Chapter 35
35
Lucy
I zip up my carry-on bag, a large black tote bag with neon green stitching and a wide zipper. My suitcase is packed to the brim, the last remnants of my belongings stuffed into every nook and cranny. I turn to look at my room, the emptiness of it sitting too loudly for me to ignore. The small bedside table missing my phone charger and hand lotion. The six-drawer dresser no longer holding my jewelry and perfume bottles on top. The bed, neatly made and without the messy pile of clothes I’ve been keeping in a heap at the foot of it. I no longer live here. My stay here has officially expired, and I’m moving on to the next chapter of my life.
I’ve been thinking about this moment a lot lately. The days and hours leading up to it. The anticipation of how it would feel to finally walk out of this room I’ve inhabited and made mine. There were moments when I thought maybe the melancholy that kept coming in waves would just disappear. And even moments when I thought I would be happy to leave, too eager to go home to feel anything other than excited. But now that the moment is actually here, it’s worse than I expected. I almost want to unpack, shove all my things back where they belong, and curl up into a little ball underneath the blankets. Maybe even ask Dexter to join me.
Dexter .
He’s the reason I feel like this. Not this room or the apartment or even the city. It’s Dexter. He’s the one I’m going to miss.
“You want me to take your suitcase?”
I’m pulled from my thoughts, my depressing, puppy face inducing thoughts, and look at Dexter standing at the doorway. He’s standing there, his shoulders slightly hunched and his arms sitting awkwardly by his side like he’s unsure. He gestures at my suitcase with a look of unease, and I nod.
“Yeah, it’s all packed.”
He takes it from me without another word and wheels it to the living room, where he has his own suitcase lined up against the back of the couch. We stand there in quiet, disconcerting silence as he sifts through some mail.
“Is Janet going to come by to check on your apartment?”
He nods. “Charles, actually. I asked him to come by once or twice to bring in the mail and make sure the place hasn’t been taken over by rats. Or squatters.”
I smirk, trying to lighten the mood.
“You aren’t forgetting anything?”
I shake my head. “I triple checked.”
He nods again and pulls at the back of his neck. “We still have another hour or so before we need to leave. You want to go grab some coffee?”
I smile. “Sure.”
We leave our luggage by the door and exit the building. We walk carefully through the streets, too aware that this will be one of the last times we’ll be leaving his apartment to do anything coupley. We won’t be going out for drinks to meet up with work friends anymore. We won’t be having dinner with Janet and Charles or stopping by Pepper Thai to pick up more takeout. We won’t be having any more early morning coffee runs .
We walk in silence, Dexter’s hand gripping mine while I feel him give me an occasional squeeze. We stop at the nearest Starbucks and enter the already crowded shop. The line is long, and we wait patiently while perusing the menu, even though I already know what I’m going to order.
When it’s finally our turn, Dexter reaches into his wallet and peeps open the bifold. “I’ll have two upside-down venti iced caramel macchiatos with oat milk and a light caramel drizzle,” he tells the cashier while looking into his wallet as if he’s reading off the order.
The cashier taps away at the screen in front of him and tells us the total before Dexter retrieves his card from his wallet and pays. After the quick transaction, we move on to the waiting area for our drinks.
“What is that?”
“What?”
I poke a finger at his pocket. “That thing you had in your wallet.”
“Your drink order.”
I look at him, confused. “Like, you wrote it down on a piece of paper?”
Instead of answering me, he takes his wallet out of his front pocket. When he opens it, he angles it toward me, showing me a piece of paper tucked into it. I expect to see my drink order messily scribbled on a Post-it Note or something equally haphazard yet considerate. But instead, it’s so much more than that.
“Is this the order label off the side of the cup?”
He nods. “I picked it off the cup that first morning you bought me coffee,” he explains, holding the wrinkled paper between his index finger and thumb. The typed-out text is worn and practically impossible to decipher. The words abbreviated to shortened terms like Vt Icd Carml Macch and my name in the similar bold font, all dated to two months ago.
“And you’ve kept it this whole time?”
“Yeah.”
I stand there, completely dumbfounded .
“What?” Dexter asks, watching my gaped mouth and speechless state.
“I just…” I pause, taking a breath, a moment to collect my words. “I can’t believe you would think to do that.”
“I wanted to make sure I got your order right if I ever needed to get you coffee,” he explains with a small shrug, as if it was completely normal to have my drink order wedged between his credit cards and a few five-dollar bills.
Dexter’s name is called, and our identical drinks sit on the counter, waiting to be collected by us. He grabs a straw for me, opting to drink his using the straw-free spout, and we walk out of the busy coffee shop. Once we’re outside, I stop on the sidewalk, letting people walk past me while I ease myself under an awning, away from the steady flow of foot traffic.
“Hey. Is everything okay?” Dexter asks, following my steps.
I nod while I push down the lodged knot in my throat. This was supposed to be temporary. I was only supposed to occupy Dexter’s spare bedroom while I finished out the length of my internship, and I’m supposed to go home at the end of it. It’s an agreement he and I both agreed on.
And now, he goes and does something so un -temporary. That piece of paper could sit in his wallet for all of eternity. It could stay stuck to the leather lining as a constant and forever reminder of what we had. I can remove all remnants of myself from his apartment. I can pack away my clothes, my belongings, my messiness, all of it, without leaving a single trace behind, but I can’t take away that piece of paper from him. He put that there. He turned it into something permanent.
“Are you sure?”
I look at him, the inner corners of my eyebrows turned up almost like I’m pleading. Why did he have to go and do that? Why did he have to make me want, make me hope, for more from this?
“Dexter,” I say, my eyes avoiding his. I start to choke on my words, and I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. “I, um…Everything you’ve done for me while I’ve been here has meant so much to me. And I just want to tell you…thank you. For everything.”
He strokes his fingers along my arm, and my eyes start to mist over. A look sweeps across his face, something expectant, with his widened eyes and rosy smile, and he nods at the same time his hand clutches my fingers.
“I’m going to miss you,” I finally add, and his face drops.
An acknowledging look replaces the hopeful one he had, and he tugs at my hand. “We should get going,” he whispers softly.
The chaotic energy you find at any large airport surrounds me and Dexter as we head out of the terminal to where the taxi service line is located. Dexter has my luggage in one hand and his in the other, and I’m following along with my carry-on bag slung over my shoulder.
We stand under the large sign that reads TAXI in bold letters, accompanied by the silhouette image of a taxi car, and patiently wait in the line. My hand is wrapped around Dexter’s bare arm, and his hand occasionally rubs against my lower back. We steal glances at each other, wondering if the silence between us is due to the exhaustion after a ten-hour flight or because we don’t know what to say to each other.
Everything I want to tell him sits heavy on my heart. Words like “home” and “future” and even “love.” I can’t possibly be in love with him. How can I? How could I have fallen in love with Dexter in just two months?
But maybe I gave that small four-letter word too much power. Placed it high on a pedestal, where even a ten-foot ladder couldn’t help me reach. Something I never thought was in the cards for me. I always thought love was more calculated, more intentional and purposeful. I didn’t think love could just happen . Out of nowhere, completely unexpected.
But it’s here. “Love” and “Dexter.”
He just showed up. He blindsided me, and now I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to how things were before love fell in my lap.
“You take the first cab,” Dexter says, insisting I get to the hotel ahead of him. “I can get the next one.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, my thumb tapping against the retracted handle of my suitcase.
“Of course.” He gently places his hand on mine and squeezes it. “I want to make sure you’re already on the road before I go.”
I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. He lets out a deep sigh as he pulls me closer to him.
“I’ve gotten so used to touching you, I don’t know how I’m going to do without it.”
Dexter chuckles. “Am I that irresistible?”
I nod. “I also find kittens irresistible.” My hand smooths against his flat chest. “And those fancy Christmas villages with tiny people dressed in winter coats and fake snow. And a bowl of picked out marshmallows from a box of Lucky Charms.”
“I find you pretty irresistible too,” he answers, his own hand smoothing along the hollow curve of my lower back. “Though much more irresistible than a bowl of marshmallows.”
“Rainbow marshmallows,” I correct. “The regular ones, not so much.”
“I think I’m going to miss kissing you more than anything.” And he does just that: kiss me. Deeply and slowly. As if we don’t have a hotel to check into and friends and family to pretend we haven’t spent the last two months playing house in front of.
A taxi pulls up at the same time I pull away. Dexter helps the cabbie load my suitcase into the trunk and opens the door for me. “I’ll be right behind you,” he says. He grips the doorframe to the cab, staring at his hand as if avoiding my eyes. “I’ll probably wait a little bit so we don’t pull up at the same time,” he adds softly. He still doesn’t look at me.
“Yeah,” I whisper hoarsely.
He tears his eyes away from his hand, the door frame, the shiny surface of the car, everything to avoid me, and he finally looks at me. He offers a sad smile, something that silently whispers goodbye, and leans away from me.
I turn to get in the cab, and he closes the door behind me. When I look out the window, his eyes are still on me. We wave through the glass, his palm facing me and my hand pressed flat in his direction, and the cabbie drives off, leaving a hollowness in my chest that makes me feel…empty.
My phone buzzes in my purse just as the car turns and Dexter is no longer in sight, and I smile. That’s probably him, calling me or texting me, telling me more about how much he misses me.
But instead of Dexter’s name on my phone screen, I see Ryan’s name.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Lucy,” he calls, his voice distant as if he’s on speaker. “Do you have a minute?”
“Uh, sure. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to give you a heads up,” he answers. “The internship mentioned there would be employment opportunities after it ended. They probably said something about that to you when you applied.”
“Yeah, it was brought up,” I answer when he pauses.
“Right. We want to offer you a position with Elevate.”
Holy shit . “You’re offering me a job?”
“Yeah. Kyle referred you after he went over some of your work,” he explains. “He was really impressed. Now, I know you’re out in Seattle, so we’re taking that into consideration with relocating, since the headquarters offices are in LA. ”
“Would I be at the LA offices?”
“Yeah, most likely,” he answers. “But nothing’s set in stone, so don’t go apartment hunting just yet.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. This is actually happening. To me. To me .
“HR will discuss with you all the nitty gritty. And I’ll follow up with an email with the formal offer.”
“Right.”
“But I wanted to let you know so you can think about it.”
“Thank you, Ryan. It’s a huge opportunity. I’m honored Kyle would think of me.”
“You did some of the best work for the whole campaign,” he says, validating something I thought was so far from the truth. I didn’t think a future working for a company like Elevate would happen so soon, if ever. “I know Kyle doesn’t really acknowledge your hard work, but a lot of your photographs were submitted for the final ads that are going to go out. Your pictures are going to be on billboards and magazines.”
“Are you serious?”
He laughs in a way that’s endearing and not condescending at all. “Yeah, Lucy.”
I stay quiet, mulling over this realization. My work is worthy of industry level standards. I’ll be able to find my pictures out in public. I’ll be able to point them out and tell people I’m the one who took them.
“Anyway,” Ryan calls when I stay quiet too long. “I’ll be in touch, but shoot me an email if you have any questions.”
“Thanks, Ryan,” I answer.
“Yep.” He hangs up, and I’m left speechless and somehow full of too many words at the same time.
“I just got a new job,” I say to myself.
When I look up, I catch the eye of the cab driver through the rearview mirror .
“What was that?”
I look at him, and my face brightens with the widest smile. “I just got a job offer with an ad agency. Like a real, grown-up job. Not just as an intern.”
“Congratulations,” the driver mutters, offering a smile with his lifelessly spoken words.
“I’m going to have a real job,” I gasp. “I don’t have to find work at a shitty retail job or a coffee house. I don’t have to find work, period.”
I ignore the confused look on the driver’s face and instead stare at my phone screen. My fingers immediately find Dexter’s contact, hovering over the call icon.
I want to tell him. FaceTime him with a wide grin, bursting with excitement from the news. He’s the first person I thought to call. Not my mom or Nat or even Annabelle. It’s Dexter. But I shouldn’t be calling him with every piece of good news like he holds that level of significance in my life. Because there is no more Dexter and Lucy. We let the idea of us go outside of the airport terminal, with our luggage gripped in our hands and those silent goodbyes whispered through sad smiles and a long, drawn out kiss.
“We’re here.”
I look up to see the cab has stopped in front of the hotel entrance. The cab driver is already at the trunk, hefting my luggage onto the ground as an attendant at the hotel takes it from him. I pay the driver, making sure to leave a good tip after he was the first one to hear my good news, now somewhat less enjoyable with no one really to share it with.
“Lucy!” I turn to see Nat hurtling toward me, her arms outstretched and the widest smile on her face. “You’re here!”
Her feet finally stop when she collides into my body, making me stumble a step back. When Nat’s arms circle me tighter, I swoop a little lower to embrace her. Something in my throat constricts, making me realize how much I’ve missed not only Nat but my entire family. Over her head, I see my parents and Hayden walk toward us, though at a more leisurely pace.
“I missed you so much!” Nat says, pulling away from me.
I finally have a chance to greet my parents already waiting on the sidelines. My mom steps forward first. Her reddish copper hair, natural and one absolutely none of us inherited, sweeps with the breeze, as does her Hawaiian dress littered with palm leaves and hibiscuses.
“Hi, baby,” she croons, pulling me into a long hug. She cradles my face in her hands, and she does a once-over. Like she’s checking me for any bumps or bruises or new and sudden employment opportunities I might be keeping from her. “You’re okay?”
I study her face, paying attention to the fine lines that have now joined the excess of freckles over her glowing skin. Her bright green eyes shine at me with genuine concern for her youngest child as she eagerly waits for my answer. “I’m good, Mom.”
She doesn’t pry any further, and the stress and frustration that’s built up over the months from her persistence and overbearance softens, replacing it all with the warmth flooding my heart now that I’m surrounded by family. “Oh, it’s so good to see all my girls in the same place.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
When she lets me go, it’s my dad’s turn. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, baby girl.” He towers over me by a good six inches, probably where I get my height from considering my mom and Nat are basically miniature next to me. His shirt matches the patterns on my mom’s dress, and I realize they most likely have a few matching outfits in their suitcases. Probably one with a bright birds of paradise print too.
“How’s my little chicken nugget?” he asks, his bushy mustache and eyebrows, no longer jet black like they’ve always been but now leaning more toward salt-and-pepper territory, twitching with his warm smile.
“Not so much a nugget anymore,” I say, resting my chin on his shoulder while tilting up on my tiptoes. “More like a chicken strip. ”
Nat tugs at my hand, ripping my luggage from it and handing it off to Hayden.
“Hey, Lucy,” he calls with a salute-like wave.
I barely get to wave back before Nat swivels me on my feet and nudges me toward the lobby. “I’ll take you up to our room,” she explains. “Hayden’s is just down the hall from ours.”
“You guys are so weird,” I say, peeking over my shoulder to see my parents and Hayden following behind us. “You know Mom and Dad already know you two have sex. This whole ‘bad wedding juju’ isn’t fooling anyone.”
She smacks my arm, and I flinch. “It’s not just because of that,” she hisses. “We want our wedding night to be special.”
I mouth a silent whatever , refraining from holding my thumb and index fingers together to form a W .
“Plus, it’ll give me a chance to hang out with you,” she adds as we reach the elevator. She turns around to face our little group, with Hayden still dragging my luggage and the matching outfits on my parents causing a weird magic eye effect. “I’m going to get Lucy settled in. We’ll meet downstairs at the lobby for dinner in about an hour?” she announces, reaching for my luggage from Hayden.
Hayden nods, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his phone. “Sure,” he answers. “Dexter just texted me. He should be pulling up in a bit.”
Right, Dexter.
“Perfect,” Nat answers. “Wow, you two should’ve just taken a cab together from the airport.”
My breath hitches in my throat. “Heh,” I laugh nervously. “Yeah, that would’ve been convenient.”
We part with no further mention of Dexter’s and my travel plans aligning a little too coincidentally. My parents walk off in the direction of the gift shop for the antacids my dad desperately needs if he wants to enjoy his steak tonight, and Hayden plants a quick peck on Nat’s temple before he turns toward the entrance again, tapping away on his phone. “Carmen and David are already here. They’re taking a nap since they took the red-eye in this morning.”
We take the elevator and stop on the seventh floor, and I silently follow Nat’s lead. Once in our room, I kick off my shoes and slump into one of the two queen-sized beds. “Ugh. I think I could sleep for about nineteen hours and still be tired,” I groan, worn from my flight.
“You deserve this vacation more than I do.”
I lift up my head, resting back on my elbows.
“So, anything new with you?” she asks, acting a little too casual. She’s hanging something in the closet where the safe that looks like a microwave is not so discreetly stored, and she’s more talking to the inside of the closet than me. Her eyes are focused on whatever she’s fidgeting with, and I realize she’s casually fishing for information. For a new job lead or interview that was more promising than the past eight or so I’ve been on. I stay silent, and she finally reemerges from the closet, sinking into the other bed with her entire weight.
“Uh, not really,” I finally answer her. “Just same ol’.”
“Nothing on the job search front?”
I shake my head.
“Well, just enjoy this vacation,” she says, propping her elbow on the bed and resting her chin on the heel of her hand. “Forget about job hunting and all that crap. I think even Mom will give you a break while we’re on the island.”
“But…” I say, the lingering guilt in me forcing a bit of the truth to surface.
“But what?”
I want to tell her about the job offer. About Ryan’s phone call a mere twenty minutes ago and the entirety of the internship she and my mom were relieved I didn’t apply to. Not to shove it in their faces with a bold “I told you so,” but so they can both stop worrying.
“I have a…thing lined up. For when I get back,” I finally say, my hands tracing lazy circles on the bed. I can tell her that, right? It’s not giving too much away, and maybe it’ll fend off the hound-dog-like resilience my mom and Nat have in my job search endeavor.
“You do?” she asks excitedly. She sits up and faces me, her butt perched at the edge of the bed. “Like, a good thing?”
I nod. “I don’t really want to say too much,” I explain. “Don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I’ll keep you updated when I hear back.”
She jumps up and hops, clapping her hands together. “Oh yay!” she exclaims. “I’m so happy for you!”
I smile, and Nat embraces me, both of us falling into the cushy comforter. “Jeez, what are you going to do when I tell you I finally got a job?”
She pulls away, taking in my excited smile with a thoughtful nibble on her lower lip. “I’ve been a little annoying lately, haven’t I?”
“How so?”
She sits up. “You know, hounding you about Mom’s emails. Being her little sidekick, trying to pressure you into finding work?”
I sigh. “It’s okay, Nat. I know a lot of that was Mom’s doing.”
“Still,” she responds, shaking her head. “I didn’t want Mom to be worried, but I also worry a little too. But I’ll back off. I’ll fend Mom off and remind her you’re an independent woman. Maybe I’ll even fix your email settings and reroute her emails to your spam folder.”
I laugh when we’re interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Nat jerks up from the bed, abruptly ending our conversation to open the door. Carmen stands there, a little bushed and dazed. Her eyes light up when she sees me before we greet each other in an embrace. Our hug isn’t like the one I had with Nat. It isn’t tight or fierce like when Nat cut off my air supply. It’s calm and reassuring. Like her gently moving hands are silently asking me how I am. How I’ve been since I ran into her, if I’ve been good or barely surviving. If those assumptions she made about me and Dexter were correct.
I nod. And Carmen nods back. I almost want to tell her she was right. That she could’ve bet money on my heart, and she’d be rich.
Nat flits around us, chattering on about her wedding dress and a quick run-through of the itinerary, along with strict instructions to not let her have any tequila while she’s here.
“I mean it,” she scolds, her words directed at me. “Not a single drop.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“Because,” she explains at the same time Carmen smirks. “It’s always tequila when I’m around you. It’s like you have a blood pact with Don Julio.”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”
“Anyway, since the rehearsal isn’t until Saturday, we’re pretty much free to do whatever we want for the next few days.”
Carmen lifts her phone to her face, her eyes scanning the screen. “‘Your soon-to-be brother-in-law just asked me if I knew that the grocery stickers on produce are edible. Please save me.’” She angles her phone away from her so Nat and I can read the text message from David, and we stifle a set of giggles. “I think David might get trapped by Hayden into some pyramid scheme involving the Chiquita banana.”
Nat giggles. “Hayden’s so cute.”
“Come on,” Carmen calls. “We should get downstairs before your future husband starts listing all the fruits that are actually vegetables.”