“Where’s Liam?” Paul said at last.
“Oh.” She realized that in the chaos of the last couple of weeks, she had forgotten to update Paul about her relationship status. “Liam and I broke up.”
“Oh, no,” Paul replied, his face falling. “I’m so sorry, Sarah.” He gave her a warm hug, but he seemed distracted as he took the bottle of wine from her, placing her jacket on an overladen coat rack.
Was Paul more of a fan of Liam’s than she’d realized? Sarah pondered his silence as she followed him into his new ground-floor apartment, taking in the carefully selected decor that must reflect Patricia’s aspirational design sense: posters from the early 1900s for French wines, black and white photographs of Toronto landmarks, a charcoal grey accent wall. As Sarah glanced around the housewarming party, the source of Paul’s discomfort came into focus: this was a couples party. Literally everyone except her was part of a couple—and not just a couple, but an elegant, attractive pair, legs crossed towards each other on white sofas as they chatted over brightly colored cocktails. She felt like she was trapped in a furniture advertisement.
“So what are you doing for a roommate?” Paul asked. “I thought Liam might move in if I got out of the way.” Had Paul thought he was doing her a favor by leaving? It would be ironic if he had been trying to push her stalled relationship out of its stasis. He’d certainly achieved that goal.
“I found someone else to live with,” Sarah said. “It’s fine. She’s an education student.” Sarah had spent the week interviewing a handful of potential roommates before selecting a quiet young woman named Winnie who was in a teacher-prep program and barely had the courage to ask if she was allowed to put food in the refrigerator. A shy and self-doubting roommate felt like exactly Sarah’s speed right then.
Sarah kept her smile plastered on as Paul led her past various tableaus of happy coupledom and into the kitchen, where one more couple awaited her like the punchline to a joke: Ren and his wife Paola, carefully arranging fancy cheeses on a large white platter.
Ren smiled at her as he looked up. “Hey!”
“Hey!” Sarah said brightly. “They’ve put you on cheese duty, I see.”
“Unfortunately,” Ren agreed, rearranging some cubes with a knife. “If there’s an art to this I never learned it.”
“The master’s programs in snack arrangement are tough to get into,” Sarah said.
“Very cut-throat. It’s the knives.”
Paola glanced between them. She was even more stunning in person, with large dark eyes and dark hair that artfully curled around her shoulders in long, loose waves. “Well, I had to give him something to do,” she said. “Otherwise, he fidgets.”
“Paola, this is my old friend Sarah,” Ren said, gesturing with his non-knife-wielding hand. “She’s Paul’s cousin, but we knew each other at McGill. And Sarah, this is my lovely wife, Paola. Did your boyfriend come?”
“Liam and I broke up.”
“Oh, no.” Ren’s eyes registered something that passed too quickly for her to track it. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was long overdue,” Sarah said.
His expression settled into kindness. “Well, it gives you more time to shoot, right?”
She nodded. “I’ll have to do a sad break-up photo series. Abandoned shoes on train tracks.”
“Lonely pigeons in the park,” Ren said.
“Empty plastic bags blowing in the wind.”
Ren chuckled.
“Oh, right,” Paola said. “You’re the photographer.”
“Yes.” Sarah looked between them. “Well, one of them. There may be others.”
Paola snorted. “I don’t doubt it, knowing Ren.”
“Oh…” Sarah struggled for words, unsure how to avoid the landmine that had appeared before her. “I just meant there are a lot of photographers…in the universe.”
Paola’s eyes shifted away from Sarah, a tiny dismissal; she seemed to have decided that Sarah was being boring, evasive, or both.
“Let’s get you one of Trish’s cocktails!” Paul cried with extra jollity. “They are shockingly strong, so brace yourself.”
“Please yes,” Trish said, emerging from the other room to join them. “Paola won’t have any, and I prepared way too much.”
Trish was in a white vest that she was wearing as a shirt and slim white pants, the kind of outfit that would have gotten stained within three minutes at an undergrad party but could remain pristine at a mid-twenties soiree. She prepared Sarah a martini glass of something bright orange, then twisted a lemon rind on top of it and handed it over, keenly watching for Sarah’s reaction.
