Page 41 of Anywhere with You

It would’ve been easy, at that point, to fade out of each other’s lives. We didn’t live or work in the same parts of town. We could move on, consider our trip a failed experiment, and pretend not to notice if we ended up in the same grocery store aisle one day.

But I hadn’t been lying to Cara. Everything else aside, her friendship meant a lot to me, and I intended to keep it.

So the next morning, I texted Cara to ask if she wanted to come see my new apartment on Sunday. She agreed, only if I would let her help by unpacking some boxes and listening to her sage advice on where to put everything.

“You can’t just throw things around willy-nilly and hope you end up creating a comfortable space,” she said the moment she arrived. “You have to plan.”

“What about nilly-willy? Is that an acceptable alternative?”

She picked up a pillow from the top of a stack of boxes and threw it at me.

Badger yipped in protest, then, duty done, rolled over at Cara’s feet in expectation of belly rubs. Cara acquiesced, adding in some baby talk, which made Badger’s ears perk up lightning fast.

“Have some dignity,” I told him. He lolled his tongue at me.

I had worried that it wouldn’t be the same with Cara and me, now that we were back in our regular lives. Maybe we had only liked the vacation versions of each other. Maybe it would turn out that we had nothing in common past a few days on the road and a couple of memorable nights together.

Or maybe not. Maybe all we needed was a little thought, a little effort, and a trip to a gourmet popcorn store.

I’d stocked my new pantry with fourteen kinds. Cara had gone wide-eyed when she found them, immediately insisting that we put some blue kernels in my new air popper.

Cara ate the first popped kernel, disappointingly white, not blue, and made a soft happy sound that was so familiar that it stopped me where I stood in my new kitchen.

The last time I’d heard that sound, I’d been kissing her neck at the hot springs, my arms wrapped around her, pressing her against me, skin to skin.

“Water?” I offered with a croak.

Cara and I unloaded most of the kitchen and bathroom boxes.

She organized dishes by frequency of use, so I no longer had to stand on tiptoe for coffee cups every morning.

She found cabinet space for any appliance I didn’t use at least once a week, freeing up my counters.

She alphabetized my medicine cabinet and threw out my expired cough syrup.

“You packed expired cough syrup,” she said, baffled.

“I kind of threw stuff into boxes without looking too closely.”

“Clearly.”

When she stopped, it was to shake her head at the ragged state of my towels. “We have to fix this immediately. Let’s go shopping.”

We went shopping. I followed her through the store, watching each expression on her face.

I’d been convinced that we could make this work. We’d apologized. We’d forgiven each other. I’d bought popcorn. We were friends again.

But seeing Cara rub her soft hands over the towels at the store was a challenge for which I was not prepared. I watched her hands caress the fabric, fingers pressing the slightest divot in the cloth. She slowly smoothed the surface with her palms.

She bit her lip thoughtfully, comparing textures.

I hurried to the next aisle, pretending to study toothbrush holders and steadying my breath. It was perfectly normal to be jealous of towels. Not strange at all. And how great was it to have friends? Friends were great. This was so…great.

Cara found me a few minutes later. She had a stack of towels and matching washcloths in her shopping cart. I wondered if I would ever be able to use them without thinking about her hands.

I pushed away the thought and held up a cactus-shaped toothbrush holder in an unnaturally vibrant shade of green.

She squinted. “Whatever makes you happy, Honey.”

“Then I definitely need the matching soap dispenser.”

That evening, we took a break from unpacking and sat on the balcony in my former backyard chairs, sipping glasses of iced tea and listening to a blues band playing in the park.

We had talked about doing a short video for our Mesmio followers now that Cara was back, and unusually for us, we planned out what to say ahead of time, commemorating the end of our trip and closing out our Mesmio series.

Now, I pointed the phone camera at Cara. “Look who’s home!”

She smiled. “Houston is definitely home. If you haven’t gotten around to visiting Honey’s store, Strings & Things, you absolutely should. I was there a couple of days ago, and it’s a music-lover’s paradise.”

I turned the camera to capture us both.

“Now, you aren’t a musician yourself, are you, Cara?”

“I rocked a mean triangle in middle school, but otherwise, no, Honey.”

“So for the other latent musicians, what might they find of interest at Strings & Things?”

“Well, Honey, you can always learn something new, buy a gift for a friend, or if nothing else…it’s a good place to pick up a guitarist.”

It was a scripted joke, and not a particularly good one, but Cara delivered it with a wry smile, and her eyes were on me, not the camera. I’d have to edit out the part where I returned her gaze and was the first to look away.

I got us refills of iced tea and held my own cold glass against my burning cheeks before going back out to the balcony, Badger whining to join us.

The music from the park below had picked up in tempo, and Cara was leaning back in her chair, eyes closed, soaking in the melodies and the last of the sunshine, her smile content.

I’d imagined us just like this, relaxing here at the end of a busy day, legs outstretched, her mauve-painted toes inches from mine.

My fourth-floor balcony provided an excellent view of the hundreds of beautiful old oak trees, people flying kites, and children playing in Gateway Fountain.

“Badger is terrified of that fountain,” I said.

“It’s water shooting up twenty times his height. I think I’d be scared, too. I’d be wondering, why is this bath so aggressive?”

I snorted. Below, one of the kids squealed loud enough to be heard over both the traffic and the blues band.

“How does Badger feel about the balcony?”

I risked a glance, but Cara wasn’t looking at me. She had leaned forward to watch the rhythm of the fountains as the water surged and collapsed. It could be hypnotizing.

“I haven’t let him out here yet,” I admitted. “He would have no trouble wiggling between the bars, and it’s a long fall.”

“We’ll find some balcony netting,” Cara said, measuring the distance between the bars with her hand.

“Or I could buy him a collar with really big spikes.”

“Yes. Forget about what I said. That is the solution.”

I laughed, and she grinned at me, glowing golden in the sunset, the scattered light bringing a shining warmth to her breeze-tousled hair.

It wasn’t the first sunset I’d spent with Cara, not by a long shot, but this one seemed to touch her more gently.

She seemed relaxed, and it was a good look for her. It was one I’d like to see more often.

“Do you think you’ll like it?” she asked, her voice low.

I realized I’d been staring and tried to find my ice cubes as fascinating as I found Cara. “Like what?”

“Like living here. After owning your own home, after sharing your space for so many years. Do you think you’ll be okay with this?” She gestured back to the apartment that was, thanks to her, mostly unpacked.

I looked toward the apartment, to Badger’s face pressed against the glass door, to the balcony and the beautiful view, then to Cara. “I think I do like it. I think I should’ve made the move a long time ago.”

“Making the moves—” Cara stopped herself, as though she’d realized it was, maybe, a joke she shouldn’t make.

“What about you?” I asked quickly.

Cara shrugged one shoulder, turning back to look out over the park. “I don’t know about me. I think…I think I’m happy, actually. Is that strange? This whole year has been…let’s say turbulent . Because it’s been bad and good, both, but never calm. I think I’m looking forward to some calm.”

I nodded slowly, absorbing her words. “Calm sounds incredible.”

“Doesn’t it? It’s iced tea and a blues band and a sunset. It’s hard to get more perfect than that.”

She grinned, and I saw every wrinkle beside her eyes, the lift of her cheeks, the glimpse of her teeth, all so familiar and so new, and all I wanted in the world was for her to have a hundred thousand calm evenings and a million perfect smiles, and if she wanted me there, too, I’d be there, but more than anything—God, more than anything —I wanted her to be able to say I think I’m happy every day for the rest of her life.

But I didn’t know how to say any of that.

So instead, I told her about everything that was new with Strings & Things, about Badger’s upcoming vet appointment to get a rabies booster shot, and about how my mother had tried to sign herself and my dad up for an Introductory Weight Lifting for Seniors class and accidentally signed them up for Introductory Wine Tasting.

“Oh no,” Cara said.

“Yes, my dad pretended to be upset about the mistake for a whole five minutes. Now he uses words like bouquet and herbaceous and velvety every time we talk. He’s become so obnoxious that my mother threatened to cancel their tuition payment if he doesn’t cut it out.”

Cara laughed. “At least you know that they won’t be pairing rosé with steak the next time you’re there for dinner.”

“Yeah.” I set down my glass, thinking. “Yeah. You should come, too.”

“What?”

“To dinner. My parents have heard so much about you, and they watched all our reels.”

Cara seemed to blush a little at that, as though making our videos was something completely different from people actually watching them. It was, I supposed. Even I sometimes managed to forget our brush with internet fame.

“I would like that,” she said, grinning that grin again, shining in the sunset glow.

I watched her, hearing myself add, “But only if the wine is good.”

“Right,” she said, meeting my eyes. “Only if the wine is good.”