When I’d walked up to my apartment, I had looked over to the row of five tall windows that represented Pete’s space, and they’d been dark. It was a grey, drizzly afternoon and I thought if he was home there’d be a light on. It was possible he was sleeping. Or working. I wasn’t sure if I should stop by his place or not. I turned on all my lights and put on some music so he would know I was home. I’d let him come to me.
I had left the heat set at fifty degrees to save money and I’d forgotten to ask anyone to take care of my houseplants. Between the lack of water and warmth, they were all dead. I got a garbage bag from the closet in my kitchen and poured the plants inside, stacking up their pots to be washed. The radiators started working and as the apartment warmed up, I felt a little better. I changed into old sweats and an old t-shirt. I hadn’t looked this casual for months. I found a beer in the back of my fridge and opened it. This slobby version of myself felt pretty good.
I wanted to call my friends but I had been contractually sworn to secrecy. They would want to know if I was still in the running and I wasn’t sure I could trust any of them enough to share details with them. I’d agreed not to talk to anyone outside my immediate family until after Bellamy made his final choice. Until he proposed.
I needed to call my parents, though, to tell them that they would need to participate in the Meet-the-Fam date. I was pretty sure my mom was going to freak out when she heard the news. Only, how was I going to call her? I realized then that the producers still had my phone. It must have been a mistake. How would they let me know the details about my Meet-the-Fam date? I decided I’d better check my email. But then I realized that along with canceling my landline before leaving, I was also without internet, since my contract had expired.
My relief about being alone was starting to fade. Now I felt isolated. Panicky. Invisible. Just as suddenly my frumpy attire started to get to me. Why was I wearing old clothes? I looked like a grey, melting lump of dust. Who would want to look like that? No one. I started to cry. Was I having post-reality television depression? I had to talk to someone now!
I decided I would just have to go over and borrow Pete’s phone and use his internet. I had no other choice. It wasn’t that I wanted to see him, I told myself, so much as any human. And of course I needed to call my mom. I’d already been home for nearly an hour without contacting her. How rude of me. I mean, she’s my mom.
I changed into jeans and a sparkly, sequined top and poked my head out into the hall. It was dim and quiet, and smelled of curry and wet wool. It made me miss Paris and Venice and everything else. I began to sob, but I tried to control myself. Between gasps, I listened. No sound came from Pete’s apartment. No light came from beneath his door. I started to close my door again, thinking there was no point in even trying, but then I decided that there would be no harm either since he most likely was not there.
I tiptoed to his door and put my ear to it, listening. Nothing but silence. I got down on my hands and knees and listened at the bottom of the door. Still nothing. I tried the door, gently, but it was locked. I looked around me at the empty hallway and decided no one would know if I investigated a little further. I slinked down and spread out on the cold floor and tried to look underneath the door. I could see what appeared to be the edge of a fringed rug. Why was there a fringed rug in there? I didn’t remember Pete ever having a fringed rug. Did he still live there? Was this someone else’s apartment now?
A horrible emptiness filled me. What if Pete was gone? I had to figure out if this was still his apartment. I sniffed at the bottom of the door, trying to detect anything familiar. I stuck my hand beneath again, the little bit I could fit, trying to grab at the rug. I could just barely move my fingertips enough to jab at the stringy, dirty fringe. These doors had to be in violation of fire safety codes, I decided. Perhaps it was time for me to move away. Of course it was. I’d be living in Arizona soon, right? This part of my life would be a receding memory growing fainter and fainter. One day I wouldn’t even know it had happened.
After several tries, my desperate little finger scrapes were able to pull the rug a little closer. I scooted back away from the bit now poking out beneath the door and took a look around me; the hall was still dark and silent. I thought I heard something several stories down but it didn’t concern me. I gave the fringed edge a yank and was able to slide nearly the entire rug out into the hall. I knelt there looking at it, puzzled. It was a flowery, hippie-like rug of fairly high quality. Newish. A bit dirty but not terribly so. I was completely perplexed. I began trying to slide it back into the apartment, only to be interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind me.
“Emma? Is that you?” said Pete’s voice.
I jumped up and spun around, leaving the rug half in and half out of Pete’s apartment. Despite my tears, I was smiling. I couldn’t help myself; the smile came through my tears like sunshine.
“Pete,” I started to say, but my voice trailed off. He wasn’t alone. There was a girl with him. By girl I mean woman. Everything seemed to come to a thudding halt. I became acutely aware of the curry hallway smell and of my own strange nightclub attire.
Pete and this woman were both bundled up in winter clothes, each carrying a couple of bags of groceries. Reusable bags. Not something Pete had ever been on board with before. He and this woman looked very… domesticated. Comfortable. She was wearing his scarf that I’d made him for Christmas. She was beautiful. Snowy and red-cheeked and bright like cherries on ice cream. Her beauty was a punch in the gut. Her friendly smile was a slap across my puffy, splotchy face.
“Emma, this is Krissie. Krissie, this is my neighbor Emma.”
I couldn’t speak. Krissie. I knew that name. The pillow fight girl. I just nodded. Despite her snowy mittens and bags of wine and navel oranges and other signs of sweet abundance with my man, my man, the one I knew I truly wanted, only him, no other, no other, she came forward and put that snowy mitten straight out to me like someone waiting to receive a baton and said, “Emma, it’s so nice to meet you.”
I shook my head then turned it into a nod and my hand, more civilized than the rest of me, extended and limply offered itself. An embrace of cold, wet, confident wool enveloped it and moved it up and down twice, firmly. As Krissie stepped back my hand stayed between us, curling in space like a dead spider. A moment later my brain reminded it to drop down by my side. I shoved as much of it as I could fit into my pocket to keep it out of trouble.
Pete set down his bags and came forward, offering a tapping little hug. It felt nothing like the Pete I remembered. His eyes said nothing. There were no hidden messages transferred in that moment. It was as meaningful as brushing past a cold rack of parkas.
“Pete,” said my mouth. Like my hand, it did its own thing.
“You’re back. Does this mean you’re not going to be Emma Timberfrost?” he asked cheerfully. His banal enthusiasm was a flashback to awkward drive-home chats with the dads of kids I’d babysat in high school. Before I had a chance to answer, he bent down and retrieved his groceries from their I like big books and I cannot lie canvas totes, pausing to carefully arrange a carton of organic brown eggs.
My nodding head settled on a stupid, slow wobble and I took a few steps back, edging along the wall, stepping in a bit of slush. “I’m not at liberty to say,” I whispered.
Krissie tilted her head in bemused confusion. She was a Pomeranian. I was a Chihuahua.
I took another step back. How far away was my apartment? I looked over my shoulder. Too far. Much too far way.
“Did you need anything?” asked Krissie. Less brightly. She looked concerned about the crazy person in the hall.
“Ugh,” I said.
“Are you feeling alright?” asked Pete. He looked genuinely concerned, but in the generic way a good citizen gets concerned about suffering strangers.
“Your phone?” I asked.
“You need to use my phone?”
I nodded.
“Sure. Of course. Come on in,”
he said.
Krissie reached in her pocket and withdrew a ring of keys. “I’ve got it,” she said, unlocking the door and holding it for us.
Pete took over holding it and Krissie gracefully suggested that she’d be in the kitchen putting away the groceries. I slinked past Pete, trying not to gawk at his made-over crafty-chic apartment. It smelled like coffee and cookies. A mustard yellow lace bra was drying on the living room radiator. Very nice leather riding boots leaned against the coat rack like a page from a catalog. An easel was set up in the corner of the living room with a half-finished painting of a meadow on it. On the coffee table, a string cheese wrapper marked a page halfway through War and Peace. The knife in my heart took a jagged turn with each new detail. This girl was no random pillow fight skank. She was every girl’s dream best friend and every guy’s dream girlfriend. Fuck.
“Here’s the phone,” said Pete, handing his house phone to me. “It doesn’t work in the hallway,” he added as I began to take it with me. I considering asking him for his cellphone, but I sensed I wasn’t in much of a position to make demands.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, dialing my parents’ number since I didn’t know what else to do. I went over towards the door, trying not to look at the handbag hanging on the coat rack, trying not to notice the opened invitation on the table by the door to ‘Croquet in the Snow, Rain, or Sun (who can say what spring in Chicago will be like?) for Camden’s first birthday’ addressed to both of them.
My parents’ phone rang and rang. I began to feel a twinge of relief. As I was about to hang up, my mother answered.
“Hello?” She sounded confused.
“Mom, it’s me, Emma. I’m calling you from… my neighbor’s phone.”
“Emma!” she said. She sounded so happy to hear from me that it made me start crying again. “You’re back in Chicago! I can tell by the area code! Why aren’t you calling from your apartment? Is everything fine? How long will you be back?”
“Just for a while. I have to tell you, Bellamy’s going to want to meet you guys really soon. I’m one of the finalists.” I looked at Pete out of the corner of my eye, and I thought I saw him flinch a tiny bit. This gave me the smallest boost of confidence. Maybe there was still hope for us. After all, he’d only been with Miss Artsy-girl a month or two.
“So it’s going really well?” she asked.
“Yes. Can you and Dad come to Chicago for my Meet-the-Fam date? I think I want it to be here instead of in Florida. I want him to see my apartment and get to know what my life is like here. The show pays for your airfare and everything.”
“Oh, Emma. It’s so cold there. That’s why we moved away.”
“Mom.”
“We’re hosting bridge club next week at our condo,” she continued. “I already bought the snacks.”
“Mom, this is huge!” Please don’t argue with me about this in front of Pete, I wanted to add.
“Well, I suppose meeting our future son-in-law is worth it.” She giggled a little. “This is exciting, Bug.”
“Isn’t it?” I said. I heard Krissie call to Pete for help putting something on a high shelf. He immediately trotted off to the kitchen and then I heard the smacking sound of a butt getting affectionately slapped. The sound was followed by her laughter and “Easy, Tiger.” I wanted to puke.
“So, you really think you won?” my mom asked me.
“I think so.”
“You think he loves you?”
“Umm, yeah. Pretty sure.” I strained to hear what was happening in the kitchen. What if they were making out with me right here?
“And you love him?”
“Sure. Listen, Mom. You can’t tell anyone outside our immediate family about this. I think I only want to involve you and Dad, since once I start getting everyone else involved, someone will probably leak the story. This is all supposed to be kept under wraps.”
“It sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“And you’re sure you want to spend your life with him?”
“Sure. He’s a real catch.” I heard the sound of a blender. They were making smoothies. Or mixed drinks? On a cold day like this?
“What did I tell you? Isn’t this soup blender amazing?” Pete was saying to Krissie. “It turns fresh broccoli and shredded cheddar into a bowl of hot delicious soup in two minutes.”
“Yummy,” said Krissie.
“Well, I guess we’d better start packing. What other choice do we have?” laughed my mom. “What kind of clothes should I wear? Who will book our flight for us? Should we go to a travel agent?”
“I’ll have to go out and get a different phone today,” I said. “I’ll call you after I do that.”
“Say, you probably haven’t heard this since you’ve been gone, but Tina quit her job,” said my mom, dishing about my brother’s wife as if this was just another phone call.
“Crazy. Well, I’d better go. I will talk to you soon, Mom. Say Hi to Dad, and don’t tell anyone about this. It’s top secret, okay?”
“I promise my lips are sealed, Bug,” she said.
I sighed, trying to ignore the smell of toast wafting from the kitchen, the blender noise, the laughter. Suddenly instead of saying goodbye and hanging up, other words were spilling out of my mouth in a low, rushed whisper: “Mom, what should I do? Should I say yes if he proposes?”
She missed the urgency of my tone. “Hmm. You think for sure he’s going to?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, well I’m asking because I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed. Aren’t those other girls real lookers?”
“Mom! I don’t always look the way I do when I’m hanging out with you and Dad. Sometimes I dress up.”
“Well, that’s good. But still, Emma, it could go in a direction you weren’t supposing.”
“I know, but I don’t think it’s going to.”
“Not that you aren’t cute too.”
“Whatever. It’s fine.”
“And this show, are they going to let it go that far?”
“Mom! That’s the whole point of the show!”
I could hear Krissie suggesting spices to Pete. What about cumin? Would cumin be good in broccoli soup? What about paprika? Mmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmm. I wanted to chuck something against the wall. Instead I found myself twisting the one year old’s birthday invitation into a sweaty knot. Once I realized what I had done, I tried to uncrumple it, but it was too late. I shoved it into the dusty abyss between the table and wall.
“Hmm,” said my mom. “And you really love him already? It’s been such a short amount of time.”
“I don’t know. How can I tell? There’s so much going on all the time it’s hard to even judge.”
A song began playing in the kitchen. Something ridiculous I’d never heard before, blaring over the sound of the mixer. It was a ringtone, I realized. “Hello!” said Krissie. She sounded like she had a smile in her voice like we’d been taught to sound when I worked in a call center during college. I made a mental note to become the kind of girl who has funny ringtones as soon as I had a phone again. And to put a smile in my voice.
“Well, Emma, you should know whether you love him or not. Would you want to write him a love letter, or would it feel funny?”
“What kind of a question is that?” I asked.
“That’s how I picked your dad over another boy. I couldn’t picture writing that other boy a love letter. I tried, but it felt real funny. Well, anyway, is he what you thought he would be?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Do you want to get married?”
“I think so.”
“How many of you are there left?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Not many though?”
“No.”
Pete passed by me, carrying two bowls of broccoli soup and a small stack of buttered toast on a tray. He wiggled his eyebrows at me as he went by, and then began arranging the meal on the coffee table in a cute, orderly fashion. The show
Big Love shot into my brain and for a brief moment I imagined being one of Pete’s wives. It actually seemed better than not being his wife at all. I could picture there being another bowl of soup on the tray. Really, it might not be so bad.
“But you’re pretty sure he’s going to choose you?”
“Yes. Listen, Mom, I gotta go.”
“Well, remember, he might not choose you after all, so all this worrying might be for nothing.”
“Thanks Mom. I’ll call you back as soon as I get a phone.”
“Okie doke. Talk to you soon.”
“Bye.” I handed the phone to Pete. We could hear Krissie chatting in the kitchen and for a moment we just looked at each other.
“So, it seems things are going well for you,” he said.
“Yes, for both of us I guess,” I said. “And so quickly,” I added.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Thank you for letting me use your phone. Please don’t mention where I’m at with all this, and please ask…” I couldn’t say her name. I nodded towards the kitchen.
“Krissie,” he said.
“Yes, that’s right, Krissie. Please ask Krissie to also keep my secret. I’m in a contract and I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“So I have.” I smiled weakly. Pete just looked at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I shrugged and went to the door. “See ya,” I said.
“Thanks for stopping by,” he said.
I nodded and let myself out of his apartment. Before I had time to further digest what had just happened, I saw a delivery guy standing by my door. He turned away to leave just as I began walking towards him. “Wait,” I called.
“Do you know the person who lives here?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s me. I’m Emma Van Elson,” I said.
“In that case, please sign for this,” he said, holding up a thick, padded envelope.
I signed and tore it open. Inside was my phone. I went inside and plugged it into its charger since it was dead, and made myself some tea. Cold rain came down outside, washing away the little bits of dirty slush that had remained. It was April, but felt like late February or early March. I filled the bathtub, trying not to picture Pete and Krissie, mere steps away from me, having soup followed by sex followed by something cooler and crazier than anything I had to offer. As I sank into the hot water, I tried instead to imagine how the Meet-the-Fam date would be. Bellamy would be polite to my parents. They would be cute and embarrassing. It would be fine. I poured some bath oil into the water and yawned. It would be fine.
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