Page 37 of What Happens in Amsterdam

Oh my god.

They think I’m a local.

I’m much too giddy as I reply, “Yes! I do!”

She and her husband look relieved. “We’re trying to go to the Rijksmuseum. Is nineteen the right tram?”

I nod, even more thrilled that I know the answer to the question. “It’s that stop over there, on the other side of the street.”

They’re effusive in their thank-yous, and I just give them a bright wave before I board a different tram to Wouter’s office.

Once I sit down, my phone buzzes with a text from my mother.

How was your first Dutch class? Did you make it home okay?

I fight back a flicker of frustration. The last time we talked, my parents asked what time the class was, and I told them I’d let themknow how it went. Apparently the fact that I didn’t do it right away means something went horribly wrong.

I am thirty years old, and my parents are still checking up on me like this.

Great, just had coffee with a friend. I promise, I AM FINE.

The building is on a quiet street in Amsterdam’s Oud-West neighborhood, just outside the city center. Dusk fell an hour ago, and while there are still a few bikers making their way home or to after-work plans, the streets are a bit emptier over here.

He’s on the third floor in a practice with a few other therapists, the space tidy and well-lit, with a large plant in one corner of the waiting area that seems to be thriving. The receptionist is gone for the day and the whole place is quiet, so I’m guessing Wouter’s the last one here.

When I call his name, he pokes his head out of his office, and I have to take a moment to process him here, like this. He’s in a charcoal-gray shirt, the sleeves pushed past his elbows and the top button undone, his hair in slight end-of-work disarray.

Without meaning to, my eyes drop to his waist, just above his belt, where that deep V I noticed earlier is now swathed in denim.

File under thoughts I cannot be having about my future husband.

“You’ll never believe what just happened,” I say to him, hoping the giddiness in my voice will cover up anything else. “A couple of tourists asked me how to get to the Rijksmuseum. They thought I was a local!”

“Oh? What did you tell them?”

“I said to take the nineteen going to Sloterdijk.”

Wouter’s jaw tenses as he tries to fight a grin. And fails.

“What?” I ask.

“That was the wrong direction. Right tram, wrong direction.”

“Shit. Is it too late to run out and find them?” Now Wouter starts laughing, so I give his arm a nudge with my elbow. “Nooooo, don’t laugh! I feel terrible!”

“They’ll figure it out,” he says. “I promise you, they’ll be okay.”

We small-talk about my Dutch class, and I mispronounce my way through telling him my name, my age, and where I’m from. Then he leads me into his office, a medium-sized room with a desk on one side and a platform table in the middle, a stack of clean towels and a laundry bin on the other side. There’s a rack of dumbbells, an exercise ball, and various stretching bands. His framed degrees hang on the wall alongside some artwork that looks like it came with the frame, the kind you’re supposed to replace.

“So this is where the magic happens.”

“If by magic you mean sweat and tears and muscle cracks, then yes,” Wouter says, but I can tell he’s proud of what he does. It reminds me of how he’d act after finishing a sketch or painting, never one to seek out compliments or disparage his own work. There was a quiet confidence there, a pride in completing it, whether it was a doodle or a detailed landscape, though he always preferred art with people in it.

In some ways, I’m still reconciling the wide-eyed artist with the logical physiotherapist. The boy who confessed his dreams in the middle of the night when it was just him, me, and the stars with the man who let go of those dreams long ago.

Then again, maybe this was always the person he was going to be, and I was just a detour on the way to some better destination.

Maybe it’s a Pavlovian response to where we are, but I can’t help stretching to one side, trying to soothe a stiffness in my back.

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