Chapter Four Emotional Support Bathtubs and Awkward Encounters
Chapter Four
Emotional Support Bathtubs and Awkward Encounters
The screech of my phone alarm drags me out of bed less gently than I would have preferred. I stretch and blink blearily at
the offending object, flicking it off and then rolling over to pull the blanket back over my head.
It was a late one last night, and not in a fun, get-drunk-with-your-friends-and-forget-about-the-world way. In an oh-shit-what-have-I-done way. It sucks.
Regan came up after closing the shop and found me sitting in the bathtub fully clothed listening to Gracie Abrams on repeat.
No, not in a bubble bath, or even a regular bath, for that matter—just bone-dry with good acoustics and the scent of cleaner
in the air. I don’t even know why I did it, really, except once during a particularly nasty storm a few weeks after I first
arrived in town, Regan insisted that interior bathrooms like mine were the safest place to shelter.
Having just left California, land of earthquakes and other life-ruining things, this advice seemed counterintuitive, but I did it anyway and I didn’t die. (No one did, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Last night, I just needed a quick little “hide here in case of emergency” place to weather out the storms raging in my head.
I didn’t care in that moment whether that safe place came in the form of a friend or an old claw-foot tub.
Regan was freaked out when she found me in there—who could blame her—but she didn’t need to be. I needed to be grounded by
the cold porcelain leaching the heat out of my body; I needed to remember that the sun will rise tomorrow somehow warmer and
brighter than ever before, just like I was last time I hid in there.
I blink at the soft morning light drifting in my window, relieved that the sun really did rise right on time. It’s good to
know that Nikki and I sharing the same zip code hasn’t knocked the earth off its axis. I sigh at the sound of a garbage truck
rattling its way down the road, the squeaky brakes chopping through the morning air like it’s all business as usual. I suppose
for them, it is. Unfair, really, when I feel like my life’s flipped upside down.
I slide my legs out from under the blankets, planting my feet on the hardwood floors and trying to forget Regan’s exasperated
look when I admitted to her that I had indeed texted Nikki the night before. How I thought there was no way it was her number
anymore and I was just chasing closure . . . and managed instead only to rip the Band-Aid off and reveal a still-gaping wound.
Gouda appears at the door as if by magic.
She butts her head against my legs and purrs deeply with an expression I consider affection but understand is really just her attempt to get me moving faster.
I know the second she can, she’s going to herd me to her food bowl and demand breakfast. I feed her quickly, double-checking the time.
I have to open the store today and I refuse to be late two days in a row. Besides, Regan has a Small Business Association
breakfast this morning that will tie her up until nearly noon. She offered to skip it but I know she loves those things. Plus,
she always shoves an extra chocolate croissant or two in her bag to smuggle back for me.
Still, I take my time getting ready, unable to get out of my own way. When I finally must head downstairs, I do so with Gouda
firmly scooped into my arms. Even with her soft, purring body to hide behind, I feel like I’m walking to the guillotine.
Part of me hopes that Nikki just happened to be passing through, suspects nothing, and will soon be on her way. (If she isn’t
already.) Part of me hopes she’s here looking for me and somehow guessed right. But all of me is scared about how I’ll feel
in either scenario.
No matter what happens, I hope the blade is sharp and it’s over quick.
Think of your happy place, think of your happy place, think of your happy place, I repeat to myself, trying to remember the various coping mechanisms Janet talked me through once upon a time. Except this
flower shop is my happy place, and yesterday Nikki breached it—filling my beautiful garden with her weeds all over again.
Containment comes next, if the happy place fails.
I’m supposed to imagine putting bad feelings in a jar and sealing it, but I can’t help giggling as I imagine Nikki trapped in a little jar that I’ve twisted shut. And then placed in a box. Which I then duct-taped shut. And sealed up in a safe that—oops—I can’t remember the combination for.
Oh darn, did I forget to poke air holes too?
I smile, feeling a smidge better as I set my cat down and head to unlock the front door. I don’t know that Janet would love
my attempted mind murder, but I’d like to think she’d at least give me half credit for doing the exercises.
I flip the sign from closed to open and am about to twist the lock when someone appears on the other side of the glass, banging
rapidly on the door. My hand falls as I startle backward and nearly trip over a rack of baby’s breath and greenery. I catch
myself from falling at the last second.
“Jesus Christ, hang on,” I snap, wiping off little bits of leaves that stuck to my leggings on impact. I finally look up,
instantly freezing at the sight of who’s on the other side of the door.
Nikki stands there, lips slightly parted, forehead creased the way it only gets when she’s thinking really hard. Or just about to come, my mind unhelpfully reminds me. I take a deep breath and flick the lock before walking back behind the counter. I’m doing
an excellent impression of someone not falling apart, if I do say so myself. When I take my seat on the little stool near
the register, it almost looks like a deliberate choice and not like I’m on the verge of passing out.
I stare down at the wood grain on the counter in front of me so hard that I’m worried it’s going to be permanently burned
into my retinas while I wait for the bells. The moment stretches long and then snaps, my hope that she second-guessed herself
and left dissipating when they start to jingle.
I force my eyes up to meet hers as she comes to a stop in the middle of the store.
“Andy,” she says, in that same breathy tone that I used to love so much.
“Don’t,” I say.
“You cut your hair.” Her fingers twitch like she wants to touch it before she shoves them in her pockets.
“Yeah, I cut off a lot of things in the name of fresh starts,” I say, giving her a pointed look. “That’s really what you’re
leading with? ‘You cut your hair’?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s been five years, of course you Hi. Hello. I . . .” She trails off.
The ever-familiar blush rises to her cheeks and suddenly it’s my turn to force my hands into submission. I grab the pen in
front of me and start clicking it with one hand, shoving the other one between my thigh and the stool for good measure.
Nikki has come closer, right up to the counter now, and the familiar notes of her signature Tom Ford perfume crash over me.
She bought her very first bottle when we were eighteen and had no idea of the horrors to come. I thought it was too complex
and mature of a scent for her—I always preferred the lighter ones that reminded me of the gardens back home in Vermont—but
she clung to it like it was proof she was a grown-up. It suits her well now, a fact that has a few stray butterflies confusedly
stirring inside me.
Contain, contain, contain.
“Hi, hello, what the hell are you doing here?” I blink. “Actually, I don’t care. How soon do you have to leave? Can you leave?” I correct, gritting my teeth.
She presses her lips together like she’s fighting off a smile. “I mean, it kinda sounds like maybe you do care. At least a little?”
“What? No! Why would you say that?” I ask, feigning annoyance. “Forget I even said anything.”
“Maybe I don’t want to forget,” Nikki says, and my eyes snap to hers—a little of my anger melting at the sincerity I find
in them.
No, no way. I’m not falling for this again. She’s an actress. Of course she can look sincere.
“It’s good to see you, Andy,” she adds, probably misinterpreting my silence as an invitation for her to go on.
“It’s Anne now,” I correct. “And if I had a spray bottle, I would be spraying you with it, just like I do when Gouda goes
someplace she doesn’t belong—like my kitchen counters.”
Nikki tilts her head. “Are you saying this store is . . .”
“Like my kitchen counters, yes. Off-limits.”
“And that makes me . . .”
“An asshole!” I blurt.
There she goes again, fighting a smile. “That breaks the metaphor a little bit, but fair enough. I’m not trying to . . . step
all over your kitchen counters.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“Have a conversation with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you left in the middle of the night. You went dark on socials. You completely fell off the entire face of the earth!”
“I left LA,” I say, rolling my eyes far more casually than I’m feeling. “Believe it or not, that’s not the entire world.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Did you need something?” I cross my arms. “Because if you don’t, then you’re just loitering, and we have a very strict no-loitering
policy here.”
Nikki makes a big show of looking around the empty shop before leveling me with her gaze once again. “Busy place here. I can
see why you can’t afford to have people standing around.”
“Oh, fuck off, Nikki.”
She tenses at my words, and I wonder if she’s taking the same trip down memory lane that I have been. Or maybe it’s something
more akin to PTSD.
Cards on the table? She definitely heard me tell her to fuck off more than was healthy toward the end of our relationship.
We were toxic by then, forcing it like two opposing magnets being crammed together—except with bonus drugs and alcohol and
cameras recording our worst meltdowns.
Think of the jar, I remind myself. Contain, contain, contain.
She clears her throat. “Actually, I do need something. Can you ship flowers?”
“Stateside, sure, but only overnight, and it’s gonna cost you.”