Limits

by Steph Campbell

  He works, hard. He makes sure little old couples get their kosher treats, even when he wants to run after crazy me. When he finds a girl so tipsy she can barely walk, he gets her home in one piece, makes no attempt to try anything funny with her, and helps her with her problems in Calculus while he’ at it.

  He’s a man. The best kind of man. The kind of man I’ve never even attempted to date before.

  But I’m more than ready to try now.

  I hug my folder to my chest as Adam walks me to class, careful to keep a few inches of distance between the two of us. Which is adorable and fine for now…but it’s all going to change tonight.

  The Griffith observatory? My poached spinach and walnut pesto chicken? A starry night spent laughing and getting to know each other? Adam won’t be able to keep his hands off of me by the time the night is over. I have a plan.

  5 ADAM

  I never leave class early, and Shapiro loves to jaw with me about whatever article caught her interest in the latest scientific journal. She’s smart as hell, and I can usually stay a good forty minutes after class is over just debating the role of physics coaching in extreme sports or whether it makes sense to extend the dietician program so it encompasses classes beyond the physics core. It’s not my specific discipline, but I love getting her take on things in general.

  And, with the way my yeast trays are going, I’m beginning to wonder if I might have chosen the wrong focus.

  But, today, I can’t spare any time. Because I’m going on a date. I guess. Or not a date. Just two people eating food in a scenic location. Though it’s highly probable that things between Genevieve and the beach bum fizzled, especially after the way he left her the other night. So maybe a date?

  I expect Dr. Shapiro to be bummed when I break the news to her, but she’s smiling wide. “You have—what was that phrase again— a ‘previous commitment,’ is it?”

  I rub the back of my neck. “Something like that.”

  “Hmm. Does she have a name?” She puts her folders into her briefcase and we leave the lecture hall.

  “Genevieve.” Her name sounds beautiful—exotic even—when I say it to someone else.

  “I bet she’s lovely. I’m glad you’re coming out of your shell, Adam,” Dr. Shapiro says. “Science is wonderful, but it can be isolating, can’t it? Enjoy your date. You do know that’s what this is, right?” She winks and laughs over her shoulder as she leaves me on the sidewalk.

  So it is a date.

  I drive back to the dorm and strip off my work clothes. I put on the only decent jeans I own, a dark sweater, and my good sneakers. I use gel. I brush my teeth twice and gargle with mouthwash.

  I did eat a double-double with extra onion for lunch.

  I follow Genevieve’s directions and pull up at a nice house with a million plants on the wide front porch and a homey, crowded feel, like dozens of people are probably running through it and around it at any given second. Nothing like the neat, Spartan apartment I grew up in. Genevieve flies out the door before I can knock, both hands wrapped around a basket she can barely lift. I get out to help her and she stops short on the steps.

  “Wow.” She looks me up and down. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but khakis and a button down.”

  I heft the basket into my arms, glad it weighs around a metric ton. I’m starved.

  “I’m usually dressed for work,” I explain. She’s wearing another impossibly tiny top that barely covers her. Not that I’m complaining. She looks amazing. But it must be uncomfortable. “Are you sure you want to wear those shoes?”

  She looks down at the shoes that are green, like limes, with little bows over the place where her toes poke out. The heels are at least four inches high, and there’s only this tiny green strap around her ankle holding them on.

  “Aren’t they cute?” she asks.

  “I don’t know how qualified I am to answer that.” I peer down at them, wondering what would possess her to torture her feet that much, no matter how ‘cute’ the shoes are. “I think you look great. But I think you’re forgetting what a hike it is to the observatory. I don’t want you to twist your ankle or anything.”

  She smiles brightly and waves her hand back and forth. “It’s not going to be a problem.” She walks to the car, graceful as a gazelle. Of course she only had to walk a hundred feet on a flat, paved driveway.

  I decide keeping my mouth shut is probably the best way to start this…date. Is this a date? I have no idea.

  She’s definitely dressed for a date. She’s wearing that sexy little top, black with lime green ribbons that match those shoes, and a tight skirt. That’s dressed up, right? Or it’s Genevieve. She dresses like this all the time.

  “Did you get a chance to look over the problems Eidelberg made for you?” I ask, and she flips a hot look my way.

  Not hot like bedrooms and sexy: hot like she’s attempting to blister through my skin with her eyeballs.

  “Do you have any idea just how much food I stuffed into that picnic basket?” she asks, her voice sweet. Dangerously sweet. Too sweet. “Broccoli salad with feta dressing, cheddar cornmeal biscuits, poached spinach and walnut pesto chicken, and chocolate chip cookies. All homemade. And I had to run to the store for a few ingredients before I started cooking.”

  “Oh.” I feel like an ass, but I was thinking the basket was filled with tuna fish sandwiches and sliced apples or something. So this is a date.

  “It’s not this huge deal,” she rushes to explain. “I mean, I love cooking. It kind of relaxes me. You know, like when I’m about to fail calculus and stressed, it helps me calm down. So, it’s not like…any big deal.”

  So…not a date?

  “That’s amazing. When I’m stressed, I play video games for hours on end. Your destressing is way more productive. And it sounds delicious. All of it,” I insist.

  Her smile puts me at ease. “Thank you. I’m sure it will be.”

  We drive the rest of the way talking about things that don’t really matter: who won the latest singing talent show she watches, how things are going at her parents’ furniture store, and then she asks about my yeast experiments. I’m just about to tell her the entire saga, but I don’t want to ruin my appetite thinking about it, so instead I say it’s all good and focus on finding a parking space along the dusty, curving road.

  “I love this place,” I tell her as I parallel park with a respectable amount of skill. “And we got a decent spot.”

  “Wait. Where’s the observatory?” she asks, opening her car door slowly. I point. Those soft gray eyes follow the direction of my arm and turn back on me, so wide I’m afraid they’ll pop out.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, grabbing the picnic basket. “Do you think you can make it? I could always drop you up there and come back to park.”

  She looks down at her green shoes and back up at me, her face determined. “I’m walking it. And I’ll be fine. Lead the way.”

  Fifteen minutes later, she’s pushing her sweat-damn hair back off her forehead and grabbing onto my arm. I’m trying not to let her see how my arms are shaking, especially because if she decides to let go of me, I have a bad feeling she’s going to trip on those stupid heels and plummet into the ravine below. When we get to the first picnic table, I’ve never been so glad to see a surface to sit down on in my life. I drop the basket and brace my arms on the rough wood, trying to catch my breath.

  I expect to see Genevieve at my side, but she’s walking to the little clump of trees at the edge of the ravine. I get up and follow her, wishing I could slide my arm around her waist to make sure she keeps her balance, but she grabs onto my arm and squeezes before I go crazy worrying. Her voice is just this breathy whisper.

  “Look at that, Adam. Look.”

  I do. The sun is setting, casting the entire sky above the ravine in a soft purple light streaked with orange and this glint of silver stars. The bright white letters of the Hollywood sign are offset by the dark trees, bending slightly as the wind
picks up. It moves Genevieve’s silky black hair, pressing it back from her face as she looks out. Below the ravine, all of LA winks in the night with thousands of milky twinkling lights.

  “It’s amazing,” I say, my voice low in this moment that feels so private, even though there are people milling all over and a city of millions below us. “When I first moved here, I was so damn homesick. All the time. Funny, because the only thing I ever wanted to do growing up was leave Tel Aviv—leave Israel, actually—for good. I never expected to miss it. I have no idea why, but coming here made me miss it less.”

  “I’ve lived right by this place my whole life, but I hardly ever come here. Stupid. That’s just stupid, right? It’s like…it’s like you take for granted what’s right in front of you, like this place. That it’ll always be here, just like this.” She turns to look at me, brushing back stray pieces of hair that fly around her face.

  She’s so gorgeous, it makes me a little dizzy. She has this face that’s pretty much the perfect example of human beauty and symmetry—sharp, high cheekbones, full lips, wide, pretty eyes—but, even though the scientist in me knows that her beauty is based on years of evolution that trains me to see signs of health and vigor as attractive, the man in me knows it’s something else that makes her so hard to look away from.

  It’s the way her eyes shine when she looks at something she’s interested in. The way her smile seems to take over her entire face and flick it on like a light switch. The way her hair is always down, long and wild, like a kid’s. But not like a kid’s at all, because, for all the ways Genevieve can be so fun and even silly, she’s still a woman. Completely a woman.

  “Not stupid at all. There’s this place in Tel Aviv, the Azrieli Observatory. It’s the kind of thing I’d probably love. But I’ve never been there.” I shrug and don’t move away even when strands of her hair fly up and tickle my face. “I think, sometimes when you’re not happy in a place, you’ll look for any excuse to leave. Sometimes that means avoiding the things that might tie you closer to it.”

  She leans against my shoulder. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  When she turns her face, it’s so close to mine, I feel like maybe she wants to kiss me. I’ve known I wanted to kiss her for weeks now.

  But I don’t know if she has a boyfriend. Or if I’m reading too much into this moment we’re sharing.

  “I’ve never felt less homesick than I do right now,” I say, half to stop myself from kissing her before I can come up with a good enough reason not to, half because I want her to know how being around her for the last few months has felt more like ‘home’ than living in Israel for two decades ever did.

  “I know exactly how you feel,” she says, her voice soft, her lips close. I move toward her, and it feels like the air between us is crackling with the friction of everything we want and haven’t said and are just beginning to understand when—

  “Hey! Excuse me? Are you sitting here?” A woman with a high, whiny voice who’s pulling a bungee-corded cooler points to our picnic basket on the table. I wrestle the urge to push her into the ravine.

  “Yes,” I growl. “We are.”

  She marches away, muttering loudly about how some people have no manners anymore, and I look at Genevieve, bummed we lost our opportunity to kiss, but liking the way she’s smiling.

  “‘Some people,’ huh? Was that because we’re Jewish?” She laughs, and it’s contagious. We’re both laughing as we head back to the table, and then, for a long time, I have nothing to say, because I’m too busy attacking every single thing she packed.

  “This is freaking amazing,” I say, reaching for another biscuit.

  She shakes her head. “I definitely used too much cornmeal. You’re just impressed because you’ve been eating canned pasta for weeks. So sad.”

  “I’m telling you, I was the fattest kid when I was little. After my mom died, all three of her sisters plus every lady looking to snag my dad would cook for us, all old school Jewish food, all the time. I swear, everything I put in my mouth when I was a kid was fried in duck fat. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack by the time I was thirteen. That said, if I’d been eating your cooking, I would have become obese. And probably died a young, happy death.” I grab another biscuit and wish I’d kept my mouth shut about Mom when I see the familiar look of pity in her eyes.

  “How old were you?” she asks her fingers reaching past the halfway point on the table, like she wants to hold my hand and comfort me.

  I want her to want to touch me—but not like this.

  “When I got fat?” I avoid eye contact. The last thing I need is to look into those big gray eyes and get all therapy-session weepy on her.

  “When you lost your mother.” She pulls back, folds her hands on the table, and looks at me, waiting.

  How old was I?

  When I lost my mother?

  When my life as I knew it ended?

  When everything good and fun and loving got muted, stomped on, suffocated and my father and I were left gutted and depressed, staring at each other like we had no idea what to do without her?

  We never figured it out.

  “I was three days away from my tenth birthday,” I say, my voice a carefully controlled monotone. “It was breast cancer. Same thing her mother died from.”

  “Did she have any recipes you loved?” Her voice is reverential, but practical. I appreciate that.

  I’m also kind of surprised at the question.

  “You know what? Now that you mention it, she used to make this amazing French toast with challah bread. The best was with the circle loaf from Rosh Hashanah. I don’t know why that would make it taste better. The shape, I mean.”

  “I think shape has a lot to do with how things taste. I love Hershey kisses, but I don’t like Hershey bars.” Genevieve shrugs, her shoulders delicate and kissable.

  Is it because of the kiss that was interrupted? Her mention of the candy? Is my mind just going crazy? Because I definitely never thought a girl’s shoulders were kissable before, but now I can’t think of anything other than kissing her shoulders. And so much more.

  “I guess I get that,” I say, looking at the chicken on my plate so I don’t gawk at her shoulders or any other body part. “I like ziti, but I don’t like rotini.”

  “Yes!” She nibbles on a chocolate chip cookie. “I’ll have to try making you the challah French toast for breakfast sometime. My abuela makes the most delicious challah, and she only taught me the secret family recipe. You’ll fall in love.”

  I swallow hard. “I bet I will.”

  She bites her lip and fiddles with the picnic basket handle. I think we both know I wasn’t referring to bread. I reach over to help put things back in the basket, brushing a hand against hers or leaning close enough to smell the sweet scent of her shampoo. “I’ll walk this back to the car,” I offer, and she just nods and attempts a smile that doesn’t quite make it across her entire face.

  I walk fast. The basket is way less heavy now that we’ve devoured most of the food in it, and I have time to think. About this date or non-date. About how I could take her, so fragile and strong all at once, and kiss her the way she deserves to be kissed. Not half-hearted, like some beach bum who doesn’t want to commit. Not like she’s some flake in a tight outfit and high heels. I want to kiss her like she’s mine. I want to kiss her to show her that I see through the facade she throws up for everyone else. I want to kiss her so she’ll never forget it. So she won’t forget me.

  Because I’m as good as gone.

  I don’t want to ruin this night, because it’s going to be one of the last memories I have of being here. I don’t want to think about the university board’s decision, which was pretty damn gracious. They’re allowing me to finish my thesis work based on what I have now and send it through correspondence after I get home. I have the option to fly back for an appointed in-person thesis defense or do it before the board through Skype. Which is really nice of them, considering they could
have just demanded I rush through and have it ready in the next few weeks, then booted my ass back to Israel.

  It sucks that things have started to work out with Genevieve the same time everything else is falling apart, but that tends to be how things pan out for me. I’m just thankful for the fact that it didn’t come down to the two of us exchanging an awkward hug in the labs before it was goodbye forever.

  I walk back and see her, sitting on the picnic table, her feet propped on the bench, her arms stretched behind her, her head tilted back.

  If her shoulders made me want to kiss her before, now I can’t pick a body part that doesn’t make me want to do something, everything. I want to lick the line of her lips until she opens for me. I want my hands on her hips, pulling her close. I want to lay her back and rub my face against her stomach, run my fingers down her arms, suck on her neck, and press my body tight against hers.

  I want Genevieve, even though I know wanting her is the last thing I should be thinking about right now.

  “Do you want to go see the observatory?” I ask.

  She jumps, like my voice startled her. “Yes.” She slips off the table and holds a hand out for mine.

  I’m way past wondering whether or not this is a date. If it is, it’s the one that I’ll never forget, the one I’ll use to compare all future dates to. If it’s not, I’m never going to admit it to myself. I can’t have her the way I’d really like to, so I have to suck up and take what I can get. And I will.

  Her hand in mine is pretty damn amazing, all things considered. I hold it tight and walk slowly because I know her feet must be killing her. We head to the huge white building and her heels click on the marble floor when we make our way inside.

  Astronomy isn’t my area of expertise, but I know enough to explain the questions she has when we pass the shadow-box exhibits. And it’s not just Genevieve asking questions. She tells me about meteor showers that made the sky burst into a choreographed explosion of streaking light in a valley she camped in in high school. She tells me about sitting up until dawn on the sloped roof outside her bedroom window to see Venus clearly. She tells me about the mnemonic devices she used to make up to remember facts about the planets when she was a little girl.