Then he buys the triplets some groceries, too, because he feels guilty about taking the dog back. Then, as an apology for arriving so early, he buys them all empanadas to have for breakfast.
Admittedly, most of the reason he decides on empanadas is that Dani, his best friend from ages nine to fourteen, usually works the early shift at the counter that sells them. Though they grew apart over the years, dropping from “best friends” to just “friends” in a way that felt both natural and almost inevitable as Sam bounced from school district to school district, they never entirely lost touch. It’s always nice to come and see her here, like it’s nice when she stops by the deli for lunch, which she does every once in a while. It’s even nice, in a horrible way, that when Sam orders more empanadas than he usually would, she raises her eyebrows and waggles them suggestively. “What’s this, Sammy? Entertaining an extra guest? Have you taken a lover at last?”
Sam makes a face at her. “Don’t use that word,” he commands, hopelessly, “especially not in this case, since they’re for?—”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Dani interrupts in long-suffering tones. “They’re for the triplets. And so is the coffee,andthe groceries. Aren’t they?”
Sam nods. When Dani sighs dramatically, looking put out, he laughs. “Honestly, D, you should give up on me. My one true love is the deli; cut me open and you’ll find the Silverman’s logo stamped on my heart.”
“Now, see,” Dani complains, passing over his order with a shake of her head and clearly despairing of him, “that isn’tfunny, Sam. Just because you say it like a joke doesn’t make it funny! You’re a perfectly nice-looking guy, solid job, a good head on your shoulders. There’s a lot of men in this town who could do worse, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Well, I’ll let you know if I meet any of them,” Sam says, with a slightly forced joviality, and starts backing up before…
“I could always set you up with one!” Dani says, raising her voice as Sam gets farther away. “You know, like I’ve been asking to, for years?—”
“Bye, Dani!” Sam yells, and retreats, for the second time this morning, to the safety of his van. When he gets there, to his extreme displeasure, he discovers that it is only 9:45 a.m.
He makes the rest of the journey to the triplets’ apartment anyway, trying to put Dani and her stupid crusade out of his mind. She’s always trying to set him up with some guy or another, and it’s never a good fit, never worth the agita of bothering. He thinks that maybe they’re wired differently. Dani is a serial monogamist, someone who finds it deeply uncomfortable to be unattached, and so she must find Sam’s long-term refusal to settle down an agony.
Sam himself isn’t that bothered by it. It’s not that he doesn’t get lonely, but. Well. He’s never been the kind of person who could get out of bed for anything less than the real thing; for anyone who doesn’t make him feel, in whatever way, like all his nerve endings are on fire. He’s never seen the point. So while he’s been on an enormous number of dates—most of them set up for him by Deb, Talya, or Deb’s best friend, Joanie—and even turned a few of those dates into relationships, he’s never been with anyone longer than about six months. It always fizzles out, and a year or two ago, Sam decided to do his best to stop expecting anything else. The last thing he needs right now is to add Dani to the list of people who have permission to call him up and instruct him to meet a potential match somewhere.
Forcibly, he turns his mind to other subjects.
As they usually do on the way to the triplets’, Sam’s thoughts turn to Luce. He worries about her. The situation is an unusual one. Daisy and Iris are identical, like carbon copies of one another, but Luce isn’t, for all they were born at the same time. It’s a strange, rare thing for that to happen, and David and Marahad been thrilled by it, wanted to talk about it long after the pregnancy was done. Sam thinks it wasn’t so bad for Luce when they were all small children; she looked enough like Iris and Daisy then that people assumed all three of them were identical, and didn’t single her out.
But early in their teen years, Luce’s looks diverged from Daisy and Iris’s, making the distinction clearer. Daisy and Iris both have their mother’s heart-shaped face, while Luce has their father’s more squared one; Daisy and Iris both have glossy, smooth, medium-brown hair, while Luce’s, like Sam’s, is both darker and less tamable; Daisy and Iris are both tall and willowy, while Luce is shorter and stockier. Ever since the differences between them became obvious—and probably, if Sam’s honest, since before then—the dynamic between the three sisters is one that Sam can’t help but think Luce doesn’t enjoy.
Even the apartment itself reflects the way things work between the triplets. It’s a nice enough place, the second floor of a well-maintained duplex on a little street called Delaware Drive, at the top of Cedar Hill. That means that for Iris and Daisy, it’s only a few minutes’ walk to Case Western Reserve, where they’re both seniors; they’re even able to catch a university-funded shuttle to and fro most of the time. But Luce, studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art, has a half-hour walk each way to get to her classes, with no way home that doesn’t involve ascending a punishing slope.
Sam sighs as he pulls the van up in front of the curb. This is in part out of sympathy for his sister, but, admittedly, it’s partially because through his open window, he hears a voice that sounds like Daisy’s call, in a slightly singsong tone, “It’s Saaaaaam. Lucy, do you want to maybe hide your bong?”
I’m not your dad, Sam thinks, not for the first time; not that he’s ever been able to bring himself to say it out loud.I’m only eight years older than you. How far into adulthood do we allhave to get before you stop looking at me as an authority figure I never even asked to be? I was a kid, too, you know. Just because I was older than you doesn’t mean I knew what I was doing, and that’s still true, right now.
On the other hand, Sam notes wryly, heiswalking up the stairs to their apartment unannounced, laden with bags of treats for them, and offended that they don’t want him to see their bong, so. Maybe he has a lot of nerve being annoyed that they see him as a father figure.
Regardless, when he knocks it’s Iris who answers. She’s irritated to see him so early until he offers her the coffee, which seems to placate her somewhat. Never particularly food-motivated, she’s indifferent to the groceries, but Daisy’s excited by the various snack options, and Luce—the only one of the three who’d ever bothered to pay attention when Sam attempted to teach them to cook—is clearly pleased by the ingredients he’s chosen. Sam’s glad; some of them are expensive pantry items, things like tahini and cashews and good chocolate, and he’s relieved that someone appreciates them. She kisses him on the cheek when she takes her coffee, and Daisy gives him a bubbly one-armed hug. Iris raises an eyebrow at him over the rim of her cup, but that, for Iris, is fairly demonstrative, and he smiles back.
At this point Pastrami, who was until now, presumably, sprawled unconscious on Luce’s bed and sleeping the deep, luxurious sleep of a dog who has been given both a glut of attention and too many liver treats, bursts from the bedroom. She barrels towards Sam at a dead run, leaps into his arms, licks every inch of his face with a frankly unsettling efficiency, and then leaps back to the ground again. She circles him three times before she settles on the floor at his feet, panting happily.
Sam would have had to train that jumping out of her if she did it with anyone else, but only he has ever had this particularreaction from her. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of that.
“She needs out,” he says, instead of this. “Do you want me to?—”
“I’ve got it,” Luce says, standing and stretching, coffee still in hand, without spilling a drop. Then she smiles slightly at Sam and adds, “But you can come with, if you want.”
Sam nods and waits patiently while she clips Pastrami into her leash and puts her shoes on. Then they descend the stairs together, Daisy crying, “Bye! Have a blast! Love you!” as Iris gives them both a curt, brief wave. They’ve always been like that, the two of them, as though the personality traits that were meant to be split evenly between them simply went one way or the other instead.
Luce is more like Sam: somewhere in between two extremes, warily trying to bridge the gap. She listens more than she talks, like he tries to, and does her best to be helpful, like him. He wonders, sometimes, if she’s like him in less visible ways, too; if deep down inside she’s often more upset, or angry, or hurt than she lets on.
He hopes not. It’s a complicated hand to be dealt.
Regardless, they’re enough alike that they walk in comfortable silence for nearly ten minutes. The sky is gray and vaguely threatening, but Sam’s pretty sure it’s bluffing, and it’s just starting to feel pleasant to be outside again after a winter of cursing the weather. Pastrami has the time to use the facilities and move on to smelling absolutely every object they pass, in search of, Sam assumes, news of the canine world; Sam gets the chance to notice that Luce has dyed a small section of her hair neon yellow, and another bit lime green. It’s not finals week for her so much as it’s been finalsyearsince last August—it turns out that art school is more about long-term capstone projects than exams, at least in Luce’s program—and he wonders if she’smanaging the strain all right, without knowing how to ask her at all.
Finally, he clears his throat, steeling himself. It’s ridiculous, he knows, to feel afraid; she’s hislittle sister, for God’s sake, and Pastrami ishisdog, and, anyway, of the triplets, Luce’s the kind one. “Listen, I’m sorry to do this, but I need to take Pastrami back early.”
“Oh,” Luce says, blinking at him in surprise. He notices her pull the leash towards herself a little, though he doubts it was on purpose. “Um, okay. How early?”
Sam winces. “I was thinking like. After this walk?”
