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I shoot a look at Phillip, who shrugs as if he’s indifferent to the matter. “I’d like that,” I tell her, and I’m not even lying.

17

When I get home, there is a new pie with a new note waiting for me outside my door.

Made a little oopsie with the other one. Recommend you throw it out. Second time’s the charm.

I pick it up and take it inside with me, thinking to myself that I’m pretty sure it’s the third time that’s supposed to be the charm. Just to be safe, Pie Number Two follows its predecessor straight into the trash.

As I stare at the crusty brown mess sliding its way to the dark depths of my garbage can, my emotions slide along with it from a place where I was feeling like I was maybe okay to one where I know that I’m not.

I don’t know what is more pathetic—that with Koko and Mackenzie out of town, Phillip is the closest thing I have to a friend in the city right now, or that I hadn’t even noticed or cared about that fact until tonight. When Magda and Gopi moved away, I had Larry. And when Larry died, I didn’t have any room in my heart to deal with anything other than the pain of losing him, and now…now I’m alone again, staring at a pie in my garbage can.

My eyes wander across the apartment to the hooks next to the door. Mackenzie’s leather jacket hangs next to Larry’s old rainbow umbrella.

Before I can stop myself, I’m crossing the room and lifting it off the hook.

I am doing this for science, I tell myself. Just a little experiment to see what will happen.

But there’s a deeper truth at play here. One I’m not willing to admit aloud.

I want something to happen.

Something that connects me to Larry or Mackenzie. Some memory, some story that isn’t me, here, alone in my apartment.

I close my eyes as I slip it on, ready for whatever is about to happen.

And what happens is…nothing.

What the hell?

When I open my eyes again, it’s to the sight of the empty hook, my apartment door and the rest of the room exactly as I left it.

I take the jacket off and put it on again.

Nothing.

I try a third time and even a fourth. Zilch. Nada. Zero.

“The Universe sends us what we’re ready for at the exact time we need it in our lives.”

I can practically hear Larry’s voice in my head.

“Well, I’m ready,” I yell to the universe. “Send me thy signal. I am telling you I need it right now.”

The Universe apparently feels otherwise.

Or I’m wearing a regular, old jacket.

I take it off and throw it across the room, where it lands on the couch.

A sadness washes over me as I settle into the cushions and wrap myself in my favorite blanket.

Although it’s late, I turn on the TV, find Romancing the Christmas Duke in my Netflix queue, and hit play.

Instantly, I am transported to a small town in Maine where a down-on-her-luck schoolteacher is trying to revive the town’s annual Christmas pageant and carry on her grandmother’s legacy. I make it through the first twenty minutes, but after a disastrous first pageant rehearsal, I begin to lose interest and pause it with an audible sigh.

My phone sits on the coffee table in front of me. I pick it up and swipe open the screen. There is no response to my earlier pie text to Mackenzie, but there is one from Koko.