As the evening rolled on and the temperature dropped, Sophia felt goose bumps form on her arms. She crossed her arms, hunkering down in her chair.
“I’ve got a blanket in the cab if you need it,” he offered.
“Thanks,” she said, “but that’s okay. I should probably be getting back. I don’t want my friends to leave without me.”
“I figured,” he said. “I’ll walk you back.”
He helped her down from the pickup and they retraced their earlier path, the music growing louder as they approached. Soon they were standing outside the barn, which was only slightly less crowded than it had been when she’d left. Somehow it felt as though she’d been gone for hours.
“Do you want me to come in with you? In case Brian is still around?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stick close to my roommate.”
He studied the ground, then raised his eyes. “I had a nice time talking to you, Sophia.”
“Me too,” she said. “And thanks again. For earlier, I mean.”
“I was glad to help.”
He nodded and turned, Sophia watching as he started away. It would have ended there – and later she would wonder whether she should have let it – but instead she took a step after him, the words coming out automatically.
“Luke,” she called. “Wait.”
When he faced her, she raised her chin slightly. “You said you were going to show me your barn. Supposedly, it’s more rickety than this one.”
He smiled, flashing his dimples. “One o’clock tomorrow?” he asked. “I’ve got some things to do in the morning. How about if I pick you up?”
“I can drive,” she said. “Just text me the directions.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“What’s yours?”
When he told her, she dialed it, hearing the ring a few feet away. She ended the call and stared at him, wondering what had gotten into her.
“Now you do.”
5
Ira
I
t’s growing even darker now, and the late winter weather has continued to worsen. The winds have risen to a shriek, and the windows of the car are thick with snow. I am slowly being buried alive, and I think again about the car. It is cream colored, a 1988 Chrysler, and I wonder whether it will be spotted once the sun has come up. Or whether it will simply blend into the surroundings.
“You must not think these things,” I hear Ruth say. “Someone will come. It won’t be long now.”
She’s sitting where she’d been before, but she looks different now. Slightly older and wearing a different dress… but the dress seems vaguely familiar. I am struggling to recall a memory of her like this when I hear her voice again.
“It was the summer of 1940. July.”
It takes a moment before it comes back. Yes, I think to myself. That’s right. The summer after I’d finished my first year of college. “I remember,” I say.
“Now you remember,” she teases. “But you needed my help. You used to remember everything.”
“I used to be younger.”
“I was younger once, too.”
“You still are.”
“Not anymore,” she says, not hiding the echo of sadness. “I was young back then.”
I blink, trying and failing to bring her into focus. She was seventeen years old. “This is the dress you wore when I finally asked you to walk with me.”
“No,” she says to me. “This is the dress I wore when I asked you.”
I smile. This is a story we often told at dinner parties, the story of our first date. Over the years, Ruth and I have learned to tell it well. Here in the car, she begins the story in the same way she’d always done for our guests. She settles her hands in her lap and sighs, her expression alternating between feigned disappointment and confusion. “By then, I knew you were never going to say a word to me. You had been home from university for a month, and still you never approached me, so after Shabbat services had ended, I walked up to you. I looked you right in the eyes and I said, ‘I am no longer seeing David Epstein.’”
“I remember,” I say.
“Do you remember what you said to me? You said, ‘Oh,’ and then you blushed and looked at your feet.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
“You know this happened. Then I told you that I would like you to walk me home.”
“I remember that your father wasn’t happy about it.”