Tonight, at a party, someone took a photograph of me. I am holding a crumpled paper napkin. It is a napkin which I know contains the crumbs of a cracker and brie. In the photograph there is a woman beside me, smiling, and beside her, another woman who is not. I am wearing the t-shirt I took from the ‘Lost & Found’ box at work, red with a faded beer logo. I am also wearing my favorite scarf. It is the black sales-rack scarf. You can not tell from the photograph but the scarf is starting to unravel at the ends; starting to disentangle itself from its own design. Each time I wear it, I remind myself that this is what you get when you settle for what is left, after everything else is gone - things that fall apart.
The photograph does not say what comes next: Me, in single frame recollections, leaving to meet you at the gallery. Me, waiting near the street light, nervously arranging and rearranging my scarf, which is unraveling at the ends. Me, watching you walk across the parking lot, your sister a shadow. There you are, inside the gallery. You are smiling. You are talking about the newspaper. You are stealing Halloween candy.
We are not on a date. Instead, we are going to the movies with a friend and your sister. We sit beside one another but we do not touch. Not once. Not even accidentally, arms searching for rest. I cry with the widow on the screen and I like you more when I realize you are crying, too. You lean away and whisper to your sister in Czech. Your voice is warm and I imagine your mouth must taste like fresh bread and mangos. Airy and tart. I try to look at you. Study your profile. Memorize you this way, before I know for certain who you are. Before I remember that I can never be certain who you are. In every frame, you are blurred around the edges, slightly out of focus. Everything about you is possibility.
If things go badly for us, in a day or a month or ten years, I will look at this photograph of me smiling, at a party. Me, with a crumpled napkin and a stolen t-shirt. Me, moments before you. I will remind myself that what came after was not a date. Instead, we went to the movies with a friend, and your sister. I did not memorize your profile. We did not touch, even accidentally.
I will tell myself that I never imagined kissing you. Leaning in, breath inside breath. The spontaneous combustion of a first kiss. I will deny that I imagined you sleeping behind me, bodies curled like tea spoons nestled in a drawer. I will forget that I wanted to reach out and take your hand, study the shape and size of it, imagine its fit against my face or the small of my back or the heat of it, palm against palm, with your fingers snaking between mine.
This photograph does not say what comes after. It does not tell me if you touched me or if you loved me or if you crushed me and left me standing, cold and angry, outside another gallery, unraveling at the ends.
Instead, this photograph reminds me, in single frames of you, leaving. “
I will be in touch, soon” you say as you drive away. “
Soon” which tastes like Halloween candy. Smells like the detergent I used to wash the stolen t-shirt. Feels like the long windy drive across the bridge, scarf trailing, disentangling itself from its own design. You, with your lips curled around the possibility of soon, which beats in my belly like flight, hinting of mangos and fresh bread.
This is a photograph of me. Me, at a party, smiling, beside a woman whose name I no longer remember. Me, without the slightest hint as to what comes after.
