Shortly after, there’s an intermission, food trucks all around us selling popcorn and ice cream and nachos. I make a move to get up, to stretch my legs, but Tarek places a hand on my knee.
“Wait,” he says, nodding toward the screen.
I sit back down. It’s one of those corny social media shout-outs they have at big events: baseball games and concerts and graduations. The whole thing looks like a PowerPoint presentation put together by a seventh grader. Who got a B on it.
SENTIMENTAL IN SEATTLE are the words floating across the screen, along with a graphic of a boat and the Space Needle.
“So original,” I say.
The screen dissolves into a message that draws awws from the audience.
To Cynthia, from Richard
We saw this movie for the first time on our first date. You lamented you’d never be as beautiful as Meg Ryan, and I agreed. Because you were wrong: you’re even more beautiful, and it’s as true today as it was then. Happy 20th wedding anniversary!
“Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like the animation effect that makes text bounce.”
But Tarek is rapt, watching the screen with a strange intensity.
And that is when my stomach drops. Because the next message that appears on-screen is this:
Quinn,
I’m sorry we couldn’t figure it out last summer, but I’m glad you gave this a chance.
—Tarek
I must briefly dissociate because it takes a moment for it to register that I am this Quinn, that this is for me. I am speechless in Seattle. And then it doesn’t matter that it’s only a sentence. It doesn’t matter that no one knows this is us, even as they coo all around us at these cheap, cliché messages.
“That was—” I try to swallow, but my tongue has doubled in size. Which, coincidentally, is the same thing the SENTIMENTAL IN SEATTLE text is doing on-screen. “How did you—when did you—”
“I, uh, saw it online. When I went to change before we left for the movie,” Tarek says. He at least has the decency to look sheepish. “I thought… I thought it would be nice.”
It reminds me that for a moment last summer, I wished that boat gesture had been for me. The gesture I now know was for me.
This gesture, it comes with expectations. It says, Quick, figure out how you feel about this and What are you going to do to prove those feelings?
It says, This is going to end one day. Badly.
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, even though it isn’t. “I just… wasn’t expecting it. That’s all.”
He brushes it off with a laugh. “Sorry. I really didn’t think you’d react this way.”
“We talk about this kind of thing constantly, Tarek.” I try to keep my voice down, not wanting anyone to overhear. “You know I’m not a fan.”
“I know. I know. But we’re usually joking around, and last year I never found out how you felt about something like this being for you. I tried, but… well, we both know how that ended.”
I want to laugh this off like he did, but it gets caught in my throat. There’s a warning at the back of my mind. A flashing neon sign. Maybe it’s true he “thought it would be nice,” but I know Tarek. What this gesture really means is that he wants this to work. He wants us to work, when the truth is that there is no us that can last for a significant length of time.
We may have talked about last summer and shed the outermost layer of our insecurities. We may be a year older. But neither of us has changed. If anything, Tarek seems more romantic than ever, and that cannot possibly be a good thing.
“I thought this might be different,” he says feebly.
“And then, what, you could post this on Instagram? And delete it if it didn’t get enough likes?” It’s not the kindest thing I could say, and I immediately regret it.
“Only if I had your permission.” His expression is so rigid, I know he means it.
People are taking their artisan food truck popcorn back to their blankets, settling in for the second half.
If we talk about this much longer, he might see there’s something buried beneath my loathing of these too-public displays of affection. And I can’t dig that up.
The only option is to bury it deeper. To shut this down.
“Let’s just watch the rest of the movie,” I say, and I never thought I’d be so eager to watch two people falling in love.
“You can’t say it’s not a great ending,” Tarek says as we walk to his car. “It’s iconic. The way the music swells when she puts her hand in his—it gets me every time.”
We’ve just watched Meg Ryan rush to the Empire State Building observation deck only moments before Tom Hanks and his kid get in an elevator going down. Except the kid forgets his backpack, and as Meg Ryan picks it up and pulls a teddy bear out of it, the elevator doors open, and boom, Tom Hanks is back. They gaze at each other, seeming to instantly know who the other is. It’s nice to meet you, Meg Ryan says, the last line of the movie.
“I didn’t. All I’m saying is I don’t buy that she’s in love with him. I don’t buy that it was destiny. She doesn’t even have a conversation with him until the end of the movie!”
This, I can still do, this kind of bickering that feels playful, innocent, not laced with expectation the way his on-screen message was.
As though reading my mind, Tarek stops on the sidewalk, fiddling with his keys, not meeting my eyes. “I really am sorry. About that message.”
“I like spending time with you,” I say softly, because I don’t want to fight, and I don’t want this to ruin what’s otherwise been such a good day. Whatever we’ve started feels precarious, even if it cannot go where
