Page 15 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“Already in progress.” From the little browsing I’ve done, I’ve found American companies with offices in Amsterdam that promise the exact same thing I was doing in Los Angeles, with a much slimmer salary, though most of them are looking for engineers. “Phee, please don’t tell Mom and Dad about the job.”

“I’m sensing a theme here,” she says gently. “Of course.”

I want to be thriving here—I want to learn the language, understand the customs. I thought I’d find myself in Amsterdam, but so far all I’ve found is a relic from my past.

Sometimes I think I can trace this aimlessness back to the beginning of my life. When my mother was rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section at twenty-six weeks pregnant and her impossibly tiny baby later rushed to the NICU, our synagogue rallied around them. There were frozen lasagnas and casseroles, brisket and matzo ball soup. Then there was the fundraising for medical care. The stories on the local news. The prayers—of course, the prayers.

Naturally, I remember none of this, but I’ve seen enough photos of myself in an incubator, wires wrapped around me. When my parents finally brought me home six months later, after surgeries to repair my heart and my lungs, a camera crew followed us. Capturing my parents’ tears and the wide-eyed curiosity on Phoebe’s face.

Everyone swore I was destined for big things. As though that had been the reason I’d survived.

“The miracle baby,” they said, though as I grew older, I started doubting how much I believed in God at all.

“What a beautiful family,” they said, but they had no idea how long it would take me to feel comfortable in my skin.

“She’s meant to do something great,” they said. “We just know it.”

And then I didn’t.

The only remnants of my early foray into the world are my asthma and a lingering sense that I’m not living up to the potential everyone thought I had.

It’s ironic how stunted I usually feel, given how I arrived in the world so early, as if the rest of my life was determined to make up for it. A self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe: my parents treated me like a kid, so I never truly grew up. I’ve spent so long searching for that Big and Meaningful Thing, watching friends find theirs with ease. Nora, a freelance photographer with two kids. Alexis, a talent agent who just started her second round of IVF. Madelyn, who got her dream job in New York and stopped talking to anyone back home.

For a while I even wondered if I was meant to work with books like my sister and spent a summer helping out at the store, and while I liked it, I didn’t have the same knack for finding a customer the perfect recommendation the way she did.

Sometimes it seems like I’m the only one flailing. A late bloomer.

“Hold on, I’m going to start dinner,” I tell Phoebe, reaching into theNew Yorkertote I carry with pride despite never having read a full issue of theNew Yorker. Inside is a box of penne, a jar of marinara sauce, an aspirational bag of lettuce. I hold a pot under the faucet—but when I turn the tap, no water comes out. Frowning, I wiggle it a few times with no luck.

I grab the phone and head down the hall to the bathroom, trying the tap there—that one works, but even if I’m going to be boiling it, bathroom-water pasta is not exactly appetizing.

“What is it?” Phoebe asks.

“Kitchen sink isn’t working,” I say after running back in and trying it again. With a groan, I set the pot back down on the counter. “I think I need to call Wouter.”

“Ooh, leave me on in the background?”

“I thought we were still mad at him!”

“Yes, but I’m also dying to see what he looks like now. I contain multitudes. Is there anywhere you can secretly mount your phone to take a video?”

“I feel like that might be illegal?”

“Fine, fine. A sneaky photo. Final offer.”

“I say this with only love in my heart: I don’t know if you should be running a business.”

Phoebe cackles. “Bye, love you. Go call your landlord.”

Once I end the call, I pace the kitchen, as though the sink simply needs time to think about what I’ve asked of it. I wait fifteen minutes, and when there’s still no water, I swallow down any remaining vestiges of pride and message him.

Not three minutes later, there’s a knock on my door.

“That was fast,” I say as I open it up, slightly out of breath from dashing down the hall. Maybe I tousled my hair a bit. Maybe I applied more tinted lip balm, but only because I was such a mess the first time he saw me. I want him to know that even if thirty-year-old Dani doesn’t have her shit together, at least she can look the part.

Wouter’s in a light blue button-up with a pen tucked in the pocket, jaw still dusted with stubble—and around his hips is an honest-to-god tool belt.

I draw a hand to my mouth. “Oh. Oh my god. You have a belt and everything.”

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