Page 4 of Anywhere with You
I’d always liked her and Lorenzo’s apartment. The building was surrounded by young trees and flowerpots, and there were always chalk drawings in bright pink and yellow on the sidewalks.
Cara and Lorenzo didn’t have kids, and neither did we. Thank goodness no children would suffer from Bridget and Lorenzo’s betrayal. The two of them could go drive off a cliff or get eaten by alligators, and who would care? No one.
I knocked hesitantly on Cara’s door, and she opened in seconds. I’d been worried it was too early for a weekend, but she was already dressed in a green T-shirt and jeans with lace at the hem, her hair fixed in its big, beautiful curls, and the faint bit of makeup she wore was already applied. She really was very pretty, in an uptight schoolteacher kind of way.
I was wearing a black tank top and pants that I’d bought based on their claims tominimize stomach bulge, which is exactly the phrase that every woman wants to read when shopping. I honestly didn’t worry too much about stomach bulge, in general. I considered that having a body was an eighty-ish year privilege, if I was lucky, and that if I could spend that time focusing on my awesome guitar calluses and my elbow-length hair, andnotmy stomach bulge, I’d be much happier.
I tried to stop thinking about stomach bulges because Cara was standing there, waiting for me to speak.
I smiled. She cringed at my smile.
That was happening a lot lately. I really needed to look in a mirror.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. One of Dad’s favorite life lessons was to apologize as often as you can, to practice until you’re good at it.
I did much better with that advice than with his other lessons, which were some nonsense about oil changes and filing my taxes early.
Cara was still standing there, not saying anything.
“I brought pastries,” I said.
She eyed the bag. “Mademoiselle Louise Bakery?”
I nodded. I didn’t know Cara’s opinion, but I would forgive Darth Vader for a Mademoiselle Louise croissant.
Apparently, Cara agreed. She opened the door wide, and I went inside.
Cara’s apartment was immaculate. It could’ve been in a TV show about people who have their shit together.
Bridget and I usually hosted dinners in our backyard, but we had visited Cara and Lorenzo before. I always assumed that they made a special effort to clean up before they had guests. I couldn’t have imagined that they lived this way.
I wasn’t a slob, and Bridget was almost not a slob, but our house had nice, uneven stacks of books and coasters on the tables, junk mail on the counter, the occasional sock between the couch cushions, and floors littered with dog toys.
Cara had clean surfaces, straight throw pillows, and no dishes—not asingle dish—in the sink. Even the spot under the stovetop burners that is perpetually filthy in every house I’d ever visited was shining, pristine. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that no one had ever actually lived here.
I followed Cara to the kitchen table, because of course we wouldn’t be shoving pastries into our mouths on the living room couch like commoners, and she told me to have a seat while she grabbed plates.
“Coffee?” she said, gesturing to the already full coffeepot.
“Yes, please.”
She poured the coffee in a porcelain cup and brought creamer in a tiny porcelain pitcher and a matching sugar bowl.
“Dear God, do you always live this way?” I couldn’t help it, butthe regret hit me instantly. I had come here to apologize to this woman, not to criticize the way she served coffee.
But she didn’t seem offended. “Didn’t you ever play with fancy tea sets as a kid and think, one day I’ll grow up and have the real thing?”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes and brought over two small plates for our pastries, then sat across from me with her own cup. “Well, I did. And now I have teapots, and cups that don’t advertise John Deere tractors, and really, really good bath towels.”
I had my mouth open for a rebuttal but stopped at that last one. Really, really good bath towels. I’d always meant to buy some. That was a luxury, but a luxury I could probably afford. Maybe they wouldn’t fundamentally enhance my quality of life, nothing that extreme. But they would improve my enjoyment of it.
Maybe that was her point.
“You’re really smart,” I said.
She snorted, then reached for the pastries. “Maybe. But my husband had been cheating for six months, so I may not be smart about some things.”
