After we’ve canvassed the entire neighborhood, we get back into Max’s car. We drive, touring one neighborhood after the next, Max keeping up a steady running commentary of the sites. I’m not sure where we’re at when we stop to get out of the car again, but after a few minutes of walking, I see it: the LOVE sculpture. I’ve seen it before—everyone has—but I’ve never actually walked up to it. Never taken a picture with it.
But we do now, in true tourist fashion, asking the most reliable-looking bystander if he’ll take our picture. We trust him not to steal Max’s phone based on his neat gray comb-over and spiffy white Keds and the fanny pack clipped around his waist.
I try not to read into the photo—Max and I posing in front of bold red LOVE.
It’s just a thing that tourists do. Being in love is not a requirement.
I’m surprised to find that I’m hungry again, and Max insists we can’t leave until we eat a proper dinner. Food we could never eat in Green Woods, he says. He takes me to a Moroccan restaurant, dimly lit and covered in plush cushions. We’re served round after round of delicious sweet, spicy food, pies and stew and kebabs and pastries.
We end the day with a stroll along Boathouse Row, charming old houses lining the edges of the Schuylkill River. The sun has just set and the glittering lights framing the houses are reflected in the dark, still water. We stop and hug by the glowing banks and I hold Max more tightly than I’ve ever held anything in my life.
Philly will never feel the same.
Max and I sit in the parked car in my driveway.
Neither of us is ready to say good night. It’s been too perfect a day to end it before midnight. Every last minute of it needs to be fully lived.
Only the porch light is turned on. The windows are all black. Mimmy and Mama didn’t wait up. They never do, and I’m glad tonight wasn’t an exception.
We’re listening to the crickets, Max improvising lyrics to go along with the loud hum of their nightly mating call. Playing out, into the night, those cricket ladies are lovely all right. There’s a lull in the noise, and Max abruptly stops singing. He turns to look at me.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks. He sounds nervous. His hand feels warm in mine. Too warm. I’m nervous now, too, nervous that we’ll cross those boundaries after all, talk about things I’d rather leave unsaid. At least for today. No Frank. No family drama. No murder.
“Sure,” I say anyway. The right response, even if it’s not the one I’d prefer. It wouldn’t be kind to say I’d rather listen to crickets rubbing their wings together than whatever Max would like to confide in me.
“I wanted to say it earlier today. A few times. But the moment never felt right enough.”
“You’re making me anxious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
“This isn’t how I pictured it going.”
“It’s not how you pictured what going?”
“I love you, Calliope. I know we only met last month, but I do. I’ve been falling for you since the day I came looking for sugar.”
“Oh.”
There’s not nearly enough air circulating in the car. I jab frantically at the window button to put it all the way down. Then I remember that the car is shut off. The window doesn’t move. I open the door instead.
“Uh. Are you running away?”
“No. Of course not. Just getting some more air in here.”
“I’m not sure that’s the response I was going for.”
“You’re making me want to faint. That’s not a bad thing. Romance can do that to a girl.”
“You know you don’t have to say it back. It’s not like that. I probably just terrified you, saying it so soon. You don’t owe me an I love you just because I said it to you.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“But I do.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“You do what?”
“I love you, too.”
“Thank god.” He slaps the steering wheel with his free hand. “You scared the shit out of me. But I wanted to handle myself like a real gentleman. Act all brave and understanding, even with rejection.”
It’s dark in the car, but I can still see the relieved smile break open on his face.
Maybe this—love—happened fast. But that doesn’t make it less real.
I love him. I do.
“Can we say it again?” he asks. “Just so I can be sure I didn’t dream the last time. And because you kind of took your sweet time getting to it.”
“I love you, Max Martz.”
“I love you, too, Calliope Silversmith.”
The letter comes on Thursday.
A week after I submitted the request.
The return address is the cryobank.
This feels fast for an actual response from him. Too fast.
It could just be a confirmation, I suppose, some official note letting me know that the request is being processed. But I know without opening it—that’s not what it is. I know that the answer I think I want will be inside.
I checked the mailbox as soon as I got home from my shift at the studio—I’ve been tracking the mail obsessively, along with vigilant e-mail checks on my phone. The mail truck comes between 11:13 and 11:48 every morning without fail. Mama and Mimmy are usually at work then, but a few times on off shifts one of them beat me to it. I’m lucky today was not one of those days.
I’ll tell them, of course I will. But not yet.
I tuck the letter under my pillow and sit on my bed. It’s hot
