And there’s that look: surprise, amusement. “That wasn’t her office,” he says slowly, drawing out his words. “And I would say she was more undressing me.”
“Oh, never mind, then. By all means, order the chocolate.”
He gives me a long look. “No. To repent, I will order mine with Nutella.”
“That’s hardly repenting. Nutella is practically chocolate.”
“It’s made from nuts.”
“And chocolate! It’s disgusting.”
“You just say that because you’re American.”
“That has nothing to do with it! You seem to have a bottomless appetite for chocolate and bread, but I don’t assume it’s because you’re Dutch.”
“Why would it be?”
“Dutch Cocoa? You guys have the lock on it.”
Willem laughs. “I think you have us confused with the Belgians. And I get my sweet tooth from my mother, who’s not even Dutch. She says she craved chocolate all through her pregnancy with me and that’s why I like it so much.”
“Figures. Blame the woman.”
“Who’s blaming?”
The waitress comes over with our drinks.
“So, Celine,” I begin, knowing I should let this go but am somehow unable to. “She’s, like, the bookkeeper? At the club.”
“Yes.”
I know it’s catty, but I’m gratified that it’s such a dull job. Until Willem elaborates. “Not the bookkeeper. She
“Oh.” I deflate. “She must be very talented. Do you know her from the acting thing?”
“No.”
“Well, how did you meet?”
He plays with the wrapper from my straw.
“I get it,” I say, wondering why I’m bothering to ask what is so painfully clear. “You guys were an item.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Oh.” Surprise. And relief.
And then Willem says, ever so casually, “We just fell in love once.”
I take a gulp of my
“It was a while ago.”
“And now?”
“We are good friends. As you saw.”
I’m not sure that’s exactly what I saw.
“So you’re not in love with her anymore?” I run my fingers along the rim of my glass.
Willem looks at me. “I never said I was in love with her.”
“You
“And I did.”
I stare at him, confused.
“There is a world of difference, Lulu, between
I feel my face go hot, and I’m not entirely sure why. “Isn’t it just sequential—A follows B?”
“You have to fall in love to be in love, but falling in love isn’t the same as being in love.” Willem peers at me from under his lashes. “Have you ever fallen in love?”
Evan and I broke up the day after he mailed in his college tuition deposit. It wasn’t unexpected. Not really. We had already agreed we would break up when we went to college if we didn’t wind up in the same geographical area. And he was going to school in St. Louis. I was going to school in Boston. The thing I hadn’t expected was the timing. Evan decided it made more sense to “rip the bandage off” and break up not in June, when we graduated, or in August, when we’d leave for school, but in April.
But the thing is, aside from being sort of humiliated by the rumor that I’d been dumped and disappointed about missing prom, I wasn’t actually sad about losing
“No,” I reply. “I’ve never been in love.”
Just then the waitress arrives with our crepes. Mine is golden brown, wafting with the sweet tartness of lemon and sugar. I concentrate on that, cutting off a slice and popping it in my mouth. It melts on the tip of my tongue like a warm, sweet snowdrop.
“That’s not what I asked,” Willem says. “I asked if you’ve ever
The playfulness is his voice is like an itch I just can’t scratch. I look at him, wondering if he always parses semantics like this.
Willem puts down his fork and knife. “
“Being in love is a birthmark?” I joke as I retract my arm. But my voice has a tremble in it, and the place where his wet thumbprint is drying against my skin burns somehow.
“It’s something that never comes off, no matter how much you might want it to.”
“You’re comparing love to a . . . stain?”
He leans so far back in his seat that the front legs of his chair scrape off the floor. He looks very satisfied, with the crepe or with himself, I’m not sure. “Exactly.”
I think of the coffee stain on his jeans. I think of Lady Macbeth and her “Out, damned spot,” stain, another speech I had to memorize for English. “
Willem just shrugs. “Maybe just in English. In Dutch, it’s
“How many languages have you been stained in?”
He licks his thumb again and reaches across the table for my wrist, where he missed the tiniest smudge of Nutella. This time he wipes it—me—clean. “None. It always comes off.” He scoops the rest of the crepe into his mouth, taking the dull edge of his knife to scrape the Nutella off the plate. Then he runs his finger around the rim, smearing the last of it away.
“Right,” I say. “And why get stained when getting dirty is so much more fun?” I taste lemons in my mouth again, and I wonder where all the sweetness went.
Willem doesn’t say anything. Just sips his coffee.
Three women wander into the cafe. They are all impossibly tall, almost as tall as Willem, and thin, with legs that seem to end at their boobs. They are like some strange race of human-giraffes. Models. I’ve never seen one in the wild before, but it is obvious what they are. One of them is wearing a tiny pair of shorts and platform sandals; she checks Willem out, and he gives her his little half smile, but then it’s like he catches himself and looks back at me.
“You know what it sounds like to me?” I ask. “It sounds like you just like to screw around. Which is fine. But