Page 45 of Better Hate than Never

I nod politely to Luz at the front desk, then take the stairs, because fuck elevators, jogging down, pushing open the door into the cool air. The sky is cloudless, the sun a pale lemon yellow squeezing drops of light between tall buildings. I start to walk, hands in my pockets, and try to clear my head.

For a while it works, as I soak up the ambient sounds of traffic, the steady stream of people going about their lives, until I realize where I’ve ended up and slow to a stop.

Bello’s.

I stare at the familiar sign on the Italian restaurant I haven’t been to in twenty years. I can tell the place has hardly changed when someone with a food order rushes out to a delivery bike waiting for them and acoustic guitar music floats out in their wake.

The door eases shut, but slowly, giving me time to soak up its ambience. The clink of plates and glasses, the melodic lilt of spokenItalian, sharpens memories that have faded at the edges, fuzzy and softened by time. Plates of pasta swirled with Parmesan and cracked black pepper, tall glasses of deep red wine. Mom’s bright laugh and Dad’s warm smile. Old music, flickering candlelight, my belly full of too much frittelle.

The memory expands, like a widening lens. Bill’s deep chuckle. Maureen’s rosy-cheeked grin. Bea doodling on a napkin, Jules with her nose in a book.

And a little pigtailed menace with freckles on her nose and wiggly legs, kicking my shins, sharp, stormy eyes boring into me.

I blink, wrenching myself from the memory, though it’s hardly a relief. My present is just as haunted by Kate as my past.

I think of the work I have ahead of me to fix things between us, enough so that I don’t feel sick every time I replay what she said.

You hate me.

I wonder if there will ever be a world where we could walk in here as something gentler, something forgiven, split a bottle of wine, pick at each other’s plates, our forks knocking in a battle for the perfect bite.

That’ll be a cold day in hell, the voice of reason mutters in my head.

Finding my phone in my pocket, I pull up Curtis’s email from this morning, confirming the flowers and pastries were delivered, and type a response, asking him to clear my schedule after five but not to make any reservations.

Where I’m going after work, I won’t need reservations.

More like head-to-toe body armor.

•THIRTEEN•

Kate

I’m sure I look ridiculous, clutching a bouquet the size of my torso as early December wind tries to rip it out of my arms, but I don’t care. Like hell was I leaving those flowers at the store.

While I couldn’t give a shit less what brand my clothes are, while I’ll never want diamonds or cashmere or any sort of personal luxuries—anything that costs the kind of money that makes me ill when I think of the poverty and inequality that ravages so much of the world—I have a weakness for flowers. Ishouldcare that once each stem is cut, a flower’s life dwindles exponentially, that such an extravagant, costly arrangement could have been assembled from my mother’s greenhouse for a few dollars, its blossoms grown dirt cheap from seeds nurtured by the simplest of things—sunlight and soil, water and waiting.

But I love flowers too much. So I clutch my precious bouquet and breathe it in. The card wedged inside it, with my name penned in dark ink, pokes against my chest, reminding me, since having determined via text it was not my parents, of my many unanswered questions:

Who sent it? And why?

Who knows my full name?

Who knows I eat vegetarian and love pumpkin doughnuts?

Who knows where I work right now?

Reminded of work, my mind makes one of its nimble leaps and reroutes, drawn to memories of the day, how happy they made me. After Jack and his parents left, a fresh batch of customers came in. I took care of them, helped them pick out a card for Grandma, stationery for a friend, a small art print for their grown child who just moved into their first place. During restock, I laughed with Bea, teased with Toni, traded a knowing look with Sula as my sister and Toni bickered like old biddies.

I hadn’t planned to stay all day, but time passed so easily. Hours flew as I snapped photos of the store in between customers, capturing its loveliness as the sun made its journey from butter-yellow morning light to honey gold at high noon, then to rich russet as it dipped below the horizon.

Before I knew it, we were closing the door, flipping the sign fromOpentoClosed. And when I clicked through my camera’s screen display, Toni, Bea, and Sula gathered around me, theiroohs andaahs a soothing chorus to my ears, I felt it—a rare, precious ember, small and glowing, right in the center of my chest.

Belonging.

Warmed by that little nugget of happiness, I clutch my flowers, impervious to the determined wind, contentedly alone, about to start my walk home. It took a bit of maneuvering to get myself here—standing outside the pub next door to the Edgy Envelope, having just waved goodbye to Toni, who hopped on the back of Hamza’s Vespa while Sula whizzed by on her bike, her bell chirping a merrydinggoodbye—but I managed it.

Jamie stopped by a half hour ago with pho in hand for Bea and me, a cab waiting to take us home. I declined, lying by saying I was going to get a bite at the pub next door and would catch my own cab home. Because Jamie and Bea need it—time alone at the apartment, time to be happy in a way that I don’t understand because I’ve never known it but that I’m happy for them to have, nonetheless.

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