Re: NYC: Hannah & Hugh
"I like that, there have been orchestras here night after night, and they all play together and maybe they always have. These walls are warm and wood and have seen lives. Maybe they sit in wait for certain musical parts to come in. The woodwinds, or the strings," and she smiled at him. Elbows on the table and chin in her hands, and she was happy. She swung her legs a little beneath the table. "I don't think I could tell a story. But I had a friend once, a good friend, and he said he liked me because of how I said things, and I thought it was so strange. My family thought I was kind of crazy, and I think they were all a little tired of how I talked, and how I wasn't right like everyone else was, and I was so surprised to hear that someone could like the same thing my family disliked."
Si would say Romeo and Juliet was about dying, and dying was stupid. She laughed a little, because she knew Si and Hugh would never, ever see eye-to-eye on most things, but she could see both the beauty and the stupidity of Juliet and her Romeo. But he talked on about soulmates, and she ran her fingers around the lip of her glass. "I love the idea of one person forever. I love how Heathcliff couldn't live without Cathy, and how Cathy couldn't live without him, but they also brought out the worst in each other. I think forever might not be about something obsessive. I thought that was forever, but maybe it's not at all." She was still working it out. "But I can tell you that getting married because it's the smart thing, because it's the thing everyone else wants, because it makes other people sag in relief that they don't need to to take care of you anymore, it isn't something you should do either."
She thought maybe she noticed the twinge, and she thought maybe she understood, so she looked at him honestly and directly. "I understand if it bothers you to talk about him. We don't need to. It's okay." Jamie was difficult, because she really, really didn't want to cause more trouble with him and Si, and so she needed to talk to someone not-family, and maybe that wasn't fair here and with him.
So, she waited. Beat and unexpected and, "how did the visit go? No. Start with the prologue, and then tell me."