Spring, 2015
Andy takes Sharon to a gelato place near the pier in Santa Monica. It's a Saturday in April, and the morning air is misty and cool where it rolls off the Pacific. A few tourist types wander around on the sidewalk outside, dressed for a summer that has yet to show up, lingering to stare at their phones in the hazy sunlight. But Sharon and Andy are the only ones chasing down dessert foods at five after eleven in the morning, responsible adults that they are. They're inside almost as soon as the slight teenager manning the counter has unlocked the front door for the day.
"It gets overrun later on," he told her earlier, standing in the doorway of her condo. He knew going in that he'd need a good explanation for towing her across the city for ice cream...and before noon, at that. She just grinned, keeping any questions she might have had trapped behind her lips, and dropped a few accessories into her purse before following him out the door.
Once inside the shop, Sharon doesn't just glance at the flavors. Of course. She examines them, drawn close to the freezer and squinting at the miniscule text on each label. She won't be able to pick without weighing the pros and cons of each variation. With their surroundings deserted enough to echo the slap of her sandals against linoleum as she makes her way down the line, she doesn't have to rush.
Andy is content to watch her deciding. Sharon is a woman of process, and on days like this, time is not a factor. She makes her choices, no matter how small, with an almost enviable sureness. Her gears are always turning.
Somewhere around black cherry, she lets her hand drift back to entangle her fingers with his. The distracted familiarity of the gesture leaves him grinning as she continues her examination.
Once she's read through the gelato options, Sharon watches the girl behind the counter pour batter onto a hot iron. "Waffle cones?"
"Those are pizzelle." The shop is soon filled with the scent of warming sugar and a slight bite of licorice.
"Oh, of course." Her mouth dips into a slight frown as she stares at the chalkboard hanging over the register. "It's hard to forget there's a whole world of desserts out there."
With a soft laugh, Andy says, "Speak for yourself."
She shakes her head as if the number of options is too much to comprehend. Maybe it's a feint, more likely it isn't, but Sharon doesn't look away from the menu as she takes a few small steps back. She follows the path of their twined fingers until her shoulders rest against his chest.
"Okay, you're the expert." She turns her head just slightly toward him, "What's affogato? " Her movements are loose, natural, like this is something they do , casually leaning into one another while ordering dessert for lunch.
And, well, maybe now it is . But the setting has an air of wonder in it, like he's up and driven them on a daytrip to a side dimension; one where Sharon is not only his no-pretenses significant other, but has been for months, maybe years. Here they can stand in public, looking like A Couple, and it isn't strange at all.
It's a good notion. Andy goes with it, resting his free hand on her hip and bringing his mouth closer to her ear, if only to test the theory. "Gelato with espresso."
Maybe it's his imagination, maybe it's the chill of air conditioning in the shop, but she seems to shiver a bit. Either way, the corners of her mouth curl upward as she hums a response.
Having turned out several short stacks of pizzelle, the gelato girl looks up expectantly. She is oblivious to the odd twist of reality occurring on the other side of the counter. "Have you decided what looks good?"
"Oh, it all looks good." Sharon's easy charm appears like headlights on a winding road, sudden and bright. "Does the limoncello flavor have real limoncello in it?"
The girl nods, her bottom lip held between her teeth as firmly as she grips the gelato scoop. Sharon tilts her head in silent response, back to deliberation mode.
Catching the meaning behind the question, Andy says, "You don't need to worry about that."
She squeezes his hand, doesn't register a moment of hesitation in answering, "If you think we're not sharing, you're mistaken." The words are delivered in what he considers to be her signature tone, light-but-no-nonsense, which he's no longer surprised to hear applied to food or movies as easily as search warrants or legal arguments.
They end up with five flavors of gelato and three varieties of still-warm pizzelle between them, along with two strong Americanos in old-school paper cups.
When she rings up the haul, the girl behind the counter fights back her shyness enough to ask where they're visiting from. Andy pauses to shave the sarcasm from what would be his standard response, not wanting to embarrass the girl for making the reasonable assumption that the grown-ups buying a meal's worth (okay, two meals' worth) of ice cream might be on vacation. In this gap, Sharon glances to the pile of cups and napkins and and plastic spoons on the counter, meets his eyes, and promptly dissolves into laughter. She turns her back to the register, as if she can hide this reaction, and ends up with her forehead against his shoulder.
Faced with this, Andy hesitates to give the honest answer, held back by the stupid idea that he shouldn't risk breaking whatever spell seems to be at play in the moment. Maybe in this dimension they're high school sweethearts who are visiting LA for the first time ever, having lived out their lives in some flat, quiet Midwestern town. Maybe they're more cosmopolitan, checking off destinations from some gelato guidebook so they can tell the girl, This is better than we had in Rome! Maybe they're an insurance adjuster and accountant on a therapist-ordered vacation, trying, through spontaneity, to mend a relationship that's worn thin.
Or maybe she's her and he's him and they have their own story that doesn't fit a mold, by any means. But it's sound and sometimes astonishing and it's as improbable as it is theirs.
Andy crooks a thumb toward Sharon, "Los Feliz," and himself, "Studio City."
"Oh," the girl smiles, opening up a little more, and hands over his change. "Not far, then."
Maybe this place is a window into something else, some other way of being. Even if it isn't, maybe for now it's enough to catch a glimpse. As he and Sharon make their way outside and down to the beach, Andy turns the gelato girl's words over. Even in the day-to-day, they are not far from here. They can visit any time they want.
But even after their lunch on the beach ( "We're ridiculous," Sharon says, laughing again, "and we can't actually refer to this as lunch, I don't care how hard you sell it." ) stretches into an afternoon strolling the pier and its surroundings; after Sharon has pulled sunscreen and her Dodgers hat from her purse, mumbling something about UV and burning and freckles; after they exchange at least five rounds of "You aren't wanting to head back, are you?" "No." "You're sure?" "Yes."; the surreal feeling lingers.
Through a mutual, unspoken decision, they're back in his car by sunset. Taking it in from above the PCH might have been too much, even under the circumstances. But the orange-pink-violet light filters into the car for most of the drive, and the air flowing through the lowered windows becomes drier, warmer, more pleasant as they get further from the coast. The radio colors the road noise and their comfortable silence with songs of long-past summers and nostalgic simplicity.
Sharon stares out the window, mostly, to the stretch of houses and surface streets they pass in a near-blur. The brim of her ballcap is pulled low enough to rest against the corners of her glasses, obscuring her eyes. But even with her fingers curled idly against her lips, he can't miss the contented smile there.
Maybe, by steering eastward, Andy is pulling them back to their normal plane of existence, and maybe that doesn't look much like a day spent at the beach. But he takes Sharon's hand shortly after merging onto the freeway, and neither moves to break the contact until he's exiting the 101 onto Hollywood.
I'm just getting over this
My fingers are arguing over which
One of them gets to climb down your wrist
Introduce themselves to yours first
I try to make sense of this
Cause my lips are starting to make a list
Of all of the things that they seem to have missed
Before the day that they met yours
Oh, but how many lives have we
How many lives have we
How many lives have we led?