Page 1 of When I Picture You

1

Renee Feldman was not having a good day, and it was barely 3 p.m. She’d overslept and shown up late to open Prince’s Coffee, arriving to a gang of impatient early-morning regulars. Then the ice machine went on the fritz—exactly what Renee did not need on this steaming hot July day. She’d done two emergency ice runs to the gas station and come back soaked in sweat, forty pounds of ice dribbling on the floor.

Renee scanned the afternoon crowd as she weighed grounds for cold brew. Prince’s had been a major hangout when she was in high school and needed to get out of her house. It was still strange to be behind the counter at twenty-seven, even after nine months there. When she moved back to Fellows, Michigan, from New York City, she’d hoped to find work that made use of her nearly complete MFA in film. She’d applied with every videographer in three counties. The one company that gave her a chance hadn’t sent her anything after her edit of a Sweet Sixteen party. It didn’t feel fun, they’d said, but Renee hadn’t been going forfun. She’d been going forreal, and the birthday girl’s parents had fought right in front of her camera. She’d taken the job at Prince’s as a stopgap, but now it was her main gig.

Outside Prince’s big front window, a pair of teenage girls squealed.

Here we go, Renee thought. The girls were taking selfies, whichmeant Renee had maximum five minutes before they disturbed the peace inside.

The girls barreled into the coffee shop. One was tall with sharp elbows and shoulders; the other, shorter, had curly hair and a smattering of acne. They both wore the exalted look of pilgrims to a sacred site. The shorter one clutched her phone to her heart, while the taller one filmed her clutching her phone to her heart.

Renee really hoped they wouldn’t cry. Girls like this sometimes did.

“Did you know that—there’s, like—” The taller girl stumbled over her words.

Her friend took over. “There’s this song, by Lola Gray—”

“We really,reallylove her!”

The shorter girl continued, “And she wrote a song, ‘My Ever-After,’ and she, like, mentions this place?”

The pair waited for Renee’s reaction with their jaws slack.

“This is the place from that song,” Renee admitted.

At Renee’s confirmation, the girls practically began levitating in their white Air Force 1s.

The taller one asked, “Does Lola ever, like … come in here?”

Renee shook her head. “Lola Gray probably lives nowhere near here.”

“She lives in L.A. Hollywood Hills,” the girl corrected, as if it were normal to know where a total stranger lived.

“But, like, has Lola come hererecently?” the shorter girl pressed.

“Why would she have come hererecently?”

The girls had a silent conversation using a rapid-fire series of micro-expressions.

“We heard that she’s here this weekend because her sister is getting married, and we thought …”

Renee gave in. “And you thought she’d get coffee where some boy once promised her a happily ever after?”

The taller girl gasped. “Youdoknow the song!”

“We get fans like you all the time,” Renee said with an eye roll. “The picture over there is as close as you’re getting to Lola Gray.” Renee pointed to a sun-bleached photo near the door, of Prince’s owner with a fine-boned young woman with tan skin, big eyes, and a cascade of chocolate-brown hair. She was clutching a copy of her first CD and smiling so widely that you could have conducted a full dental exam based on the photo alone. “If you want to hang out here, you need to order something.”

Renee had just finished making the girls’ iced strawberry matcha lattes when Kadijah walked in. Their long black braids were tied back and the deep brown of their shoulders glistened with sweat under their halter top. In their hands: much-needed bags of ice.

“Kadijah to the rescue!” Kadijah said brightly as they heaved the ice onto the counter.

Renee slid open the freezer, ripped open a bag of ice, and dumped it inside. “Just in time.”

Kadijah cocked their head at the girls, who were taking selfies with the picture of Lola.

“More Lo-Lites?” Kadijah said, using the name Lola Gray fans had coined for themselves.

Renee rolled her eyes. “Coming out of the woodwork for the wedding.”