Of course, it was Valentine's Day. And of course, she was wearing denim. They meet outside Bloomingdale's, and the only mercy is that it holds for them no special memories. He sees the tightness round her mouth, the grey touch at her roots, the makeup hiding the shadows beneath her eyes. He doesn't see the something in her eyes of the woman he'd loved. He doesn't see the denim.
He looks delicious. Jeans and a green jumper which would have looked great on her the morning after. He smiles and tries to talk to her as she looks at the floor and desperately pretends she hasn't seen him. But then he grabs her arm. And that's that.
.
They go for coffee. Some little place she couldn't find again. It's dingy, and cheap, and they don't know anybody inside. He gives her that stupid smile from over her bags, and before she can check herself she's wondering whether it is his eyes or his vowels she loves the most.
'So Miss Babcock, I hope you've been well?'
'Not bad at all Niles. Yourself?'
'Oh, all fine, thank you.'
And then nothing.
He thinks the problem may be that he can't stop seeing her naked. And those lips as she laughed beneath him. And her dancing to Bob Seiger in his shirt. And all the other things he hadn't known he couldn't live without.
And then, because he knows he needs to hear her talk about something;
'How's work?'
And she's off. She is having some problem with some kind of sling – they need a man to swoop in from a balcony and then die and then get up and then do something else, only he isn't listening, because she has that something in her eyes that he didn't think he'd ever see again.
'...I really don't know how he does it.' She says of her new protagonist.
'Being fictional probably helps.' He mumbles.
But then he has to remember to breathe, because all of a sudden she is really looking at him; her head tilted and that sort-of-a-smile on her mouth.
'So tell me' he says, 'what brings you south of the Park?'
She looks up too quickly.
'Or should I say who brings you south of the Park?'
Of course, he'd read her like a book. Knew all her tells. Knew her ins and outs. She could slip nothing past him. The man's name is Peter. Not that that matters. He looks like a Kennedy; one of the men she was always supposed to marry. One of the men she had hoped she never would. Not that that matters either. She rights her head to face him and her world tilts.
'Is he nice?' Niles asks, not knowing what he wants to hear least.
She waits, just for a little while.
'Nice enough,' she says.
'Nice enough for what?' She forces her face into something like a smirk.
'Exactly.'
.
'What are you doing this afternoon?' He asks.
He hasn't had his hair cut in a while. A lock just brushes his left eyebrow, above the sea in which she finds herself so desperate to drown. And she looks at him. And he looks for all the world like everything she's lost. And that's that.
.
They don't even make it to her apartment, screwing like teenagers in the back of her car, hiding in the shadows of the car park. She comes in the elevator up to her apartment, and of all things he can't forgive her that. They indulge in each other. They are greedy; taking back everything they once gave away. They are mean, biting and screaming and drawing blood. He looks the other way when she cries. She slaps him when he tries to tell her he's missed her.
.
When they are spent they lay numb on the kitchen floor, gazing at the original mouldings on her ceiling.
'I heard you were getting married.' She says.
'I was, for a little while.'
When she speaks again it's softer than she'd hoped for.
'I just wanted you to know something.'
'What?'
'There wasn't ever a moment I didn't love you.'
Still they can't look at each other, but as he extends his hand towards her, he brushes her own on its way towards him.
Somehow, across the tile and the toil, they find each other.
And that's that.