By Amy Kiger-Williams
The snow fell fast on Gramercy Park, one of those winter storms squalling up out of nowhere, stopping as soon as it gets some momentum, or not. Sometimes the storms just keep going. This one showed no signs of stopping. I could tell it was you walking toward me, even bundled up, hidden in your overcoat, wearing the fur Cossack hat and the thick suede gloves that covered those hands that I knew so well.
You recognized me, too.
I couldn’t get into your mind to tell myself what you thought of me, so here’s what I thought of you: he looks different, yet the same. Older, of course, but something more. The Russian hat is a new addition. Perhaps he’s cold. He has the same gait, loping like he’s in a hurry to get somewhere fast. The same eyes, grey and velvet, a few crinkles at the sides, which of course were never there before because you were so young.
We kissed when we saw each other. It had been thirty years. You were a little drunk. I should have expected it. You reminded me of a vodka drinker, even though I always remembered you’d have a beer. Maybe it was the Russian hat that made me think that.
You asked me if I wanted a drink.
How could I say no? I wanted another chance to see those hands.
We turned south and ducked into the Old Town Bar. We slid into a wooden booth. There were still some lights from Christmas around the bar. It was right before New Year’s, one of those sloppy days when no one is at work, and the streets aren’t plowed quite enough because there’s no demand. The bartender nodded, a knowing look as if we were his kindred, and you looked me in the eyes and asked me what I wanted.
I said a bourbon on the rocks, but here’s what I should have said: I want you to take off those gloves and show me those hands, the ones that I held so long ago, one hand with the cigarette burn on the left thumb from when you were careless one night and let an ember drop onto your knuckle, but you were drunk and didn’t feel it till the blister formed. The hands that held me, and one which held a wine glass which you threw against the wall, just missing my eye. The hands that are now covered in those thick, thick gloves, your hands that held mine as we were at the doctor’s, the doctor’s hands stitching me up, you warning me with your eyes not to tell your secret.
And as if on command, you took off those gloves, and I remembered everything. I looked at those hands, and I knew I couldn’t wait another moment. My pulse quickened, and I felt what a frozen deer must feel when it sees the car, careening down the highway, arrow-like, sure of its aim. When you came back with the bourbon, I was already walking out the door.
Amy Kiger-Williams holds an MFA in Fiction from Rutgers-Newark and a bachelor's degree from New York University. She has also attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Yale Review Online, Gone Lawn, Cleaver, (mac)ro(mic), and X-R-A-Y, among others. She is at work on a novel and a short story collection. You can read more of her work at amykigerwilliams.com and follow her on Twitter at @amykw.