At that moment, Allyson snaps out of her wrist-related haze (maybe because Willem has stopped caressing her wrist).
Willem has not had time to tell anyone about his apprenticeship with Ruckus, not his friends whom he will leave behind, and not Allyson, for whom the move has different implications. Which is maybe why he feels so nervous now. He isn’t sure how she might react. He doesn’t want her to feel pressured, like the move means he has expectations. (He has hopes, of course, especially now that he knows how close she is to where he will be, but hopes are different from expectations.)
Willem doesn’t realize he’s left them all hanging until Broodje says, “What’s going on, Willy?”
“Ahh, nothing. No, not nothing. Something big, actually.” The faces are expectant, even those of Wren and Winston, people he did not know of until tonight. “Kate and David run a theater company in New York City, and I’m going to be an apprentice there.”
“What does that mean?” Henk asks.
“I’ll train with them, build sets, do whatever is needed, and eventually, perhaps, perform. It’s a Shakespearean theater company.” He looks at Allyson now. “I forgot to tell you that.”
He forgot to tell her everything. He was terrified to. He is terrified now. The ominous silence hanging over the table isn’t helping. And Allyson having unraveled her feet from his ankle really isn’t helping.
Maybe they aren’t so in sync. Maybe what for him is good news, a reason to hope, is just too much too soon for her.
He vaguely hears people around the table offering congratulations.
But he can’t process it. He is looking at Allyson.
And Allyson is not congratulating him. She is crying.
• • •
Allyson sees Willem’s face, his panic, and she knows he is misreading her. But she is helpless to explain right now. Words have left her. She is emotion only.
And it is too much. Not Willem moving to American, not Willem moving a bus ride away from her. It’s that this happened at all. How it happened.
Allyson has to say something. Willem is looking so upset. The table is so quiet. The restaurant is quiet. It seems like all of Amsterdam is holding its breath for them.
“You’re moving to New York?” she says. She keeps it together for an entire sentence before her voice cracks and she dissolves into tears again.
It’s Winston who gently touches Willem on the shoulder. “Maybe you two should go now.”
Willem and Allyson nod, dazed. They offer halfhearted farewells. (It doesn’t matter; good-byes with these two aren’t to be trusted anyhow) and leave amid promises from Wren to call in the morning and Broodje to crash at W and Lien’s place tonight.
• • •
Silently, they walk to the bike racks outside in the narrow alleyway. Willem is desperately trying to think of something to say. He could tell her he doesn’t have to go. Except he does have to go.
This isn’t about her. It was catalyzed by her, and she’s woven up in it, but this is ultimately about him and his life and what he needs to do to make himself whole. He’s stopped drifting, he’s stopped being tossed around by the wind.
But he doesn’t have to see her. It doesn’t mean that. He’d like it to mean that. But it doesn’t have to.
Allyson is thinking about accidents again. Which aren’t accidents at all. Allyson’s grandma has a word for it: beshert. Meant to be. Allyson’s grandma and Willem’s saba could’ve had entire conversations about beshert and kishkes.
Except Allyson doesn’t know about Saba (yet) or about kishkes (officially speaking, though she knows what they are and how to listen to them and she will never ever stop doing this). And she doesn’t have the words to tell Willem what she needs to tell him.
So she doesn’t use words. She licks her thumb and rubs it against her wrist.
Stained.
Willem grabs her wrist, rubs his own thumb against it. Does the same to his own wrist, just to make it clear.
Stained.
They slam into the wall then, kissing so intensely that Allyson levitates off the ground. (It feels like the kiss that is making her airborne, but really it is Willem’s arms, which have grabbed Allyson’s hips, though Willem can’t even tell that he’s lifting her because she feels weightless. Or like part of him.)
They kiss, mouths open, tears flowing, tongues licking. It is a devouring, consuming kiss. The kind of kiss that never comes off.
Willem’s knees press between her skirt and he can feel the warmth under there, and things are about to get pretty crazy in this alleyway. Even for Amsterdam.
A cyclist passes by, ringing his bell, reminding them that they are actually outdoors, in public. Neither wants to stop. But there is an empty flat somewhere with a bed and somehow, while still kissing her, Willem manages to unlock his bike.
Allyson had thought riding sidesaddle with Wren was fun, but with Willem it is something else altogether. She remembers the illegal bike ride in Paris, when she sat in the seat and he pumped in front of her and how much she’d wanted to touch him. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. And then they’d gotten pulled over by the police. But this, here, is perfectly legal. And there is a place for her to sit, and she can wrap her arms around his waist all she wants. She can nuzzle against his back and lick his vertebrae if she wants to. (She does, so she does.)
At the stoplights, she hops off the bike and he turns to her and they start kissing again and sometimes stay that way until the light turns green and cyclists and motos beep at them to get out of the way.
It is a torturously labored ride home like this. Allyson is desperate for it to end and would like for it to go on forever.
Willem is just desperate for it to end. He is so full of wanting that it is painful and Allyson keeps lifting his shirt and licking his back, which she shouldn’t do while he’s riding a bike because he might pass out. (But she shouldn’t stop, either.)
And finally they are back outside his flat and he can barely keep his hands steady to lock his bike and he is about to attack her in the hall when he remembers condoms. He doesn’t have any, hasn’t needed any in months, so he drags her to a store that’s still open and he buys a three pack.
“Get the nine pack,” Allyson says, and he almost explodes right there.
And then they are outside his building. And f**k because Mrs. Van der Meer is downstairs walking her dog and he doesn’t want to make small talk with her, but they do and he introduces Allyson, and Mrs. Van der Meer wants to talk to her about her trip to California back in 1991 and Willem has to position Allyson in front of him because it is like being twelve-years-old again, the lack of self control he has, but also at least with Allyson standing in front of him, against him, it’s bearable (and it is also unbearable).
Mrs. Van der Meer’s dog yanks on the leash and she goes out and they go in and he can’t even wait. They are on the stairs and she is under him and he’s got that wrist of hers in his mouth (finally!) but it’s not enough, he wants all of her (the feet!) and they both know they need to make it up to Daniel’s flat but the last stretch is the hardest, but somehow they do and Willem can’t find his key and at this point he is going to take her in the hall because he doesn’t care, and honestly, neither does she, but then she remembers she has the key! He gave her the key. It’s in her back pocket.
