Learning to Fall

by Jillian Eaton

  “You’re not old,” Daniel protested as he easily picked Gracie up and swung her in a half circle.

  “How many times have I told you not to do that?” she scolded once he’d set her back down.

  “Not enough. Gracie, I have someone I want you to meet. Imogen, this is Gracie. Gracie, Imogen.”

  I’d been lurking by the door, uncertain what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go, but when Daniel said my name I stepped forward and extended my right hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said politely.

  Gracie’s eyes narrowed to thoughtful slits of caramel as she gave me a careful onceover. I held perfectly still, waiting for her judgement with bated breath. It was clear by the way she and Daniel interacted they were very close and her opinion obviously mattered to him, or else why bring me here to meet her? I stole a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. As usual, he seemed completely at ease and relaxed despite the whispers and stares he was garnering from the nearby tables. At least I wasn’t the only one tongue-tied by the the sight of him without a shirt on.

  When Gracie was finished with her very thorough appraisal her mouth curved in a smile and she squeezed my hand tight before releasing it. “The pleasure is all mine, sweetie. Can’t say I remember the last time Danny brought in a lady friend.”

  “Oh.” Not wanting to Gracie to get the wrong impression, I rushed to correct her, but before I could say another word Daniel looped his arm around my shoulders and cut me off.

  “We’ll eat outside if that’s okay.”

  Gracie snorted. “If you thought you were eating anywhere else but outside you would have been sorely mistaken.” She winked at me. “Thinks he’s too handsome to follow the rules. You’ve got your hands full with this one, sweetie.”

  “Actually, we’re not really-”

  “Blueberry pancakes or plain?” Daniel asked, interrupting me a second time.

  “Blueberry,” I said automatically. “But I think we should make it clear-”

  “Two orders of blueberry pancakes,” he told Gracie. “Extra syrup on mine.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she said with a sniff. “You two go make yourselves comfortable. I’ll have Tanya bring out some coffee.”

  We walked out to the furthest patio table. Warmed by the sun, my seat was hot against the back of my thighs, but I didn’t complain. In a few weeks - a month at most - it would be too cold to eat outside and I intended to soak up all the sunshine and warmth I could before Maine’s infamous winter arrived.

  “This is nice,” I said, looking across the street. Between a bookstore and an art gallery I could just catch a glimpse of boats bobbing in the harbor and the sparkle of sunlight bouncing off the ocean waves. “It’s a wonderful location. I can see why it’s so popular.”

  Daniel nodded in agreement. “Wait until you try the maple syrup. It’s homemade. None of that artificial crap.”

  “Speaking of artificial…” I folded my arms on the table and attempted to summon my very best stern face, which of course wasn’t very stern at all. “You shouldn’t have led Gracie to believe you and I are…well…that we’re possibly…um…that is to say that we’re…”

  Clearly enjoying my stammering, Daniel sat back in his chair and lifted a brow. “Having casual sex?” he suggested innocently.

  “Yes!” I hissed, gaze darting left and right as I looked to see if anyone around us had overhead.

  “Relax.” Linking his fingers, he stretched both arms above his head. “I know for a fact she doesn’t think that and so what if she did? We’re both adults. This isn’t the eighteen hundreds.” His mouth twisted into a smirk. “Your reputation isn’t going to be ruined if people discover you’re having premarital sex.”

  I shot him a look. “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He lowered his arms. “But it’s fun to get you riled up. I like it when you blush. Yep,” he said with a nod, “just like that.”

  “Is that why you brought me here? To ‘rile me up’?”

  “Nope. But you have to admit, it’s a nice side benefit.”

  For him, maybe. But definitely not for me. I liked to think I was fairly good at reading people, but try as I might I couldn’t get a good read on Daniel. Maybe it was because I hardly knew anything about him. Or perhaps my judgement was clouded by the physical attraction I felt. Either way, he remained a complete and total mystery.

  A mystery I didn’t know if I wanted to solve.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said abruptly, as though he could somehow read my thoughts.

  I glanced down at the table, studying the intricate grooves of the wrought iron. If there was one thing I hated more than awkward silences and stilted smalltalk, it was talking about myself. Thankfully, I was temporarily saved from boring Daniel with the details of my uneventful life when a waitress - presumably Tanya - arrived with our coffee.

  She put a white porcelain cup in front of me and another in front of Daniel before fishing four mini cups of half and half out of her apron pocket and setting them in the middle of the table along with half a dozen packets of sugar. “Here you go,” she said cheerfully. “Your food should be out soon.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, reaching for one cup of half and half.

  “Thanks T,” Daniel said. “Don’t forget, extra maple syrup.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” The waitress waved a hand over her head as she walked back inside.

  “That’s quite a lot of sugar,” I observed as Daniel ripped open four white packets and dumped them simultaneously into his coffee.

  He looked up at me, one side of his mouth lifting. “What can I say? I have a sweet tooth.”

  I was certain his words weren’t meant as a sexual innuendo, but that didn’t stop my mind from taking them that way. My traitorous, treacherous mind. Where was my logic now? Where was my reasoning? I knew Daniel was trouble. I knew it. With his dashing good looks and boyish charm, how could he not be? The smart thing to do (the logical, reasonable thing to do) would have been to excuse myself and walk away. Breakfast with a hot stranger wasn’t on my schedule. Developing a crush wasn’t in my plans. And yet that’s exactly what I found myself doing.

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up to find Daniel studying me over the white curved brim of his coffee cup.

  “My favorite color?” I asked blankly.

  He took a sip. “If you keep answering every question with a question we’re going to be here a long time, Imogen.”

  I loved that he used my full name. Not many people did. They shortened it to Mo or Gen or Imo, as though saying a name with three syllables was too difficult. But not Daniel. He said the whole thing, pronounced to perfection, and every time he did I felt a small rush of excitement.

  “I’m not trying to be evasive,” I said before I blew across the top of my coffee and took a small, testing sip. For cafe coffee it was surprisingly good, with subtle undertones of hazelnut and the tiniest hint of cinnamon.

  “Is that why you still haven’t answered my question?”

  “Yellow,” I said with a tinge of exasperation. “My favorite color is yellow.”

  “Yellow’s good.” Setting his coffee down, Daniel clasped his hands behind his neck and tipped his chair back until it was only balancing on two legs. “But green is better.”

  “One color can’t be better than another.”

  His eyebrow shot up in silent challenge. “Why not?”

  “Because…because it just can’t.” Good answer, Imogen. Very intelligent and scientific.

  “I’m going to have to disagree, which means there’s only one way to settle this.” Shifting his weight, he set his chair back down and stretched his right arm across the table, hand clenched in a loose fist. “A thumb war.”

  Daniel might as well have been speaking in Greek for all that I understood him. Keeping my hands to myself, I looked down at his with suspicion. “A what?”

  Incr
edulous grey eyes met mine. “A thumb war. Tell me you’ve heard of a thumb war. No?” he said when I slowly shook my head from side to side. “Were you deprived as a child?”

  Talk about a complicated question.

  “I was not deprived,” I said, more stiffly than I had intended. “I simply did not play a lot of games.”

  Between my ballet practice, piano rehearsals, riding lessons, and private tutoring sessions, there hadn’t been much time left over for ‘trivial distractions’ (my mother’s words, not mine). As a result I’d been forced to watch from the sidelines, hiding my envy behind an empty smile as my classmates ran around kicking soccer balls and dribbling basketballs and enjoying themselves far more than I ever had stuck in a music room that smelled like old lady’s perfume practicing piano scales for what felt like hours on end.

  I still remembered the one time I had complained. After spending an amazing afternoon playing kickball at my friend’s house with her parents and two brothers, I’d come home and asked my father why he and my mother never played games with me.

  “Games?” he’d said, setting aside his newspaper and pulling his reading glasses to the end of his nose. “What sort of games, Imogen?”

  Miserably uncomfortable in his vast study, I’d hooked a skinny arm behind my back, bit the inside of my cheek, and mumbled, “You know, like kickball and stuff.”

  “Is that why you’re so dirty? Because you were playing kickball?”

  I looked down at my grass stained shirt and winced. “Yes,” I admitted. “But Dad it was really fun! It was boys against girls and I was on Candace’s team with her mom and-”

  “Did you win?” he interrupted. “The game, Imogen,” he said when I looked at him in confusion. “Did you win the game?”

  “Well, no…but we came really close and-”

  “This is why your mother and I encourage individual sports.” He shook out his newspaper. “Because they allow you to compete against yourself. If you fail, you know you have done so on your own merit and you take sole responsibility for your failures which builds character. These team sports children your age are playing are nothing more than a waste of time and talent. Do you understand?”

  With a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Pushing his reading glasses back in place, he blinked at me from behind the square lenses, his serious brown eyes magnified to twice their normal size. “If you truly want to play a game, I will teach you how to play chess. It is about time you learned. How old are you? Eleven? Twelve?”

  “Nine,” I whispered.

  “Excellent. The same age I was when my father taught me to play.” He glanced down at his watch. “If I’m not mistaken, it is time for piano practice. I will see you at dinner, Imogen.”

  He’d died of a massive heart attack four years later. We never did play kickball, but under his tutelage I became one of the best chess players in the state. I’d stopped playing after his death, and to this day couldn’t glance at a chess set without feeling a sharp twinge of loss.

  “The rules are simple,” Daniel said, drawing me back into the present. “We clasp our hands together, like this” - taking my right hand, he gently turned my wrist and tucked his fingers under mine - “and you have to lift your thumb up.”

  “Why?” I asked, studying our joined hands. His palm was almost twice the size of mine and slightly calloused on the edges.

  “Because those are the rules. Now you wag your thumb back and forth and say, ‘One two three four I declare a thumb war’. The first person to pin the other person’s thumb is the winner.” He looked up at me expectantly. “Ready?”

  “I really don’t understand the point-”

  “Go!” Brow furrowed in concentration, Daniel had my thumb captured beneath his within a matter of seconds. Canting his head to the side, he frowned as though I’d greatly disappointed him. “You didn’t try very hard.”

  I blew a piece of hair out of my eyes. “I don’t understand the point of this.”

  “Does there have to a point?”

  “Well, yes.” Of course there had to be a point. Didn’t there?

  “Then the point is to have fun.” He grinned and squeezed my fingers. “Best two out of three?”

  Daniel’s enthusiasm for the thumb game, while baffling to someone like me, was rather infectious. Before I could think to stop myself I was smiling back at him. “Okay,” I said before I squared my shoulders and leaned in a little closer. “But now that I understand the rules you’re in trouble.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. You have a lovely smile, Imogen. You should use it more often.”

  He thought I had a nice smile? Warmed by the compliment, I bit my lip. “Thank you. That is a very nice thing to-”

  “OnetwothreefourIdeclareathumbwar. Ha! Gotcha.” Grinning in triumph as he pinned my thumb with ease, he threw both arms up in the air as though he’d just won a boxing match. “Thumb Game Champion!”

  “You cheated!” I gasped.

  “I think you mean I won.” Not looking the least bit ashamed by his distraction tactics, but crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his chair back. “You know what they say. All’s fair in love and war and thumb games.”

  Feeling a bit miffed, I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t believe that is the exact saying.”

  “Don’t be a sore loser, Imogen.” Dropping his chair down, he leaned across the table to take my hand, but I drew it back out of reach.

  “I’m not being a sore loser,” I said, even though that’s exactly what I was being, if only because I wasn’t accustomed to coming in second place.

  “Uh huh,” Daniel said with a knowing grin. “Sure. Don’t worry, we’ll play again.”

  “I don’t know if I want to play again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you cheat!”

  “I improvised,” he corrected. “That’s not the same thing as cheating.”

  I glanced down at the table. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean just to win a game.”

  “Imogen. Imogen, look at me,” he instructed quietly.

  When I did, albeit reluctantly, I found Daniel’s piercing stare waiting for me. He reached for my hand again and this time, mesmerized by the shifting stormclouds in his brooding gaze, I didn’t pull back. His palm encased the top of my hand, long, tapered fingers reaching all the way past my slender wrist. Butterflies swirled to life in my stomach, beating their colorful wings in time to the erratic pounding of my pulse.

  “I meant what I said. You do have a lovely smile. A little shy, maybe, but lovely.” His eyes never left mine. “You’re very pretty, Imogen.”

  There were better adjectives he could have used. Pretty, by its very definition, meant attractive in a delicate way without being truly beautiful or handsome. But that’s what made it so sincere. Because I wasn’t beautiful or stunning or gorgeous. And Daniel saw that. More importantly, Daniel saw me.

  Somehow he was able to peer through my awkward shyness and defensive coldness to the woman hidden beneath. The woman yearning to be understood. To be accepted.

  To be loved.

  Goosebumps lifted the fine hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck. Startled by the depths my thoughts had suddenly taken I pulled back, both physically and emotionally. Slipping my hand free of Daniel’s, I smiled uncertainly at him, at a complete loss of what to say or do. Thankfully our waitress chose that exact moment to come out with our food, effectively concealing my social ineptitude, at least for the time being.

  “Here you go,” Tanya chirped as she set down two enormous plates piled high with blueberry pancakes. Her wavy brown ponytail bounced as she pinned her hands to her hips and rocked back on her heels. “If you need anything else just holler. Enjoy!”

  Eyes going wide, I looked down at my plate. “I can’t eat all of these.”

  Having wasted no time digging into his own mountain of pancakes (drizzled liberally in extra maple syrup, as requested),
Daniel paused with his fork in midair. “You better. You don’t want to hurt Gracie’s feelings, do you?”

  “No, of course not, but-”

  “Then dig in.”

  I made it through four pancakes - which were just as good, if not better, than Daniel had said they would be - when he chuckled and pulled my plate towards him.

  “Wait,” I protested, reaching for my plate. “I’m not finished.”

  “You’re starting to turn a little green. I’m impressed, though. You put a serious dent in these bad boys.” Sliding my plate onto his empty one, he nudged our dishes to the edge of the table and patted his stomach. “I don’t think I’m going to eat for a week. Good, right?”

  “Amazing,” I agreed even as I bit my lip and glanced anxiously at my two remaining pancakes. “I should finish, though. I don’t want Gracie to be upset. She seems very nice.”

  An emotion I couldn’t quite decipher flashed across Daniel’s face. “It was a joke, Imogen.”

  “Oh.” Feeling foolish, I picked up the paper napkin I’d placed in my lap and began to refold it into a neat rectangle. Of course he’d been joking. Anyone else would have picked up on that. Anyone else except for me. Was the innate need to please, to be perfect, to never fail, so deeply ingrained inside of me I would have made myself sick trying to finish every last pancake if Daniel hadn’t pulled my plate away? Yes. The answer, ridiculous as it seemed, was yes.

  Forget being accepted, understood, and loved.

  I just wanted to be normal.

  The table tipped away from me as Daniel leaned his elbows on it. “You take things very seriously, don’t you?”

  I looked up from my napkin origami. “Yes,” I said simply.

  “Why?”

  It was a question I’d been asked countless times before. By my friends, peers, teachers, colleagues. Never as bluntly as Daniel, but in their own little way they’d all wondered the same thing and they’d all given me the same advice. Advice I’d never been able to follow, no matter how badly I wanted to.

  Relax.

  Loosen up.