Page 36 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
“No big earrings,” she says. “They get caught in your hair when you make out. Oh! And hair. Up. Definitely. Show off that neck like the beacon it is. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, and be clear about what you don’t want. Choose your playlist carefully, or better yet, keep the music off because the associations will trail you forever, which is great if the sex is great, and if the relationship lasts, but you don’t, like, hypothetically, want to end up popping into Boots to buy a nail file when ‘This Year’s Love’ comes on and some nice lady who looks a little like your grandma asks if you need help finding anything and you can’t answer her without breaking into sobs for the smoking-hot guitarist you were sure would disprove the stereotype about musicians only to leave town with a girl named Samantha the day after you told him you loved him.”
“Hypothetically,” I say.
“Of course!” She presses a hand to her heart in mock indignation, and I laugh when she laughs, but Hannah has her scars, too, though she’s acing law school, she runs a zillion miles each week, she’s beautiful and funny, and she’ll find someone who will adore her. I’ve always felt that, even when I’ve been uncertain about my own future, and Hannah feels the same way about me. This is why we need other people. Because sometimes we’re so close to our painwe only see our scars, and someone who’s standing a little farther away can see us more clearly.
We wrap up the call and I finish getting ready, which doesn’t take long since I’m too hopeless with hair and makeup to get ambitious. When I’m all set, I feed Aggie and then slump onto the futon and check our latest TikTok, the one with her standing up on her own. In about ninety minutes, it already has over three hundred thousand views.
Three. Hundred. Thousand. Views. And our first TikTok has over four million.
I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this, the voluntary sharing with strangers of Aggie’s updates, milestones, and daily fun, and the outpouring of response. It still stuns me at every turn, knowing people are connecting with her story on such a personal level. The tears they mention shedding. The people who’ve lost their dogs and feel a profound sense of joy at seeing Aggie embrace her second chance at a good life. The people who have golden retrievers and talk about why they love the breed so much. The people who respond not because she’s a golden, or a dog, but because she’s a living, breathing being who’s been through an impossibly hard time, and they feel on a bone-deep level that she deserves to have a happy, healthy, love-filled life. The people who are going through their own rehabilitation journeys, newly inspired to persist.
It’s a single step that reverberates around the world. I suppose that’s one of the gifts social media gives us: the amplification of a whisper into a shout. It makes me nervous, knowing not all whispers should be amplified, but the reverberations are also giving me hope. They remind me that even in this evolving, algorithm-driven space where vile trolls lurk, popularity is quantified, and the overabundanceof aspirational posts can be hard to take, at the heart of it, the driving force is a need to feel connected. It’s so human. So universal.
Everett knocks as Aggie’s polishing off the last of her food. I open my door to find him in his usual corduroys, Converse, and a moss-green cable-knit sweater that draws out the green tones of his hazel eyes. He looks like he always looks: handsome, boyish, huggable, a little out of step with current times, and kind, but the addition of a collared shirt under his sweater tells me he made an effort, too, and I’m not the only one treating tonight like it matters.
“Hi,” he says when I don’t assault him with a full-throttle embrace this time.
“Hi,” I say back, and before I can get lost in the moment, Aggie shuffle-steps over.
“Look at you, strutting your stuff,” he says, bending down to pet her.
She presses her head into his hand, nose in the air, reveling in his attention.
“Now that she knows she can stand up on her own, there’s no going back,” I say.
“Pretty soon, you won’t need that wagon.” He tips his chin toward where it’s parked by my fridge, the only place it fits, and barely. This apartment was a tight fit for one. For two of us, it’s almost comical. Getting rid of the wagon would be great.
After meeting Aggie’s most immediate demands, Everett straightens up and his eyes linger on my face as he draws me closer and gives me a quick kiss.
“You look great,” he says, and while I pat myself down, holding back the annoying rebuttals and deflections I refuse to let pass mylips, he adds, “I’m glad we can finally do this. Friday night. Dinner out. A real date. Maybe I’ll get up the nerve to tell you I like you again.”
“Would it help if I tell you that you have zero chance of rejection?”
His smile twitches into view, slow to form but eventually dimpling his cheeks.
“You can keep me on my toes a little, if you want to,” he says. “I don’t want to take anything for granted here. I think, um...” His neck goes blotchy and he scratches at it, running a hand under his shirt collar as he tries again. “I think this could be really good. This.” He gestures between us. “Us. I know it’s early, but it feels... right. Or, I want to get it right.”
My heart pinches at the clear evidence that he’s nervous, too, and at his willingness to push through those nerves and lay it all out there like he did on brownie night. No games. No dancing around words in a way that so often feels like playing chicken, with no one wanting to jump first. I’ve never been good at those games. I love that he’s not, either.
As Aggie lowers herself into a sitting position on my foot—and possibly on Everett’s, too, since we’re standing so close to each other with only a dog between us—I take his hand in mine.
“Congratulations,” I tell him. “You just nailed it.”
EVERETT TAKES MEto a cozy bistro, one that’s romantic with votive candles, warm fairy lights woven through the ivy that climbs several columns, and plenty of space between tables to allow for private conversations. It’s also not fussy or fancy, which makes it perfect.
Over dinner and a shared bottle of wine, we talk about anything and everything. Holiday traditions. Favorite childhood Halloween costumes. Dream travel plans. Abandoned hobbies. Worst movies we love anyway. We also circle back to the familiar topics of work and school. Everett mentions that an associate creative director position might be opening at his company soon, and the possibility has everyone in his office competing for accounts and trying to prove themselves to their boss. I tell him about the impossible-to-impress professor I keep trying to impress anyway, and about three of my favorite classmates: the quiet one who wants to be a researcher rather than a clinician, the laid-back one who breezes through the work with enviable ease, and the frantic one who always rushes into class late, breathless and dropping things, but yet is mentally so organized, she’s the first to finish any test, and with perfect results.
We have our share of awkward silences. Everett plays with a curl over his left ear or rotates a spare fork too many times for me not to notice. I twist the corners of my napkin in my lap. It’s not like the first ride we took in his car. We’re comfortable talking, teasing, laughing, bumping knees, and letting our feet slide against each other under the table, but after weeks of limited time together, the potential of what might happen after dinner hovers between us, electrifying the air and making us both twitchy with anticipation. We don’t need to say it. We both know.
When the waiter asks us about dessert, we swap a sly look and decline, as though another half an hour here would be torture for us both, but on the way home, we swing past Bakehaus, where Johann, the exuberant owner, gave us free goodies at last month’s Sunday market, and on another occasion after that, when he waved me inwhile I was passing by with Aggie, insisted on serenading us with several bars of an aria I didn’t recognize, and sent us home with more treats. This time he greets us with open arms and a string of enthusiasticwelcomes, stepping around the counter to embrace us as though we’re all old friends. He’s a big guy with a big voice, dark, pin-straight hair he slicks back, a thick beard, and the kind of waxed mustache I usually associate with hipsters, impeccably groomed and perfectly proportioned for his large frame and dramatic personality.
“Dessert for tonight or breakfast for tomorrow?” he asks us.
My face goes hot, and I only manage a nervous stutter of a laugh.
“Both,” Everett supplies, lacing his fingers through mine and giving my hand a squeeze. “Whatever you recommend. Plus a bag of the dog treats. And we insist on paying this time.”
“Pssh.” Johann flicks the suggestion away. “After all the business you’ve sent my way? I wouldn’t dream of it.” He steps closer and shields his mouth with a cupped hand. “Just don’t start taking your business next door. Madeleine and her silly croissants. They can’t hold a candle to my Franzbrötchen.” He makes another dismissive noise, casting a narrow-eyed glare toward the brick wall that separates his bakery from Pâtisserie Amour, the adorable French bakery that’s all whimsical curlicues and frothy pastels against Bakehaus’s warm, solid earthiness.
