Page 63 of Good Dirt

Encounter

T he thing about village life.

Sooner or later, you run into everyone a second time. Including the person you picked up at a local café one morning. Usually, those flings don’t lead to anything lasting. Except, sometimes, for biological consequences, but Ebby and Robert had used protection that day they were together. Both times. So nothing should come of it, right?

Still, Ebby can’t help but smile when she sees Robert, crouched on the shoulder of the road, examining a flat tire on his bicycle. Can’t help but feel warm about the face as he loads the vélo into the trunk of Ebby’s car and settles into the passenger seat beside her. Can’t help but laugh out loud as Robert tells her about having to scroll through his grandfather’s smartphone on the sly and remove the record of Ebby’s number from the list of recent calls. Now, his grand-père can’t call the holiday cottage by mistake.

But there’s more. His grandpa, that very morning, asked him what had happened to la femme sympa, that woman who used to answer the phone.

“Oh, poor grand-père !” Ebby laughs. “You didn’t explain that he mixed up the numbers?”

“He should have been the one to explain it to me! I don’t know how he managed to get that number saved under my name. But I’ll tell you something else. He insisted that you knew me, that you asked about me, so it could not have been a wrong number. It’s your fault, of course, for being so nice to him.”

Robert trails his fingers down Ebby’s torso, following the thin, dark line that runs from her navel down to the triangle of fuzz below.

“I have one of these, too,” Robert says, pointing to his own linea nigra.

“I’ve noticed,” Ebby says. She props herself up on an elbow and smiles at him as she begins to run her own hand down along the line that connects his navel to the part of him that is unfurling now, like a shoot, stretching upward. “I didn’t know men could have these.”

“I didn’t know women who had not had children could get them.”

That line on Ebby’s belly has been there as long as she can remember. Still, at the mention of the word children, she feels a pang of sorrow for the baby that she has lost. For the line that might have grown darker had her pregnancy lasted. She keeps these thoughts to herself, but as if he can sense a longing in her, Robert leans over and kisses her there. Ebby wraps her arms around his head. She wants to cling to him for a bit. But the emotion scares her.

This is not a thing between them, she tells herself. But she really likes Robert. And she can’t help but say d’accord when he invites her to go listen to a jazz band outdoors the next night. It’s only music, Ebby thinks. And it’s an excuse to stay away from the house, since Henry and Avery have decided to stay an extra night.

“The food truck with the crêpes woman will be in the place, ” Robert says.

“Mmmm,” says Ebby as Robert cups her face in his hands and leans in to kiss her, his lips warm in the cool night air. It’s only food, Ebby thinks, and people need to eat. She puts her arms around Robert’s neck before kissing him goodbye.

“Okay, jazz and crêpes,” she says from her car window as she drives away, grinning.