Once again, you wake up running, yelling and waving your hands in the air.
The last person off the bus sees you, turns quickly, but the bus is already out of his reach.
You pull up short. "Crap!"
The man gives you a shrug and then vanishes into the crowd.
Your heart sinks – not at the prospect of another thirty-minute wait but of another fight with Inez. Not another fight, in fact – the same fight all over again.
So you do what you should have done the first time around: you pull out your phone and request an Uber.
You can't work up the nerve for another icy phone call, so you text her instead. Missed the bus. Waiting for an Uber now.
She never texts back.
On the app, you watch the rectangle that is Lizabeth-in-her-blue-Ford-Taurus creep closer and closer to the star that represents you. It's painfully slow. At one point, you swear it starts moving farther away again. Finally, you have to put your phone away before you burst a blood vessel.
The Taurus finally arrives, and you tell Lizabeth to go as fast as she can. You check your phone again and Inez still hasn't replied to your text. Even so, you text her that you're on your way and then force yourself to close your eyes and steady your breathing.
Uber notwithstanding, you're still twenty-five minutes late by the time you get to La Rose d'Or.
Inez is sitting at the same table as always. She watches as you approach, her fingers tearing a baguette to shreds, just like before.
"Look, I know I'm late," you say, before you even sit down. You shuck off your coat and hang it across the back of your chair. "And I know you're mad at me. And I deserve it."
She rolls her eyes. "Well, it's not exactly as if this were something new, is it?"
You give her a contrite nod.
"Why don't we order?" Inez says. "And then I've got some news for you."
"Oh no," you tell her, snatching away the menu she's reaching for. "You can't just say something like that and expect me to think about anything else."
She concedes this with raised eyebrows and a tilt of her head. "Okay." She takes a deep breath. "I got into Stanford."
You take both of her hands in your own. "Oh, Inez, that's wonderful! I know it's what you wanted."
"Thanks," she answers, shyly glancing down at the tablecloth.
You give her hands a little shake, bringing her eyes back up to yours again. "You don't seem so happy about it."
"I am. It's just…"
"… us," you finish for her. "Look, you don't have to feel guilty. This is something you want."
"But I don't want to hurt you," she says.
"Maybe you don't have to." You reach behind you into your coat pocket and come out with the ring box.
Her face is blank as she looks down at the box and then back up at you again. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Yes, you're right," you tell her, smiling. "It's a radish."
But she doesn’t return your grin. "You're late for absolutely everything, and this is the thing you want to be early for?"
"Early?"
"I don't know if we're ready for this," she says simply.
"I'm ready," you assure her.
"But I'm not."
For a count of ten, neither of you says anything.
Finally, Inez sighs. "Look, we've got tons of things we need to discuss, but we also have three whole months to discuss them in. For right now, let's just have a nice dinner." When you don't move, she adds gently, "Please?"
She seems so sad – suddenly you feel guilty for spoiling her good news. "Okay. Dinner."
She nods towards your hand. "And put that away, please. Damn thing makes me nervous." You know she means it as a joke, but it doesn't come out that way.
She scoops up her menu, flips it open, and hides behind it.
You slowly put the ring box back into your pocket.
You can:
. . . or you can:
use the house key to go back to the day you and Inez first met.
pull out Inez’s note to try your hand at solving the puzzle.