“Thank you. I’ll take it.” He stubbed out his cigarette into the ashtray she’d reached under the bench to place between them. “Do you believe in anything, my dear?”
“Yes. You.”
He laughed. “It’s official! You’ve gone as soft as your original hair color. It’s obviously time for me to leave.”
This could not be happening. “Not really?” she said, almost hushed. The ground felt so firm next to him. He couldn’t swipe that from underneath her. Not now.
“Really,” he said. “It’s time. I see you registered to vote, you can see me off on a train from Union Station tomorrow. I need a long journey.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Key West? Vancouver? Probably Provincetown is as far as I’ll make it. Change of scenery will do this broken heart good.”
“You’ll be back?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Soon enough.”
It was like the world had gone suddenly dark to her, then immediately opened back up—with the hope for his soon-enough return.
She had one last question. It was the most important one. “But who will smoke with me?”
He took two cigarettes and a lighter from his shirt pocket. He handed her one cigarette. “I couldn’t say,” he said. “This is my last cigarette. I vow it. Of course, I had to share the ritual last smoke with you. It’s a tradition with smoking buddies. But after this one, the vice is yours to ruin your health on your own. You know the consequences. I can’t be helping you out in this department.”
He took a drag on his last cigarette as she placed her not-last cigarette in her mouth. She waited for him to hand over his lighter.
He leaned over to her instead.
He lit.
Rachel Cohn, You Know Where to Find Me
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