Page 39 of Anywhere with You

I started driving by her apartment on my way to work. It was on the way, I told myself. I didn’t stop, just slowed enough to look for a bright orange car, a little worse for wear.

She said she was taking the scenic route, and I checked Mesmio often, but she’d stopped posting. I worried about her. If she was out there on the side of the road somewhere, would another Mildred and Jeffrey turn up to rescue her?

I started going by on my way home, too. She still wasn’t back, so every day, I went home and fretted while I packed and drank.

I wanted to reach out to her, everything else be damned.

I wanted to touch her over the distance, to hold her hand, to soothe her worries.

When had this happened, this obsession with whether she was happy or not?

I was happier when I was just obsessed with her lips, but now, I wanted to see those lips so I’d know if they were smiling or frowning, and whether I was the cause.

The worst thing was that I could reach her.

This wasn’t a Victorian romance when all I had were letters and weeks of waiting.

I could call her or text her. I could make her a reel.

I could get back on a goddamned plane and go get her.

I couldn’t stop being aware of all the options I was too cowardly to take.

I’d started my own business, gotten married, and survived the failure of my marriage. I did what I wanted to do. I believed in living bravely and taking chances, even, occasionally, stupid and impulsive chances.

But I couldn’t call Cara. I got the same paralyzed feeling as when I’d stood in my office a week ago, holding the envelope that would tell me I was getting divorced. I couldn’t do it. I was worse than a chicken. I was a rabid javelina who disappeared as soon as her back was turned.

I laughed, snorting wine.

“This is what pathetic looks like,” I told Badger. “You may not be familiar with the sight, but you should get used to it.”

Cara and I hadn’t talked about what our incredible day together meant.

There hadn’t been much time, but maybe there was another reason.

Maybe we hadn’t been eager to ask questions neither of us could answer.

We were married, both of us ending long relationships, both of us recently heartbroken.

It wasn’t smart to think about a real relationship, let alone talk about one.

But I didn’t have to think about it to know that what I felt for Cara wasn’t casual. It wasn’t a momentary attraction, a fling of opportunity. God, I wish it had been. That would’ve been much more convenient.

It wasn’t fleeting, but what was it? Or I supposed the right question was, what could it have been? I would’ve given a lot to find out what we would’ve become, with time, with freedom, with a return to our normal lives with all the associated pressure.

I thought, for the first time, about Cara in my real life, stopping by my store, coming by my new apartment, helping me find those little things, those porcelain sugar bowls, to make my everyday life a little better, a little nicer, a little sweeter.

God, I missed her.

In between worrying about and missing Cara, I ran a busy, thriving store while trying not to get my hopes up that the change was permanent.

I’d been right about Doug’s ability to handle Strings & Things’s social media presence.

Once he had permission, he was posting content on sites I hadn’t even heard of.

“What’s a Facebook?” I asked, then grinned when his eyes went wide.

“It’s like the white pages for college students,” Florence contributed seriously. Doug and I just laughed.

I wrote a few songs for our Mesmio page, and our followers grew, but not the same kind that Cara’s and my account had.

These followers wanted to talk about music and instruments and songwriting, and I found that, whether they were in the comments section or the store, I liked talking to them, and I learned a lot, even switching some of the store’s products to ones that were more ethically produced, on a follower’s recommendation.

This was what I’d envisioned when I first dreamed about opening a music shop. It was more than a store. It was a place for people to share what they loved.

Cara had teased me about remembering everyone’s name, but when I recognized one of the store’s followers before they recognized me, I appreciated for the first time that not everyone had that gift. The guy was delighted and came in to make purchases twice that week.

At Doug’s recommendation, a few of our regulars stayed after hours and recorded their own songs to post on the store’s page, and our views and followers skyrocketed.

I woke up each day in my new apartment overlooking Houston’s Discovery Green and acres of trees, feeling in awe of how quickly my life had changed.

I remembered the empty store of a few weeks ago, my stress about keeping the doors open and what would happen to Doug and Florence if I had to lay them off, and how lonely I’d been without Bridget, a bone-deep loneliness that I hadn’t want to name but that I’d felt every single waking moment.

And Cara had changed all that. Not only had she come along and been a friend to me when I needed one, but because of her, I was now part of a musical community unlike anything I’d known since college.

More and more, I looked forward to saying thank you. More and more, I wanted to sit with her on my balcony and listen to the live music in the park below and tell her how much better my life had been since she’d walked through my door.

Of course, none of my newfound success was going to stop me from stalking my ex-wife’s Mesmio for a hint that she was secretly miserable. Maybe I should be more mature. But I wasn’t.

I had finished signing our divorce paperwork—while listening to Selena Gomez’s “Single Soon”—with one change: I was keeping our dog, and I wanted it in writing.

Bridget had agreed without argument.

There was nothing on her Mesmio about the divorce. I don’t know why I expected that there would be. Maybe it was too serious a topic for her brand.

Bridget and Lorenzo had long since returned from their cruise. Now their videos mostly showed them at different places around Houston and Galveston, walking along the seawall, eating expensive food, trying out new bars.

One day, they were touring Saint Arnold brewery, which was weird because I was pretty sure I’d never seen either of them drink a beer.

But there they were, clinking glasses, smiling with foam mustaches.

“ Sometimes it’s not about the adventure, ” Bridget said to the camera, blotting her mouth with a napkin.

That soft, happy glow she’d carried for months had only grown brighter.

“ It’s about seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of someone you love.

It’s about feeling that one single place isn’t big enough for everything you feel. ”

She looked at Lorenzo, who was staring adoringly at her, and I had to notice that he, too, looked more relaxed and happier than I’d ever seen him.

Still ugly, though.

“ You are my adventure, ” she whispered.

I made an elaborate gagging sound as I closed the app, for no one’s benefit but my own.

“They are the worst, aren’t they?” Cara said.

I dropped my phone on the cash register, and it bounced onto the floor. I bent to get it, my heart pounding.

I hadn’t noticed the bell over the door, but it rang so often now that it didn’t jolt me the way it had only a few weeks ago.

I stood, knocked my head on the counter, then gave up and just sat down on the floor.

Doug rushed over. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Would you watch the register for me for a while?”

“Of course,” he said, then looked up and saw Cara on the other side of the counter, and his mouth dropped open like a cartoon character’s.