Even though our first date was technically at the Steak ’n Shake..and even though our first kiss was before that, after dancing at 1692..I like to think of our first date as being that night, at the art show. Knowing your greatest moments while they’re happening is an art, and I’m not sure what I knew about me and Jules, at the time we were happening, but I do know now, regardless of what came after and what had come before, that that art show—our real first date—was one of me and Jules’s finest.
We went from room to room. We didn’t smother each other. She didn’t stay on my arm the whole time and I didn’t stay on her arm the whole time. But we had a moment, flashing from room to room, looking at all this art. Looking at each other. Chasing each other around this print shop that had been turned into an art gallery for just one night. Isn’t that true—isn’t that the way it is? For the rest of its existence, that space is a print shop, and on this one night, it’s an art show. That’s the only night Jules and I ever go there. The rest of the time that space is full of people working and making their wage, and the rest of the time Jules and me are off in other places, doing other things, sometimes together, most of the time apart. Strange little one night—bright little memory. Most of the time I spent looking at her back! Or her looking at mine..and me not seeing her at all. Then one of us turns, and sees the other, and leads us to another room.
That’s really everything I own—memories like that.