Page 17 of All Our Almosts

She lets out a long sigh. “Good, I’m glad.”

“Hey mom, I’m getting to the apartment now so I’ll let you go, but have fun at book club. Tell Dianne and Margie I say hi.”

“Okay, I will. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I feel like a mess when I walk in through the apartment door. My cheeks are raw and my glasses are covered in melted snowflakes and the string of tension in my gut from work seems to have double knotted itself during the call with my mom.

Do you ever leave a conversation feeling bad and you’re not even sure why? That’s this. I’m replaying the call in my head as I unzip my boots and place them on the shoe rack, then hang my coat on the hook by the door. Did she sound upset with me? Or worried? I wish she wouldn’t worry. Was I too snappy about the Andy thing? Maybe I should call her back and apologize. I’ll do it as soon as I eat something.

Andy doesn’t seem to be home yet, so I walk into the kitchen and grab a jar of peanut butter and a big spoon. And I’ll tell you, peanut butter is a criminally underrated dinner. It’s super fast and fills you up and tastes delicious. What more could a girl want?

No sooner do I place the first glob into my mouth than my best friend comes trudging through the front door, heavily laden with grocery bags like a lanky beast of burden. He sets the bags down and reaches up to take out his earbuds, the bottom four inches of his pants soaked from the snow.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you,” I mumble around the peanut butter.

He looks from the jar to me and back again. “You hungry? I stocked up.”

Of course he did. Thursdays are grocery days after all—the regimented freak.

I swallow my unladylike mouthful, then cross over to him to grab some bags as he takes off his coat and shoes. “Honestly, I’m not that hungry, but do you want to do something tonight? I’m kind of fixating on work stuff and I think entertainment would help.”

“Hmm,” he muses, picking up the rest of the bags and placing them on the kitchen table. “Do you want to leave the apartment? I think it’s Third Thursdays tonight at the Gardener.”

“Andy! Yes! That’s perfect. Let’s do it.”

Third Thursdays is this after-hours event at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum that happens on the third Thursday of every month, obviously. They set up bars all throughout the museum, and usually have live music and dancing, and you can still see all their normal exhibits too except with a way smaller crowd than usual. I haven’t been in years but now that the idea is out there, I probably have to go for work… right? You know, doing recon about successful museum events, so I can make our exhibit launch better? Seems like the least I can do.

The momentum of this great idea has me up and heading towards the door when Andy steps into my path, catching my upper arms with both hands and halting my progress.

“Hang on.” He physically rotates me back towards the kitchen. “Groceries. Refrigerator. And I want to change, then we can go.”

“Right. Okay.”

We quickly unload Andy’s cloth grocery bags into the fridge and cabinets, then he folds them and places them into a drawer below the microwave. And if the fact that Andy folds his cloth grocery bags doesn’t tell you the kind of person he is, I simply don’t know how to make you understand.

He goes into his bedroom to change out of his snow-damp clothes and I sit back down at the table, reclaiming my peanut butter spoon and nibbling on another big scoop as I scroll through Instagram. Lia’s account is at the top of my feed, right where it belongs, and I click through to her profile.

The top three posts are a pretty perfect encapsulation of her brand. The first is a ridiculously hot picture of her in a bright orange bikini outside in the snow. She’s all long hair and longer legs, tan skin glowing against stark white as she lounges across her apartment building’s front stoop. (Lucky neighbors!) The caption reads “All this snow makes me miss the beach. Thanks @stitchlady.official for helping me bring this suit to life and live my summer fantasy! Get your own sewing machine today with a 10% discount through the link in my bio” followed by a series of hearts and sun emojis. Of course she made the swimsuit herself. I mentioned she’s my role model, right?

The second picture is of a handmade pink and red sweater. Lia’s sweaters are art. And that’s not me being hyperbolic about how good they are—her sweaters are literally art pieces that get shown in galleries around Boston. Don’t ask me how she does it, but she crochets pictures and text onto the sweaters. And people pay big bucks for not only the original pieces but also printed photos as wall art. It’s nuts. The one I’m looking at right now depicts the head and shoulders of a woman on the front of the sweater. Her eyes are closed, chin tilted up, and she’s grabbing her own neck on the border between suggestive and violent. It’s so… expressive. I can’t imagine drawing something this beautiful on paper, let alone making it with yarn and a crochet needle. Insane.

The third post is a video that starts “Hello, ladies!” Lia’s wearing a low-cut bodysuit and wide-legged jeans with her hair pulled into a perfectly messy bun. The white glitter around her eyes matches her bright white smile. “Welcome back to embroidery club. Today is lesson three, and we’re learning a cute little stitch called the French knot…”

The video’s about halfway through when I glance up towards Andy’s bedroom door. To my surprise, I find him standing there, looking at me from the doorway.

He startles a little when our eyes meet—like one does when the person they’re looking at looks back, and you have to avert your eyes and look around a bunch to make it clear you were just looking around and weren’t specifically staring at that person… you know? It makes me smile and huff out a breath of a laugh.

“You ready?” I ask.

He clears his throat and looks back at me again, and his cheeks are actually a little pink as he says, “Ready.”

He’s the weirdest man alive.

I pocket my phone and head towards the door, but Andy doesn’t follow. Instead, he walks over to the kitchen table where I left my peanut butter spoon (whoops). He takes the time to wash it and return it to the drawer before following me out.