It isn’t a first kiss. It isn’t even
their
first kiss. But it feels like one.
Not because it is fumbling or awkward. Not because she doesn’t know where to put her hand, or he doesn’t know where to put his nose. None of those. They slot together like puzzle pieces. As Allyson and Willem kiss for the first time in a year, both are thinking the same thing:
This feels new
.
Though perhaps
thinking
is not the right term, because with a kiss like this, thinking goes out the window and something more instinctual takes over: inner voices, gut instincts. “Knowing it in your
kishkes”
is how Willem’s saba would’ve described it.
In his
kishkes
, Willem is marveling that Allyson found him, as Yael found Bram. He doesn’t know how it happened, only that it did happen and that it means something.
Allyson is doing a mental fist pump and an
I told you so.
She’d spent a year looking for him, looking for the girl she was with him. And then last night, watching Willem perform Orlando in Vondelpark, she’d been certain she’d found them both, certain the words he was speaking were meant for her.
Forever and a day
. She’d felt it. Right in her gut. But listening to that inner voice was new to Allyson. She’d spent nineteen years of her life ignoring it, listening to pretty much everything
but
it. So when she’d seen Willem with another woman, looking luminously happy with another woman, she’d gone away.
Only not really. Because here she is, at his flat, where he is kissing her, and she is kissing him right back. And the kiss feels like something completely new. But it also feels like something deeply known. Which would seem to be a contradiction. Only it’s not.
The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin
, Saba always said.
Nothing goes on forever. Not even second first kisses. Not even those as hard-won as this. Outside the window, a tram bell chimes. It is like an alarm clock, crystallizing the moment from fuzzy to real. Allyson and Willem break apart.
Allyson isn’t quite sure what to do next. She is supposed to be catching a flight to Croatia. This stop at Willem’s flat was a detour, the kiss a happy surprise. But now what?
Willem takes her backpack, as if answering the question, as if completing the transaction. Then he offers her a coffee.
He would like to kick himself. This girl he has not seen in a year, this girl he’s thought about, dreamed about, looked for, for a year, this girl he just kissed (he’s still a bit dazed from that kiss) . . . and his first words to her are those of a waiter.
But then he remembers something. “Or a tea. You like tea, don’t you?”
It is the smallest thing. She likes tea. She drank tea on the train to London, when they’d first started talking, about
hagelslag
of all things. She drank it again on the train they’d taken to Paris together, later that morning.
Tea. One day. A year ago. He remembered.
A little voice in Allyson’s gut (it’s her
kishkes
, only she doesn’t know that word yet) is yelling:
See?
“Yes,” Allyson says. “I would love some tea.” She’s not really thirsty. Five minutes ago, nerves had left her with a mouth as dry as paper, but the kiss has taken care of that. But this feels like more than a beverage being offered.
“Tea,” Willem says. He can see that the offer has unfastened something in her face, as when she’d jokingly solicited a compliment from him last year, and he’d told her she was brave and generous and openhearted. Back then he’d been guessing. Now he is remembering. He remembers it all. He wants to tell her. He
will
tell her.
But first, tea.
Willem starts toward the kitchen. Allyson isn’t sure whether to follow him, but then he turns around and says, “Wait here,” and then a few steps later adds, “Don’t go anywhere.”
She sits down on the low leather couch. It is a nice apartment, all bright and sunny and modern. Does he live here? She hasn’t thought about where he might