We both lean forward at the same time, still in our seats, to shake each other’s hands. When we sit back, we both cross our legs. He picks up his book; I pick up my phone. We go back to whatever was keeping us occupied, but we’re both smiling.

“Are you a member of the Mile-High Club, Summer?” he asks, flipping a page casually.

I post a story on Instagram with a picture of his feet, captioned: “Look at these feet! Just imagine the rest of him? #WinkWink!”

“Well, no, but as Groucho Marx once said, ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.’”

Please be my Richard Gere.

Please be my Richard Gere.

Please be my Richard Gere.

He smiles.

“Then how about dinner? Fully clothed.”

“Partial clothing is fine, too, you know.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Epilogue

One year later

Rory

A little hand grabs mine, pulling me toward the throng, her tiny feet secured in shiny, red Dorothy-style shoes.

“Pu-leeeeeease. You said five minutes. Surely at least a thousand have passed!”

“It’s been barely two.” I laugh, lowering my camera.

I give the subject of my photo shoot, an engaged couple, a helpless shrug. They don’t seem mad. Maybe because they haven’t paid me.

When I officially resigned from Blue Hill, I promised myself no matter what I do, I will always leave room to have one photo shoot a month that’s completely pro bono. Chicken soup for my inspiration, if you will. Last month it was the 100th birthday party of a woman named Joselyn O’Leary in North Dublin. I came to her retirement home and took pictures of her dancing with her new beau, Finn, who at the tender age of eighty-five, is fifteen years her junior.

Today, it’s a couple of teenagers—nineteen, I believe—who fell pregnant and decided to make it official. They don’t have a budget to speak of for their wedding. They’re going to use the bride’s mother’s living room for the party next month, and the dress and ring were bought at a secondhand store. They wrote me a touching letter asking if I’d be willing to take a few pictures of them, so here I am.

Their wedding will be held at a local council flat, and not only have I been invited, but I promised to come, too.

“Two or a thousand, it is time to go.” Tamsin pouts adorably, the way she does when she’s trying to get me to give her chocolate.

The couple laugh and shake their heads.

“Your daughter is just precious,” the girl tells me, adjusting the polka-dot dress that’s a little too tight on her swollen midriff.