaving, to say that I hadn’t meant it. I’d meant something else. I’d meant he should stay.

I’m not saying it was love at first sight. What I’m saying is that a part of me wanted to do something to stop him from walking away. I wanted to be around that stretched-out smile a little longer.

“Wait,” I said. I looked around, searching for something to hold him there, zeroing in on a textile that belonged to another client, holding it up. “This is for Belle.”

It was not my finest moment. And, as my former fiancé would tell you, it was also completely out of character for me to reach out to someone as opposed to pulling away.

“I’ll make sure she gets it,” he said.

He took it from me, avoiding my eyes.

“For the record, I have one too. A no-dating policy. I’m a single father, and it goes with the territory…” He paused. “But my daughter’s a theater junkie. And I’ll lose serious points if I don’t see a play while I’m in New York.”

He motioned toward an angry Avett, screaming on the sidewalk.

“A play’s not exactly Avett’s thing, as surprising as that sounds…”

“Very,” I said.

“So… what do you think? Do you want to come?”

He didn’t move closer, but he did look up. He looked up and met my eyes.

“Let’s not consider it a date,” he said. “It will be a onetime thing. We’ll agree on that going in. Just dinner and a play. Nice to meet you.”

“Because of our policies?” I said.

His smile returned, open and generous. “Yes,” he said. “Because of them.”

“What’s that smell?” Bailey asks.

I’m pulled from my memory to find Bailey standing in the kitchen doorway. She looks irritated standing there in a chunky sweater—a messenger bag slung over her shoulder, her purple-streaked hair caught beneath its strap.

I smile at her, my phone cradled under my chin. I have been trying to reach Owen, unsuccessfully, the phone going to voice mail. Again. And again.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” I say.

She doesn’t respond, her mouth pinched. I put my phone away, ignoring her perma-scowl. She’s a beauty, despite it. She’s a beauty in a way that I’ve noticed strikes people when she walks into a room. She doesn’t look much like Owen—her purple hair naturally a chestnut brown, her eyes dark and fierce. They’re intense—those eyes. They pull you in. Owen says that they’re just like her grandfather’s (her mother’s father), which is why they named her after him. A girl named Bailey. Just Bailey.

“Where’s my dad?” she says. “He’s supposed to drive me to play practice.”

My body tenses as I feel Owen’s note in my pocket, like a weight.

Protect her.

“I’m sure he’s on his way,” I say. “Let’s eat some dinner.”

“Is that what smells?” she says.

She wrinkles her nose, just in case it isn’t clear that the smell to which she is referring isn’t one she likes.

“It’s the linguine that you had at Poggio,” I say.

She gives me a blank look, as though Poggio isn’t her favorite local restaurant, as though we weren’t there for dinner just a few weeks before to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Bailey ordered that night’s special—a homemade multigrain linguini in a brown butter sauce. And Owen gave her a little taste of his glass of Malbec to go with it. I thought she loved the pasta. But maybe what she loved was drinking wine with her father.

I put a heaping portion on a plate and place it on the kitchen island.

“Try a little,” I say. “You’re going to like it.”

Bailey stares at me, trying to decide if she is in the mood for a showdown—if she’s in the mood for her father’s disappointment, should I snitch to him about her fast, dinnerless exit. Deciding against it, she bites back her annoyance and hops onto her barstool.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll have a little.”

Bailey almost tries with me. That’s the worst part. She isn’t a bad kid or a menace. She’s a good kid in a situation she hates. I just happen to be that situation.