Roseanne
On Friday morning, I arrive at my office but don't go inside. Instead I scan the street for Lisa, who's meeting me here for the trip to New Jersey. She offered to pick me up at home, but it seemed too intimate, somehow. I struggle to ignore the voice in my head insisting that the way we're meeting, on the surface, looks a lot like cheating.
I spy her in a Jeep, idling on the sidewalk with the top down, and my heart does this dorky little skip at the sight of her.
"Hi, stranger," I say, leaning my head in the window. "You wouldn't happen to feel like driving me to New Jersey, would you?"
She smiles at me just the way I remember from some other time, sheepish and cocky at once.
"Sure, pretty girl in a dress. Climb in, and I'll drive you anywhere you want."
I open the door and hoist myself in. "You'd make a terrible abductor."
"I am an excellent abductor, I'll have you know."
"You didn't even offer me candy. Candy is the lynchpin to a successful abduction."
She grins and reaches into the back, behind the passenger seat, and places a box of Hot Tamales in my lap. I stare at it. "This is my favorite candy."
Her smile falters a little. "Lucky guess." Yes, a lucky guess...like knowing my favorite pasta and being so certain I was an architect when we first met. She doesn't see a past with me the way I do, but that knowledge exists somewhere inside her anyway.
"You're sure you want to do this?" she asks. "We could just play hooky instead."
For a single moment I allow myself to consider it. What would playing hooky with Lisa consist of? A thousand possibilities occur to me and all of them appeal. I exhale. "As off-putting as I found Dr. Han's excitement about my inoperable tumor, I do feel like I have to check this out."
I plug the address into the GPS while she maneuvers through the crowded back streets of Georgetown to get us to Canal Road. I've felt vaguely guilty about the fact that I'm doing this without telling Jaehyun, but he's traveling again and it's a sunny day—not a cloud in the sky—so I decide I'm just going to give in to the experience. I may not even be around next summer, so if I want to have one perfect day with Lisa—a day that actually happened—this is my shot.
"Does Jaehyun know you're doing this?" she asks.
I glance at her, wondering if it's an accusation. "No. Did you tell Yuna?"
Her eyes remain on the road. "She's at a conference."
I guess that's a no. "I hope it wasn't a big deal taking off work?"
She shakes her head. "I don't see patients on Fridays anyway, so I just got someone to cover my morning rounds. What about you?"
I shrug. "I hate my boss and she hates me, but it's hard to say too much when your employee tells you she has a brain tumor."
Her jaw flexes. "Why the hell are you still there? How exactly is it too complicated for you to get your architecture degree? Because it seems kind of simple to me."
I let my head fall back against the seat and close my eyes. It's hard to argue on behalf of something I'm not certain of myself. "From a financial standpoint, it doesn't make sense. I'd be thirty or thirty-one when I finished, and to do what I actually want to do, I'd need a master's degree. Which means four or five years during which I'm not producing an income."
