ADAM AND NICOLE – IN THE DARK UNIVERSE

And just like that, we have a secret. Nearly every day we exchange a couple of emails. Banter. Teasing. I dare her. She accepts. She challenges me with tasks. And I welcome even more when she steps a little closer and asks a question. And every Thursday afternoon, late in the workday, I show up at the restaurant. She shows up at the restaurant. We have coffee and share an appetizer, and we pretend to catch up. I pretend I didn’t buy new shirts and ties or tried them on in front of the mirror with different suits to make sure they’d look good to her. She pretends she isn’t obsessing about whether or not to wear perfume or lipstick. We pretend we do not show up at the same place, the same time frame. Except today. I finally took care of the check and get up to leave when she rushes in. I look at her while her breathing turns to an almost inaudible sigh.

And I stop pretending I did not know, and so I ask, “Long surgery?”

“How…..” and she pauses, “yes.”

“How did it go?”

“Good.”

“Good. Do you want to stay and have coffee?”

Nicole runs her fingers into her hair, trying to tidy it up. She shakes her head, “No. Not sure I can hold anything down.”

I take her arm and hook it around my arm. My hand on her hand. I suggest, “how about we walk over to the planetarium and see the space show?”

“The space show?” She laughs, at me, I think.

“What? Too nerdy for you? Come on, it’d be fun. We can sit in the dark, look at the dark universe, celebrate the unknown.”

She walks with me and leans her head on my shoulder. How does she do that? I didn’t even know I was empty until she leans in and I am filled.

“I guess I’m not an unknown after all. How did you know?”

“The way you cut that game hen. Then it all made sense to me. Your hands. Does it upset you? ”

“I don’t know what to say. I thought I was very careful not to let on that part of me.”

“You are very careful. It’s me. I had a lot of training in observation and surveillance.”

“I’m a little freaked out right now.”

“Don’t be. Please. Your secret is safe with me.”

“I thought I was very cautious.”

“Oh you exercise extreme caution, I assure you.”

We just walk. We don’t say another word the entire rest of the time. We enter the planetarium and let the narrator’s voice lull us into a state of wonder, all the while the universe unfolds above and around us. I feel her cheek against my shoulder, soft and scorching. The moon, the galaxies and supernovas flash from the beginning of the universe until the present. And when they get to the dark matter and the dark energy, I swallow her into our own dark universe. I kissed her. And I kissed her. I kiss her. And I kiss her. And she kept kissing me back. She kissed me back. And she kisses me back.