Running doesn’t work.
Gorging on South American history doesn’t work.
Furniture stripping doesn’t work.
My mind is a depot, and two trains keep slamming into each other.
One is the kiss.
The other is a conversation with my dead best friend.
The two can’t coexist.
And I can’t talk to him again. I can’t ask him for permission. I can’t honor a promise I made late one night at my apartment a few months before he died, a promise I veiled as a simple excuse to get him to shut up. I can’t honor it because he took that away from me too, the night he got behind the wheel after too much to drink, drove too fast, and crashed his car into a tree.
Fucking tree.
Fucking Tripp.
That was five days after we’d gone to dinner at a hot new restaurant he’d been raving about. The Red Door. He’d gotten us into The Red Door, and the fucker hadn’t even been drinking that night. He had iced tea, and he gave me hope.
Hope that he was finally turning the corner.
Five days later, he was gone.
Tonight, I pace through my apartment, wishing I could get in a cab uptown, bang my fist on the door of his pad, and tell him I’m taking her out, and that’s that, then go to the batting cage the next day with him and laugh about whatever had cracked us up that week at work.
Like we used to.
There’s so much we used to do that we’ll never do again.
And I’ve dealt with all of it. I’ve mourned him, missed him, and moved on.
But that promise—that stupid promise—hangs over me.
He can’t grant me a thing anymore, and I don’t know that Lulu can either, but at least I can see her, talk to her.
That’s a choice I do have.
I head downtown, straight for Lulu’s home, texting her that I’m on the way.
She buzzes me in. Tension coils in me as I walk up the steps slowly, as if each successive footfall will sort out the mayhem in my mind.
It’s a mess in there.
More than ten years after I met her, I finally kissed the woman I’ve loved.
The woman I can’t get out of my head.
She’s back in full force, the deed to my heart in her hand, and I need to know what she’s going to do with it.
I reach her floor, scanning for 3B. I locate it instantly when I spot a neon-pink Christmas stocking hanging from a door. In felt-tip pen on the cuff are the words “Feel free to drop any assorted packages, bills, or winning lottery tickets here.”
I let myself imagine her apartment. What does a Lulu-only place look like? Colorful, vibrant, teeming with all the things?
I knock, and she opens the door right away, dropping into her best Mae West impression. “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” She takes a beat. “Oh, you’re already here. Come in.”
“Why, thank you very much,” I say, Cary Granting it back to her.
She’s more knock ’em dead than any silver-screen stunner. More than Mae West, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn herself, even in blue leggings that stop below her knees and a pale-yellow T-shirt that falls off her shoulder.
I step inside, entering a kaleidoscope. A ruby-red fleece blanket is draped across a purple couch. Pillows are piled high on the ends of that sofa, towering and teetering like Jenga blocks. Picture frames stand proudly on nearly every surface—images of Lulu and her mom laughing at a bookstore, Lulu and her colleague Cameron at their first shop, Lulu and Mariana on the beach. I can’t help it—I scan for one of Lulu and Tripp, but find none.
An unexpected dose of delight zips through me. This discovery makes me happier than it should, so I do my best to wipe that cocky smile off my face as I peer around, noticing magazines stacked across a small table and books rising sky-high on a shelf.
Lulu is not a neat freak. Lulu is like a suitcase that you sit on to try to close, but bright emerald-green scarves poke out the corners, a fuchsia-pink heel sticks out one side, and a polka-dotted dress spills from the zipper.
Everything is a little bit messy and wild.
In the kitchen, a mint-green KitchenAid mixer takes center stage. A steel canister holds utensils and whisks, and the counter is shiny and spotless. An open pack of chocolate tells me she’s already been experimenting with concoctions this evening. The scents of vanilla and almond tell me she’s made something delicious.
“The whole place—it’s very you. Like you stamped it with an ink pad.”
She shuts the door. “Lulu’s lair. Enter at your own risk.”
I laugh. “I’ll consider myself warned.”
“But will you heed the warning? After all, you’re here.” She raises her chin and looks at me with challenge in her eyes.
“I’m here. I suppose that means I’m not entirely risk averse.”
A smile tries to sneak across her lips, but she seems to tuck it away. “So . . .” She exhales, waiting. She’s waiting for me.
Of course she is.
It’s my move.
She served first earlier today.
I drum my fingers across the foyer table. “What are we doing?”
“Right now? Talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
She shrugs, looking as helpless as I feel. “I don’t know.”
“I mean, are we on the way to dating or something?” That’s the strangest thing to say. How can I begin to conceive of Lulu and me dating? What would a date look like? We’ve done so many things together already.
