Me. I am the woman who was supposed to be swallowed by that dress, and now it’s cascading directly into Julia’s face, a raging waterfall of my mistakes.
It takes several seconds, during which she’s utterly frozen, for everything to come tumbling out. It’s like something out of I Love Lucy, or The Dick Van Dyke show.
When it’s finally over, we’re all left staring.
“Oh, honey,” Ashleigh says. “Tell me you didn’t keep the dress.”
21
“I just haven’t had time to figure out what to do with it!” I cry, brushing past Julia to start stacking things back up.
“No!” Julia yelps, yanking a box of thrifted-and-laundered ivory cloth napkins out of my hand. “You can’t just put this stuff back in there. Pandora’s box has been opened, Daphne.”
“And Pandora’s contents aren’t going to fit in this living room with your big-ass life raft,” I say.
“You’re going to have to get rid of it before you move anyway,” Ashleigh points out.
Julia’s eyes snap to me. “You’re moving?”
“Possibly,” I say. “But not until after the summer, at the earliest. I’ve got time to deal with this stuff.”
Ashleigh faces Julia. “Maybe you could move into her room.”
For Miles’s sake, I’m relieved to see Julia scrunch her nose in dismay. “No way. Staying here is a short-term solution only.”
Now that I have an in, I ask, “Why the sudden interest in moving here, anyway?”
Julia sucks her teeth for a second. “Can I tell you something without it getting back to Miles?”
“Ooh, gossip!” Ashleigh pantomimes zipping her lips.
“Fine,” I say. “But if you can tell me, I’m sure you can tell him.”
Julia snorts. “I love my brother more than anyone on the planet, but there are things it’s better for him not to know.”
“Such as?” Ashleigh presses.
“I’ve been almost moving here for years.”
“Weren’t you in college, in Wisconsin?” I ask.
“I was miserable,” she says. “And I couldn’t tell Miles—he’d cosigned my loans.”
“He would’ve understood,” I insist.
“I know,” she says. “He babies me. And frankly, I’m not a huge fan of cleaning up my own messes. But the thing is, when I make one and Miles rushes in with a mop, he’s always leaving something behind.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“When he graduated from high school,” she says, “he was supposed to move to Colorado with a couple of his friends. Last minute, he decided not to go. And I know it was because of me. Because I would’ve been stuck with my parents.
“He waited until I left for college to even leave the state. He moved out here and he loved it. So when school started sucking, I was going to come too. But then he started dating Petra.”
“Didn’t you two get along?” I ask, surprised.
“Petra gets along with everyone,” Julia retorts. “But she’s also so fucking flighty. And I say that as a flighty person. I get sick of jobs. I get sick of roommates. I get sick of having bangs, four days after getting them.”
Ashleigh says, “Well, that’s everyone.”
“But Petra—she’s next level. Once she and Miles took a trip to Iceland and decided just to stay indefinitely. For like two months. I’m not even sure if it was legal. And then last winter, their two-week trip to Uruguay lasted five.
“I didn’t want to move here if he didn’t really want to be here,” she explains. “Because I know him, and he’d feel stuck. But some things changed in my life recently, and now feels like the right time. But if something comes up—if Miles wants to move to Iceland, I just don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t. I can’t. He’s given up too much for me over the years.”
My heart keens. I know what it’s like to have all your family concentrated in one person, to want what’s best for them after they’ve given you so much. But having heard Miles’s side of things, I can’t help but wish he knew how his sister felt.
To him, he’s the brother who ran away. To her, he’s the one who stays, even when he shouldn’t.
“You should tell him how you feel,” I say.
“Interesting sentiment.” She grabs her water bottle for a long sip. “I can think of some other scenarios where it might apply.”
Ashleigh rescues me with a firm clap. “Okay, back to the issue at hand. This stuff.”
“Right,” Julia says. “Here’s what we do: we photograph and list everything we can online. Then I’ll ship things out as they’re bought. As a thank-you for letting me stay here.”
“And I’ve got plenty of room for this stuff at my place in the meantime,” Ashleigh volunteers. “So we catalog it, list it, and then I’ll store it until it sells.”
