“I mistrust devices. Seems like a gimmick to me.”
But saying that, he grabbed the iPad and turned it over. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to prevent it. I was conscious of the train-ness of the whole experience: cute guy, train moving, lights, scents of food from back in the bar cars, foreign languages, adventure. Also, he smiled. He had a killer smile, a conspiratorial smile, a smile that said mischief wasn’t far off, come along, we’re going to have a better time than you’re having alone.
“Hemingway?” he asked, reading a page. “The Sun Also Rises. Wow, you’ve got it bad.”
“Got what bad?”
“Oh, you know, the whole Hemmy thing. Paris, kissing the old women in the slaughterhouses, wine, impressionists, all that. The usual romance of the ex-patriate experience in Europe. Maybe even the I-want-to-be-a-writer-and-live-in-a-garret thing. You might even have it that bad. I thought women didn’t like Hemingway anymore.”
“I like the sadness.”
He looked at me. He hadn’t expected that, I could tell. He even bent back a little to see me more fully. It was a look of appraisal.
“East Coast,” he said tentatively, like a man caught between choices of ice cream flavors. “Jersey, maybe Connecticut. Dad works in New York. It could be Cleveland, maybe the Heights, I could be off that much, but I don’t think so. How close am I?”
“Where are you from?”
“Vermont. But you didn’t tell me if I was right or wrong.”
“Keep going. I want you to tell me my whole profile.”
He looked at me again. He put his hand softly on my chin. It struck me as a pretty good pickup tactic regardless of how accurate he might be. He turned my face gently from side to side, looking seriously at me. He had wonderful eyes. My neck glowed like red flannel. I glanced quickly to see if maybe Constance had stirred at our voices, but she still slept. She could sleep through a hurricane, I knew.
“You graduated recently. You’re in Europe with your buddies now … sorority sisters? No, probably not sorority sisters. You’re too clever for that. Maybe you worked on the college newspaper together. Good college, too, am I right? East Coast, so, maybe Sarah Lawrence, Smith, something like that.”
“Amherst,” I said.
“Oooooo, so smart, too. Tough to get into Amherst these days. Or well connected, which is it? How smart? Hmm? That remains to be seen. But you’re reading Hemingway in Europe, so that’s either very impressive or terribly clichéd.”
“You’re being a jerk, you know? A condescending jerk. That’s the worst kind.”
“I’m doing a male display in order to meet you. The thing is, I like you. I liked you right off. If I had tail feathers, I would spread them out and dance around you to demonstrate my interest. But how am I doing so far? Is it working at all? Feel any pitter-pat in your heart?”
“You were better before you opened your mouth. Much better, actually.”
“Okay, touché. Let’s see. Mom involved in charities, volunteer work. Dad has made it big. Corporate big, not entrepreneurial big. But that’s just a guess. Lots of dough either way. You’re reading Hemingway, so you have artistic feelings, but you don’t trust them because, well, because they aren’t practical. Hemingway is part of the well-read résumé, right?”
I took a deep breath, nodded to accept what he said, then slowly began to speak.
“And you are a pretend back-to-earther green Vermonter jackass who talks a lot, probably reads—I’ll give you that—who has one of those quiet little trust funds that allows you to wander around the world, picking up girls and dazzling them with your wit and wisdom and erudition. The thing is, you’re not about the sex that might come along with that package, although you don’t mind it. You’re about getting the girls to fall for you, to marvel at your wonderfulness, because that’s your particular pathology. And so you can riff on the whole Hemmy thing as if you two are old drinking buddies, but Hemingway did this all for real—he was after something you’ll never understand—and you, you’re just playing at it, and you should leave now because Amy should be back soon.”
He smiled. If I hurt him, his eyes didn’t give him away. Then he winced playfully.
“Just take the knife out of me before I go.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” I said, and I couldn’t help laying on the name a bit and mocking him with it. “Did anyone ever mention that you look like a bad version of Hugh Jackman?”
“The Wolverine?”
I nodded.
“I give. You win. Mercy.”
He started to stand, then he grabbed for my calendar that I had beneath the iPad.
“Tell me that’s not a Smythson. Smythson of Bond Street? Oh, good gracious, the most expensive, tony Day Runner anyone ever saw? Tell me you don’t actually own one of those.”
“It was a graduation present. And it wasn’t full price, believe me. It was a deal thing, and it was pretty much for free.”
“I’m trying to imagine what kind of person needs a pretentious calendar to remind her that she’s doing okay.”
“Punctual people. People who want to remember appointments. People who are trying to accomplish something in this world.”
“Oh, and you’re one of those?”
“Trying to be.”
“How much do those things cost, anyway?”
“Not your business. Go bother somebody else, would you?”
“Oh, good Lord,” he said, dropping the Smythson back in my lap. “Do you really think if you get every gold star the teacher hands out there is a huge refrigerator in the sky where you get to hang your special papers? That some supermommy somewhere will put refrigerator magnets on your accomplishments and everyone will stand back and applaud?”
I wanted to punch him. I nearly did.
“Do you really think, Jack, that roaming around Europe and trying to be a lost, romantic soul will turn you into anything other than a cynical drunk sitting in a bar somewhere and boring everyone around you?”
“Wow,” he said. “Are you just traveling for your résumé? So you can say at a cocktail party someday that you’ve been to Paris? Why did you bother coming over here if you see travel that way?”
“I don’t see it any one way, Jack. But little hipster dudes who are, like, a hundred years late to the party, to Paris, and all that between wartime romance, well, they’re pitiful. Some of us believe in doing things. In making things. So, yes, sometimes we get calendars from Bond Street that help us organize our day. That’s called human progress. We have cars and planes and, yes, iPads and iPhones. Deal with it, Vermont boy.”
He grinned. I almost grinned back. I had to admit he was fun to spar with. I didn’t think he took much of what we said seriously. The only thing he seemed to take seriously was the way our eyes kept catching and holding.