One Monday morning we met back at work. I'd spent Sunday at the beach and arrived with a slight sunburn. William touched my peeling shoulder with his fingertips.
Does that hurt?
No, I wanted to scream. It feels really, really good when you do that.
Gone, I was a goner, gone, gone. I fell tippy-top down a steep incline, laughing all the way….
Until an impediment opened up like a steep black chasm in front of me, and I balked.
I had a dinner to thank both the producer and William for their hard work. We sat at my long pine table in candlelight, laughing about the ups and downs of production. Then the producer said she had to leave. William stayed. I showed him my clunker of a computer. I put a Carlos Jobim CD on the player. We chatted about…nothing. Time stood still, time ticked by, until he said it was time for him to leave. I busied myself packing up leftover roast lamb and chocolate mousse for him to take home. We stepped outside into the dark, cool summer night. I walked with him to his car across the street.
You know, Mel, I almost made a really clumsy pass at you back there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, William…I've had a terrible crush on you for a long time.
And we stopped in the middle of the street, right by his 1993 Nissan Altima.
What? You have?
Yeah.
I have to kiss you. Right now. I do.
And he did. I leaned back against the car, he took my face in his hands and our lips sank into each other like marshmallows dipped in the juice of ripe raspberries. He pulled away, looked into my eyes and we both smiled.
Then I glanced over his shoulder and screamed FIRE!
I could see through my living-room windows that my apartment was aflame. The candles on the dining table had burned down into their holders, which were decorated with flammable fabric flowers — and good God they were blazing.
William, thinking I was attempting to extricate myself from our make-out session, looked at me skeptically. I screamed, No really, FIRE! And ran.
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