better to help people than garden gnomes

We woke up Wednesday morning without an alarm clock. Without a watch. Without a cell phone to give us hints as to how late we’d slept, if we’d missed the movers, if it was even still Wednesday. The clock on the oven said 6am. The one outside said 6:30. The second hand on both appeared to be still. The movers were coming at 8. It was sunny. We could hear cars and seagulls. Horn beeps and pigeon coos.

people in pinstripes
and furrowed brows walk by, we sit
wednesday, 7 a.m.

In a daze we made it to the coffee shop. Standing in line, wearing the same clothes we’d had on for days, our hair everywhere, talking. Paul needed stamps for postcards home. Ones he had bought in Montana. For his parents. He liked the idea that his mom would hang them on the refrigerator. I needed to wait for the movers and let them in. We each got coffee and shared a scone, walked along the water and made it back just in time to wait outside. The concrete stoop was cold and in the shade.

The movers came. Paul left in search of a post office. I signed paper after paper saying that if they broke something, it wasn’t their fault. In triplicate. One to me. One to them. One for good luck. They were done in less than two hours and sat around in my new apartment until I kicked them out.

Paul came back but I don’t remember it at all. I can’t recall if I was outside or in my apartment. If he was late or on time or if we even had agreed upon a time. I just know he came back and we returned the truck and took the bus to downtown and it was sunny and warm. I remember the sun and the warm. I remember being happy that it wasn’t raining and happy that all the things we needed to get done were done and the day was free. Paul wrote a poem on his walk that I made him repeat a dozen times. His gravely voice, perfect. I want to write it here but didn’t ask him if I could. So I won’t share it yet. It will be just his for a while longer.


We went to the Market. Pike’s Place Market. My favorite part of Seattle. It was filled with tourists and smelled of fruit stands, ocean and camera flashes. We liked the hub-bub. The being jostled. The bumping into each other and everyone else. Like cattle. We’d duck into the Italian markets for a second to gaze at the cheese cases and bins of fresh bread, then back into the heard until the next little store pulled us in with a smell or a window display or a catchy name. Everywhere my eyes landed, there was something pretty. Rows of fruit or magazines. Families taking pictures of each other with fish mongers or iron pigs. Cobblestones and scruffy men with guitars.

guitar case open
dollars and coins on the teal
his voice kissing the notes

We had lunch outside, on a balcony above the hustle. A Cuban place. We could see the water and the mountains. I got to wear my sunglasses and trade spicy black beans for potato halves covered in a rich ochre colored sauce. I remember Paul asking me about my new job. Saying he could see living here. Maybe moving here. Maybe in a year. I remember telling him that I wasn’t nervous for my first day. That I liked not having to be anywhere and I especially liked that neither of us had watches on. After 4 days of being no more than a foot apart, we started to tease each other and banter. I kept accusing him of picking on me, and he’d defend himself saying he wasn’t. Said with a smile. A sly one.


After lunch, we poked fun of each other and the exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum. Paul is whip smart and it was extra nice to have a sparring partner who could hold his own with witty repartee as well as impress me with ideas about what we were seeing. He made fun of Jackson Pollock and confessed a love for large things made out of wood. I was enamored with the repetition of images in the China exhibit and amused by the hundreds of hand stitched Barbie sized jumpsuits on display, nailed in a pattern to a white wall. I remember walking out the front doors of the museum, face to face with the ankles of the Hammering Man, and knowing that this was the best day in a long time.

The rest of the afternoon melts together. We got coffee and sat outside. We looked at the water and walked around the city. I remember us each saying more than once how much we loved not knowing what time it was and having no where to be, nothing to do, no truck to drive. It was nice to finally be where we were going.

We had planned to eat dinner somewhere kind of fancy and I had planned to eat fish for the first time in ages. I wanted to get a little drunk on white wine, too. Laura gave us a few recommendations but due to long waits and no seats at the bar, we wound up across the street. It was fancy and nice, and instantly better than where we had left. Paul picked the wine. I liked that, chivalrous and smart all at once. I was tipsy after a glass or two. Cheap date. Dinner was amazing. I had berry salsa. He had a drink that tasted like stuffing. The conversation is kind of a blur. I know I smiled the whole time. I know a laughed a whole lot. I remember giving him a look and, I think, getting it back. That look of when it’s been a good day, when you are with a good friend, that happy to be just where you are kind of look. On the walk home I made him say his poem a dozen times more.

Back in the apartment, we kept the lights off and sat on the couch together. He laid his head in my lap and I mussed and smoothed his hair. We were quiet, I remember. Street noise bounced off the floors and walls. The glow of downtown made everything blue. He kissed me. He whispered “Oh, Nichols” when I bit his lip a little. I laughed and he kissed my teeth. I kinda wanted to stop time for a bit. It was a present day. I don’t know who from or for what occasion. But it was so needed. Like a calm after a storm or soup when you’re sick. It wasn’t Paul. It wasn’t Seattle. It wasn’t the sunny day. It was something in me. I let go of some of the ick I had been caring around and picked up a glimpse of what my life could be like. That there are boys out there who are who a wild mix of sweet and creative and sexy and smart who’ll trade secret looks with me at dinner. That there are apartments with swings and 2nd floor windows you can crawl out of. That there are newspapers and moving allowances and brand new jobs.

This ends the story of our drive here. Of being dropped off by Paul. Thursday there were clocks and clothes to pack and airplanes to catch. When he left, there were about 15 minutes where I wished it was me leaving instead. I missed my house and my friends. I missed knowing my way around. I felt really alone and afraid for the first time. Worried Seattle would never seem like home. But just as quickly as that feeling came, it left.

Welcome to Chapter Three.