And she pulled one earbud out when she saw Clare and said, "Did you say yes to the New York thing? " With the casualness of someone who had known the question was coming. Clare stopped. "How do you know about the New York thing? " Maya looked at her father. Andre looked at the bacon. "Maya," Clare said.
You talk loud when you're on the phone on your porch, Maya said without a trace of apology and sound travels. It's physics. Clare looked at Andre, who was very focused on the bacon. You both knew. We had a theory, Andre said carefully.
A strong theory, Maya added. Clare stood in the middle of their kitchen, feeling something. She didn't have an immediate word for not invaded. Not embarrassed. Something warmer than either of those.
Something that had to do with the fact that these two people in this house had been paying enough attention to her to form a theory about the biggest decision of her professional life. She sat down at the table. "Do you want eggs? " Andre asked. "Yes," she said. And that was how the morning of the biggest decision of Clare Morgan's career began at a kitchen table with a 12-year-old doing physics homework and a man making scrambled eggs like the world.
One hadn't just shifted 3° on its axis and Clare sitting in the middle of it thinking that she hadn't felt this specific kind of ordinary comfort in longer than she could clearly remember. She left 2 hours later. She had calls to make, a lease to look at, a thousand logistics that come with 6 months in a city that is not your own. Andre walked her to the door. Maya from the kitchen table called out, "Bring me something from Brooklyn. " You've never been to Brooklyn?
Clare called back. Exactly. Maya said at the door, Andre looked at her. The morning light was doing something specific to the angle of his face. And Clare made a decision not to think about how much she was going to miss that specific thing when she was standing in a New York apartment looking at a different kind of light entirely.
"I have a question," she said. "Okay. Last night you said you were done calling it something else. " She held his gaze. Does that change now that I'm actually leaving? He didn't hesitate.
No, you don't want to take it back. I said what I meant, Andre. 6 months is 6 months is 6 months. He said it's not forever. And even if it were, he stopped, reconsidered.
Even if it were, what I told you last night is still true. I know what you look like. I'm not interested in rearranging that. A pause. Are you asking me if I want you to turn it down?