Page 73 of No Place Like You

“Yeah. I think Carmen’s getting there on Tuesday. She just has to wait for David to get off work,” she explains, referring to Carmen’s boyfriend of nearly six years. “And a bunch of other people should be there the day before or the day of the wedding.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Maybe we can spend one of the nights in our room,” she randomly suggests. “Just eat junk food and watchBridesmaidsandLa La Land. I miss doing that with you and Carmen.”

“Nat.” The lingering guilt from the lies I’ve been telling her, either by omission or avoidance, feels like it’s all ready to spill out of me. A part of me feels like maybe I can finally tell her. With the past few months behind me, maybe she’d understand now, knowing how hard I worked and how much praise I’ve received from my superiors.

“Hmm?” she hums, sounding distracted.

“I…” I pause. “I, um…” The words don’t come out. I don’t know how to tell her I’ve been living in the same city as her, playing house with her future husband’s best man while working at the exact internship she and my mom agreed I shouldn’t apply to. That I’ve been falling for Dexter, hard. Enough for me to occasionally rethink going back home and play imaginary scenarios where I stay in Brooklyn. And I realize it’s another goddamnlie. While I lied about one lie, I created a new one. One involving her and her future husband and their inner circle. Why do I keep doing this? The guilt starts to make my heart crumple into a tight ball, and all it does is force the truth down. “I can’t wait to see you.”

She squeals. “I can’t believe that inoneweek, I’m going to be a married woman!”

I can’t help the creeping grin on my face. “Mrs. Natalia Marshall.” I sigh. “Who woulda thought.”

We both dissolve into giggles.

Just then, I see Dexter round the corner, and his face softens into a gentle smile when he sees me.

“I’ll see you soon, Nat,” I say, my eyes on Dexter. He watches me, leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb with his arms crossed, and I look up at him from the floor.

“Yep,” Nat answers. “See you in a few days!”

I hang up and toss my phone on the floor at the same time Dexter walks across the room and sinks into one of the few empty spots next to me.

“Packing?” he asks, gesturing toward the suitcase, the half-filled box, and the scattering of items ready to be stowed away, all a symbolic answer to his almost rhetorical question.

I nod. “Thought I would start now while I had some free time.” He nods too, mirroring the morose up and down motion of my head. “Do…you need to pack too?” I ask, hoping to steer away from the jarring reality of me going home.

He nods again. “But I can do that later in the week,” he says with a sad smile.

I finish stuffing away a stack of clothing into my suitcase. “Oh,” I exclaim. “I almost forgot.” I stand from the floor and retrieve Dexter’s laptop from my bedside. I start it up, sidling up back next to him with the screen pointed in his direction. “I touched up the pictures from the gallery show.”

“Oh,” he says softly. He readjusts himself when I lean into his shoulder and makes room for me in the crook of his arm. We settle ourselves as I pull open the files.

“I need Janet’s email to send them to her,” I say, scanning through the pictures of Avery and Janet surrounded by the crowd at the show. I stop at a few images of Dexter and Janet, the ones I took of them from afar. They’re laughing and talking, looking as if they don’t have a care in the world. “These are a few of you and Janet I got.”

Dexter takes the laptop from my hands, and his eyes are glued to the screen. I notice a small furrow fissure between his brow, and his lips form a straight line. “She looks just like my mom,” he says softly.

“Oh,” I whisper.

“I never noticed it before, but when she smiles like that…She has my mom’s smile.”

I don’t know what to say. Do I apologize for unknowingly dredging up the memory of his mom? For reminding him his parents never had the chance to watch him and Janet grow up? Or do I console him? Remind him that while he doesn’t have his parents, he still has Janet. But given Janet’s current state, even that feels wrong. So I just sit there, watching him scroll through the pictures. He clicks along, going back and forth between images as if he’s trying to memorize them. Every shadow and light, every pop of color or contrasting gray and white area. Like he wants to remember Janet like how she is in the pictures, happy and healthy looking. Without all of the obvious depictions of her illness, like the barely remaining hair on her scalp hidden underneath the hair prosthetic she wore, or the layers of makeup carefully applied to disguise the gaunt tones of her skin.

“Thank you,” he finally says, tearing his eyes away from the screen to look at me. “Seriously, Lucy. Thank you for taking these. You don’t know what this means to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I meant it when I said you have something special here,” he adds.

I blush a little, too uncomfortable with praise and recognition. “I’m heading out around nine,” I say, changing the subject and gently laying the laptop on the bed. “I’m grabbing some drinks with some other interns and a few other people from work.”

“Oh,” he answers, a little deflated.

“Did you want to come?”

“You sure? You don’t want to mingle with your crowd alone?”

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