It wasn’t easy for us to dress for Thanksgiving. 

Basically, we had interchangeable wardrobes in two sizes: Levis, BVD tees and plaid flannel shirts. Occasionally, I wore a leotard or a 1950’s thrift shop sweater, but there was nothing formal enough for dinner with his family in Queens. So, we dropped by my parents and in my old bedroom closet I found an embroidered dress from high school and a turtleneck to wear underneath for an autumnal effect. Nathan borrowed a shirt from my father and pulled back his hair with one of my ponytail holders.

I wish I could remember the specific conversation we had in his ten-year-old ’62 Ford Fairlane on the trip from the Lower East Side to Jackson Heights, but I remember the tenor. On the light side, there was smart and funny talk. On the tender side, there was a familiar, childlike tug. But when the sun lowered over the expressway, the truth was revealed. I loved Nathan, but Nathan didn’t love me. When my nineteen-year-old heart opened to him with his face in the amber light— to his post-adolescent angst and gloomy dissertations on Sartre and Nietzsche— and to his irresistible boy edge, my thin young skin was sliced by icy words. “I don’t love you.” 

There it was. You just can’t read between one line.

The photo was taken shortly after we’d arrived. We are seated on the couch next to an odd 1960’s lamp with a big cork base. I am trying to remove something from the corner of my eye with my index finger. My thumb is stretched out, and my other three fingers are curled around a cigarette that will be lit momentarily. My long hair is half tied back, and I am half smiling. Nathan is seated next to me holding up a wine glass. Actually, it was a martini glass filled with wine. He is in profile, silhouetted against the blank wall behind us.

He is looking at me in a way I had never seen before and never saw after. Was it only for a fraction of a second or had it lingered, and I just hadn’t noticed? I’ve stared at the photo repeatedly and time and again I see it. Admiration. No more, adoration. 

Decades later I am still contemplating the mysterious contrast of memories—the soft, still moment of Nathan looking at me, seeing me, loving me and the mountain of hard words on the other side of the frame.

***

Linda Schwartz is a retired art teacher of children with special needs. She won first place in, “A Very Short Story Writing Contest,” at Gotham Writers Workshop. She is a lifelong New Yorker with a balcony full of pigeons and an obstructed view of the Manhattan Bridge.