4
I ’ m wrestling a stolen pair of socks from Brandon’s mouth when Dad clears his throat. He’s anxious-tapping a small red spiral notebook on his thigh. Before I can ask what it is, he tosses out one of his famous Dad jokes: “Why did the suitcase go to therapy?”
“Dunno. Why?”
“It had too much emotional baggage!” he says, pulling out the jazz hands.
I can’t help but laugh. Dad’s jokes never fail to make me smile, no matter how cheesy.
He nods toward my rucksack. “I see you’ve made some progress.”
I give a half-hearted shrug. “If you can call it that. It’s just so hard to know what I’ll need for a whole month, especially if I’m going to meet my soulmate. I need the perfect outfit for my meet-cute.”
He gives me a side-eye, running a hand through his neatly combed hair. “Meet-cute, huh?”
“You know, the scene in the movies—”
“Where the love interests meet. I know. You’ve always been a romantic,” he chides with an affectionate smile.
I let that statement linger. “Was Mom like that?”
“Was Mom like what?”
“Romantic,” I repeat. “I must get it from somewhere.”
He presses a hand to his chest, feigning offense. “You don’t think your old man is a romantic?”
I can’t help but snort. “Dad, you’re a man of science and all things practical. When I turned thirteen, you printed an infographic of potential diseases or infections for our birds-and-the-bees talk.”
“I stand by that chart. It was an excellent visual aid,” Dad says, maintaining a straight face. “But to answer your question, yes. Mom was the romantic. She was a hopeless romantic, actually.”
He doesn’t expand on that, not that I expect him to. But his response also fills me with a fuzzy feeling, followed up by a deep ache in my gut. While it’s nice knowing I share my romantic tendencies with Mom, I still can’t help but wish she were here. Wish I could talk to her about love. Ask her advice about the vision. About how she navigated things with Dad after they met. Did she know Dad was The One immediately?
It dawns on me that I don’t actually know much about how my parents met at all, aside from the fact that they met through work and watched CSI . I’ve never really worked up the courage to press for more details, mostly because I haven’t wanted to upset him. But now seems like the perfect opportunity.
“How did you and Mom meet?” I ask, heart pounding as I await his answer.
Dad stiffens, cornflower blue eyes still trained away from mine. “You already know this. We met through work.”
“All right, but you must have had a meet-cute.”
He swallows nervously. “I don’t know if you could call it a meet-cute, per se. We met during a briefing when remains of a suspected missing person were found. Not exactly the most romantic setting, huh?”
I shrug. “The human-remains aspect kind of dampens the mood. But anyway, you must have talked? Clicked during that meeting?”
“I don’t remember much about it, to be honest.”
I blink. His terse response strikes me as odd. Dad has a wicked memory. He remembers all sorts of things, like all 118 chemical elements, or what outfit I wore on my second birthday. And yet, he doesn’t remember the details of his first interaction with his soulmate?
“That’s it?” I prod.
“That pretty much sums it up.” He averts eye contact. This feels like more than just his typical avoidance, so I let it go. “How’s the planning going?”
“I still want to follow Mom’s itinerary, but we’re allowing for some flexibility. And we both want to do Amalfi at the end,” I explain. Mom and Mei never went to the Amalfi Coast.
He squeezes the small spiral notebook in his hands before setting it gently on the floor next to me. “Speaking of, I wanted to give you this. I thought it might help.”
I flip it open and my heart patters. It’s Mom and Mei’s original itinerary, written in Mom’s loopy handwriting.
“I know Mei told you all about their trip, but just in case she forgot anything, it should all be here,” he says, tapping the notebook.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say gently, trying not to burst this bubble as I flip through the pages. She listed everything by day. Just having this with me feels special, like she’s guiding me along, showing me where to go.
Day 1, land in Venice—see Doge’s Palace and ride gondola, check into Casa Canale Hostel
Day 2—tour Saint Mark’s Square and Saint Mark’s Basilica
I realize I’m muttering out loud when Dad warns, “Be careful of pickpockets in crowded areas like that. And don’t talk to or go off with strangers.”
“We’ll be safe, I promise. No need to worry.”
“I can’t help it. It’s my job to worry.” He also has a bit of a warped perspective of the world, given his line of work and all the true crime he watches.
“Well, I appreciate you being okay with me going. This trip means a lot.”
He nods quietly. “I know.” He may not want to talk about her, but giving me her notebook shows how much he cares. And that means everything.
Before I can thank him, my phone starts vibrating. A dimly lit photo of Bianca sticking her tongue out while devouring spicy BBQ wings at Wing Night flashes across my screen.
At the sight of her name, my throat tightens. Bianca doesn’t like using the phone. And when she does, she’ll text me first to tell me she’s calling.
“You’re going to hate me,” Bianca croaks, confirming my gut feeling.
“This can’t be good.” I grit my teeth and squeeze the slobbery sock tight like a stress ball, bracing myself. Different possibilities flit through my mind. Is our flight canceled? Delayed? Is she gearing up to ask if Chris can come?
“I can’t go to Italy.”
There’s a long pause and my insides all but unhinge, stomach nosediving. I toss the sock on the floor next to my open suitcase. Wow. I did not expect that.
“What? Why?” All the images of us wandering around Rome, arms linked as we take in the beauty of the Colosseum, flicker through my mind.
“I shattered my foot,” she explains, voice quivering. She goes on to detail the drama of her trip to Costco, of all places, and long story short, she had a freak accident involving a bulk tub of coconut oil dropping on her foot, shattering the bone to smithereens. She spent hours in the ER and now has a cast. The doctor says she might even require surgery depending on how it heals. Coming from the girl who danced through a torn ACL and multiple broken toes this year, I know she’s in bad shape.
I starfish on the floor and Brandon circles me, taunting me with his latest stolen goods: a pair of slobbery panties. It takes me a while to digest, to realize I’m not dreaming this up. Talk about unlucky. Of all the injuries a day before a Euro backpacking trip. We could have probably made do with a broken arm, or literally anything but a foot or leg. “Oh god. I’m sorry, Bianca. That’s beyond unlucky.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I know how important this trip is, with your mom and the whole soulmate thing.” I’d called her immediately after Mei left, and she screamed in my ear and demanded to be a bridesmaid (preferably maid of honor, but she understood if I appointed Teller as my man of honor). “But you’ll still go, right? Our plane tickets are nonrefundable.”
I massage my temple, mind racing. What am I going to do about the trip?
“Also, if you meet The One, you’ll have the room to yourself,” she says suggestively when I don’t respond.
“Bianca.” Realistically, I’d forgo privacy in favor of moral support when meeting my soulmate. But I don’t tell her that. I don’t want her to feel worse than she already does.
“You’ve always said you wanted to do a solo trip. And you make friends wherever you go. I’ve heard it’s super easy to meet other travelers in hostels.” She’s not wrong. Like Bianca, I’ve never had an issue striking up a conversation with strangers, and I do have an adventurous streak.
Still, the prospect of traveling solo as a young woman is a little jarring. Dad’s influence is rubbing off on me after all.
“Maybe your dad would go with you,” she suggests.
I emit a laugh. It’s the only thing I can do in place of crying. “Can you imagine him hovering over my shoulder when I meet The One? He’d be the ultimate cockblock. No thank you.”
“Oh, come on. Eric could use some sun. He’s pastier than a malnourished Victorian child.”
“Definitely not.” It isn’t that I don’t want to travel with Dad, but after living at home all year, this trip was supposed to mark my transition into adulthood, into independence. It was supposed to be Bianca and me, no curfew, no one breathing down our necks as we stumble to our hostels late at night after too much cheap wine. Then again, who else my age would have the money or time to impulsively drop everything and backpack around Italy with me for a month? “Maybe I could ask one of my aunts. Well, I guess not Ellen. She’s too pregnant.”
“What about Mei? She’s always up for an adventure.”
“So long as it’s business class,” I say with a snort. “I think her backpacking days are over. She also refuses to take time off from work. Last year they forced her to take two weeks of vacation, so she flew to a psychic convention in Vegas, redesigned her entire condo, and wrote twenty thousand words of a book about melding Eastern and Western psychic practices.”
And that’s when it comes to me.
I know just the person in need of a vacation.
“What is all this?” Teller asks, hands on hips over his barista apron.
He’s taken aback by my presence, which is fair, because I stormed into the coffee shop without notice dressed in random yellow items of clothing I cobbled together: a yellow party hat with a floppy pom-pom, my childhood yellow life jacket that is way too tight around the chest, a yellow cape from my drama club days, and yellow leggings I bought for an eighties party on campus that make me look like Big Bird’s deranged sister.
When a table of athleisure-clad women sipping iced coffees spin around to stare, I immediately regret making such a dramatic entrance.
I thought there was a possibility I might embarrass the shit out of him, but he doesn’t seem to notice anyone else. His eyes are on me only. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Teller. As different as we are, he’s never once asked me to change or tone it down.
A surprise to us both, somewhere between selling tickets, preparing food and drink orders, stocking supplies, and cleaning that first summer, we just clicked. We worked most shifts together since Teller was always on the schedule. He worked as much as he could, always offering to take shifts for Paula, a single mom of twins who often needed time off.
We made the perfect team, making up for each other’s shortcomings. Where he dreaded making small talk with customers, I’d shuffle impatiently, waiting for the end of the movie so I could ask them what they thought. And where I would have preferred to douse myself in boiling popcorn butter than clean, Teller found peace in the routine of mopping and stocking and organizing supplies.
Most of our downtime consisted of me forcing him to watch bits of rom-coms we were screening, scrolling through photos of pets for adoption, and playing card games Teller learned from his grandma: War, Crazy Eights, Slapjack, Go Fish, and Golf. He nearly always won.
One night he offered me a ride home from work, and then again the next night. And then every night for the rest of the summer. This tradition continued on even when school started. He’d pick me up on those dewy fall mornings and drop me off at the end of the day—until I started dating a guy named Tim Yates, a football bro. You know the type. Walks around with his chest puffed out, sits backward in chairs, and orders the XXX spicy wings just to prove a point. Anyway, he was weirdly paranoid that Teller wanted to hook up with me (he did not) and insisted on driving me instead. We broke up after a couple months, and of course, my routine with Teller resumed.
“Lo? What’s with the ... outfit?” he asks over the hiss and whirr of all the fancy coffee machinery. “You look like sunshine on legs.”
“It’s on brand with ... your cheer-up kit! Ta-da, ” I announce in my best game-show-host voice, setting a gigantic basket wrapped in yellow tulle on the counter. I hate seeing him all sad and mopey, so I had to go to extraordinary lengths to cheer him up.
He pretends to be chill as he wipes his hands on a cloth and tosses it over his shoulder. “A cheer-up kit? You really didn’t have to do this,” he says, though I don’t miss the upward turn of his lips when he pulls out the first item—a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints, his absolute favorite because they make his mouth feel clean. “Where’d you get these? They’re out of season.”
I flash a coy smile. “I have my ways.” By ways , I mean I badgered Jayde, our eight-year-old neighbor, for a box from her stash in exchange for a promise to bake her a funfetti cake when I get back from Italy.
Teller extracts the next gift, a pack of disinfectant wipes with a little note that reads For a clean slate . “Needed more of these for my car,” he murmurs approvingly.
The next item is Quinton, a stuffed lemur he won for me in eleventh grade at the fall fair. I forced him to go; he doesn’t trust the structural integrity of carnival rides. “You don’t want to keep him?” he asks.
“You need him more than me,” I say, motioning for him to pull out the next item. It’s a pair of homemade coupons with offers to Egg Sophie’s apartment and Key her car (valid until September 1st).
“Right,” he says with a snort, moving on to a tiny flip calendar called Just Ponies.
“I have a feeling you’ll love June’s pony,” I inform him.
He flips to June, where a blond pony gallops through a sunlit field, tutu flouncing in the breeze. A childlike grin spreads across Teller’s face, lighting him up from the inside out. Not a lot makes Teller smile, and this right here is the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him in ages. Just seeing him happy gives me an instant high.
He rounds the counter to pull me into a hug, rocking me side to side. “Thank you, Lo. This means a lot. Really.”
My cheek presses against the top of his chest, reminding me yet again of how ludicrously tall he is. “There’s still more!”
I watch expectantly as he opens the rest of the items: a yellow smiley-face stress ball (to bounce back), a box of Paw Patrol Band-Aids (to mend your broken heart), a pack of matches (for a ceremonial burning of Sophie’s things), and a candle with a homemade label that reads Smells Like That Shit Ain’t Your Problem Anymore in dainty script that amuses him.
I take in a sharp inhale when he reaches for the last item.
It feels like an eternity as I wait for him to pull it out. He even squints to ensure he’s seeing it correctly. “What—what is this?”
A plane ticket.
“Surprise! You’re coming to Italy with me,” I announce.
He just blinks, eyes darting back to the ticket to reread it. I can’t tell if he’s happy or not. “Excuse me?”
“Bianca’s foot shattered at Costco, so she can’t come anymore. And you need to get your mind off Sophie. No more moping around and crying.”
The decision to invite Teller was easy. He’s the kind of person who spirals and gets into his head. He needs a change of scenery, stat.
“I have not been crying.”
“There’s nothing wrong with crying.”
“I know there isn’t. But I haven’t been.” It’s probably true. I’ve actually never seen Teller cry. Not because he’s one of those macho dudes, but because he’s just not a touchy-feely person in general. It takes a lot to elevate him—mad, sad, happy. He’s always been even-keeled, something I appreciate about him.
“You might as well have. You were listening to Coldplay until three in the morning. ‘The Scientist,’ when everyone knows ‘Yellow’ is their best.”
He tilts his head in a warning, yet playful expression. “Hey, you’re not allowed to use my Spotify account anymore if you’re going to slander ‘The Scientist.’ And I’m always up until three.”
Teller’s been letting me use his account since I decided to take up marathon running. He even made me a motivational playlist and downloaded a couple podcasts he thought I’d like. Despite his best efforts, I couldn’t run more than 2K without getting winded and collapsing on the side of the road in a heap of sweat and regret. But I’ve been mooching off his account ever since. “Fair. No more Coldplay slander so long as you agree to come with me.”
He shakes his head and studies me, wary. “For a whole month? No way. I can’t. I have ... plans.”
“You do not have plans. You just moved home unexpectedly. Yesterday.”
“Actually, I was thinking of driving up to surprise Sophie. Maybe next week. Figured I’d give her some space and—”
I pretend to collapse face-first onto the counter. “Surprise her? You’d just show up at her door unannounced?”
He nods casually. “That’s what I was thinking—”
“No. Absolutely not,” I say point-blank. “Tel, that’s just desperate and creepy.”
The lines between his brows intensify. “I’m confused. When the PM knocks on every door in the neighborhood to find his assistant in Love, Actually , you said it was one of the most romantic gestures in all of cinema. But when I want to go see my girlfriend, it’s desperate and creepy?”
Crap. Forcing Teller to watch all those rom-coms really messed with his head.
“First, she’s your ex-girlfriend,” I correct. “And second, most romantic gestures in movies don’t actually translate to real life. Besides, your situation is different. She broke up with you . She needs space. If she wants to reconnect with you, she will.”
He lets out a resigned sigh before wiping a mound of coffee grounds into the trash bin. “You’re probably right.”
“Since you no longer have plans ...,” I start, flashing a hopeful smile.
“I told you. I don’t do hostels. Or travel in general.” He’s not kidding. The farthest place he’s ever traveled to is Niagara Falls.
“Hostels have a bad rap. Just think of them as small, budget-friendly hotels. And guess what? We didn’t book ahead of time, so you can even vet them beforehand. Some even have private bathrooms if you pay a little extra.” He gives me a look that says What the hell? I explain, “Bianca and I decided we didn’t want to be beholden to a strict itinerary, since we weren’t sure how long we’d want to stay in each place. We planned to loosely follow my mom and Mei’s trip, though. Minus the bookings.”
“A vacation without any bookings,” he says, lips pulled tight. “Sounds like the stuff of nightmares.”
Damn. I’m really losing him here. Admittedly, I knew it would be a challenge to convince him. Maybe I was naive, but part of me thought he’d say yes purely because he’d want to spend a month with me. Though maybe I’m projecting my desire to spend that time with him.
Still, I shove all ego out the door and resort to begging, which looks like me draping my torso over the counter, arms outstretched, full-on pouting. Now I’m the desperate and creepy one. “We haven’t seen each other in forever. We’ll probably never have another opportunity to spend this kind of time together.”
And I need your moral support when I meet my soulmate , I want to add. But I don’t. It’s not something I want to toss in casually, even though Teller knows about the family gift. I first told him after a late shift only about a month after we first met. And believe me, I didn’t make that decision lightly. There was a high likelihood he’d write me off as a loon and never speak to me again. But if he was going to be my close friend, I couldn’t hide that part of my family’s identity, even if I didn’t have the gift myself.
I led into the conversation in a very chill, casual way: by telling him my mom died.
The Cinema had done a screening of an old film about a mom dying and leaving her two children behind. It made me emotional, as most things with that subject matter do, so when it was over, I sat alone in the theater, stuffing my face with Twizzlers , trying not to cry.
“What’s wrong?” Teller asked.
I jumped at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t realized he was there. “Oh, um, the movie. Reminded me of my mom. She died.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, Lo.” His expression went solemn. “When did she pass?”
“When I was four. I don’t really remember a lot about her, to be honest.”
He didn’t say anything, though he didn’t need to. He just placed his hand on my shoulder, firm and reassuring.
“I’ve never told anyone that. Not having clear memories of her makes me feel like a terrible person. Of all people, I should remember her just by nature, shouldn’t I? Like, if she suddenly came back to life, I don’t know if I’d recognize her in a crowd if I didn’t study her pictures. And everyone else in my family has all these memories of her and I don’t.”
“Lo, you were four years old,” he reminded me, voice even and steady. “I hardly remember anything from that age, aside from my traumatic first day of school.”
“I need to hear this story,” I said, shoulders easing. I already felt so much lighter just talking to him. The more time I spent with Teller, the better he was getting at reading my emotions, almost interpreting them for me in plain language. I was never very good at making sense of all my big feelings.
“Another time.”
I let out a shaky sigh. “It’s weird. I mostly remember how she made me feel, that I was comfortable and happiest when I was with her, which makes me even more sad for the rest of my family, because they must miss her even more than I do.”
“Grief is love persevering.”
I blinked. “Wow, Tel. That’s pretty ... deep.”
“It’s a rom-com quote,” he informed me, proud of himself for finally getting me after all the quotes I’d tricked him with.
I gave him a look, trying to rack my brain. “I haven’t heard it before. From what?”
“ WandaVision .”
“ WandaVision is not a rom-com. Nice try, though.” I snorted, giving him a light elbow in the bicep.
He shrugged. “It was a good quote.”
“I have this picture of her,” I said, taking the photo out to show him.
He leaned in closer, head nearly touching mine as he followed my gaze over the photo. “I can see why you like this one. Your parents look ... beyond ... happy. Like they really belonged together.”
It’s true. They were just completely themselves, at home, no frills, having the best time because they have each other. “Because they did. Literally,” I said.
He caught the seriousness in my tone. “What do you mean?”
“All right, I should backtrack. The women in my family are psychics. Every one of them. Except for me.”
I figured he’d question me, give me a lecture about how psychics are frauds and take advantage of the emotionally vulnerable. But Teller didn’t do anything of the sort. He just nodded as I enlightened him on the whole family history.
“After they started blending Eastern with Western practices, they developed this new gift.” I explained the whole thing, just like my grandmother had explained it to me when I was around five. How it started with my great-grandmother. How every woman in our family has had The Vision since then and how every single one has come to fruition.
“So you’re saying your aunt Ellen heard the same song over and over in her head as a kid, and then the moment that song came on at a club, she just happened to twirl into her fiancé?”
“Yes! I know it all sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true.”
He didn’t argue. He just stayed quiet, like he was trying to work through the logic. I expected him to counter everything, bullet by bullet. But shockingly, all he said was, “No wonder you’re such a hopeless romantic.”
“It gives me hope that I’ll find love like them one day. Do you think there’s someone out there for me? Even if I can’t foresee it like they can?”
“Absolutely, Lo.”
I don’t think he realized how much that meant to me.
The topic never came up again, even all these years later. I have a few theories as to why. First, I’m not entirely sure he believes in the whole psychic thing and probably doesn’t have the heart to tell me. I also think he’s avoided the topic because he knows how much it bothers me that I didn’t inherit the family gift. How it’s made me feel like a failure. It’s also possible that he’s forgotten the conversation altogether.
All to say, I don’t dare tell him about The One. It feels like poor timing to announce I’m about to meet the love of my life—in Italy, no less—when he’s just been dumped, kicked out of his apartment, forced to move home for the summer, and is now listening to Coldplay on a loop. I’ll have to tell him eventually, but that can wait.
“Just think about it. A whole month together, exploring, eating Italian food, making friends with locals. And the legal drinking age is eighteen. We can actually go to bars. And clubs!” I say, not that the latter will win him over. He’s not a huge drinker.
He bobs his head back and squeezes his eyes shut like it’s all too much. “I just don’t know. I’d have to take time off and things are pretty busy here and—”
I cut him off before he can come up with yet another excuse. “You literally told me last night that you had to beg your mom to give you shifts. You’d be doing her a favor by getting out of her hair and off the payroll. Come on, Tel. Be fun and spontaneous.”
“Who says I’m not fun and spontaneous? This morning I put hot sauce on my eggs.”
“You’re ...” I gaze at the exposed industrial ceiling, searching for the most delicate way to say it without crushing his ego. “You’re a creature of habit. Don’t you want to prove to Sophie you’re not boring?”
The question slices the air like a knife. I can tell by the tick of his mouth that I’ve gotten to him.
“Hypothetically, if I decided I’d go, hypothetically, would we be sharing a room?”
I’ve thought about this a lot. Sure, it might be a little weird knowing Teller is naked in the shower, but how is sharing with Teller any different from sharing with Bianca? “Why? Would you rather stay in your own room?”
“No, not at all. I just thought you might get annoyed with me being up super late every night.” What he really means is that he will surely get annoyed with me getting up at the ass crack of dawn every morning. I’ve always been an early riser, paranoid about missing out on the day. It’s my chronic FOMO. Teller is the opposite, up until at least two in the morning each night, unable to fall asleep due to his anxiety.
“That’s fine by me, so long as you’re not listening to Coldplay all night. Besides, it’s the only way we can afford it. And why wouldn’t we share? Do you think it’s weird or something?”
“Sorry. I was just clarifying. Did I make it weird?”
“Kind of. But it would be way less weird if you stopped being so cagey and just said yes.”
He lowers his shoulders. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”
An I’ll think about it from Teller is as close as I’ll get to a yes . He’s just too stubborn to outright say so.
“Great. Flight leaves tomorrow at 7:30 a.m.”