The waterfall stops for a few seconds, starts. Aline and the woman have finished their food and are drinking from their containers. I stand up to go over to her, sit. I’m nervous. My stomach aches a little. It’s been a long time. I think I’m afraid of a brushoff. No, I’m sure she’ll be polite and probably interested to speak to me. I feel my hair. It’s standing up in places and I comb it back flat as I can get it. I’m almost sure she’ll be glad to see me. After three years she’ll have forgotten or just won’t care what went wrong between us. I have. We’ll be like two old friends meeting by surprise after a long time, so with none of our defenses prepared, or something like that. It’s happened before with others. Only a few people keep that wall up for all occasions, but she’s not like that or wasn’t. That doesn’t change. I look at my nails. Clean enough though the cuticles could use clipping. She used to say I didn’t take care of my nails, but I started to soon after we started seeing one another. Continued to also, but I probably haven’t paid attention to them the last few days. Try nibbling the worst of the ragged cuticles off and they’d start bleeding. If I don’t go over I’ll regret it. I’ll do something stupid later on, like calling her tonight, if she’s still at her old address or in the phonebook. I’ll say something on the phone like “I saw you today, I’m sure you didn’t me, but I didn’t have the courage to go over to you. I was nervous, what can I tell you?” If she then said she also saw me but didn’t have the courage to speak to me or whatever, I don’t know what I’d say. It’d be a departure point for more conversation though. No. I wouldn’t call, though I’d certainly think about doing it. I have to go over. I get up. I carry my sweater and jacket and the paper bag, look for a trash can to throw it in, don’t see one, and approach the table. Her friend sees me approaching, pulls herself closer to the table to make more room for me to pass. “No no,” I say, “I just wanted to say hello to Aline.”
Aline starts to turn to me. “Oh no,” she says, covering her eyes with her hands and turning back to her friend, “I don’t believe it — I won’t. Ty. Oh God, Ty.”
“Yes,” I say. “How are you?”
“I still don’t believe it,” Her eyes are still covered. “Oh God, I knew this would happen one day. What did I tell myself to do if it did? I forget. Well, it’s a nice place for it to happen, but I don’t want it to happen. Deborah, this is going to seem nuts to you, even embarrassing, but this is Ty whom you know about and I don’t want to see him, so put up with me for a few minutes? Ty,” her hands still over her eyes, “I don’t want to see you. I have my reasons. Believe me I do. I told myself the day I last saw you, whenever that was—”
“Three years ago. Three and a half, even.”
“Whenever, that if I bumped into you — now I remember. Told myself several times and never changed what I said I’d do, that I would do my damndest not to speak to you and to do everything I could to get away quick as I could from you. You know why. No, you probably forgot. No — with your mind? — you know why, though watch, watch, you’re now probably going to ask why I’m acting this way.”
“That’s right. I’m standing here wondering—”
“You probably think after so long a time that we could just meet and talk and joke and shake hands and ask after each other — well you know, right? Don’t answer,” when I’m about to say yes. Deborah’s not believing this. She says “If you want me to leave, Aline?”
“You crazy? Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. You stay. We’re both leaving here together,” Hands still over her eyes, back towards me. People at other tables are looking at us. Almost everyone at the surrounding tables. My stomach hurts worse than before. I don’t understand why she’s doing this. “Think I’m crazy,” Aline says to me, hands, back, the same way. “Think anything, but what you did will take six more years to make me bump in to you normally and say hello and how is the family and your mother who I hope is still living and healthy—”