Good at Being Alive(60)

“You’re incredibly lucky you got to marry me instead,” says Bex. “She sounds awful.”

I wholeheartedly agree with both statements, though I’ll never admit it.

An hour later, the refrigerator is eighty percent empty. She let the condiments go, but not Bronwyn’s favorite jelly or her father’s maraschino cherries.

“How does it feel?” I ask, as we stare at the vacant shelves.

“Not great,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to erase them and now it feels like I have. But really, it’s just about admitting that they’ve already been erased.”

I understand that better than she thinks. It took me a full year to delete my brother’s phone number from my contacts. Instead of taking over his office, I still use a smaller one down the hall. I wish I could wrap my arms around her right now, but we are already too close. I’m already crossing lines I shouldn’t cross, and I don’t dare cross any more.

Her smile is forced as we start turning out the lights. “So what are we cleaning tomorrow?” she asks.

I wince. “I’ve got a five-thirty flight home. The new manager seems to have a handle on stuff.”

“Oh. Cool.” It’s her normal insouciance, but this time I hear the bleak note behind it.

“I’ll come back with you after Norway,” I find myself saying, though I really have no reason to return to New Jersey before the marathon in September. “We’ll tackle the living room next.”

I’m making this sound like altruism when the truth is that I just don’t want to be away from her. It’s fine as long as I never say it aloud.





Bex



Lars: I’ve got some bad news.

Me: Theo was right. You really do begin a lot of conversations that way.

Lars: Someone has leaked our shoot schedule to Kylie and Jasper. They’re here.

Theo: In Paris?

Lars: At our hotel. Katrina saw Kylie at the spa.

Theo: It could be a coincidence. Paris is a popular destination and that’s a popular hotel.

Lars: That they haven’t even mentioned it on their channel suggests to me that it’s got less to do with travel than it does catching you guys not acting married, so I’m putting you in the same room. It’s a suite…one of you can take the couch. I’ll let you fight it out.

Theo: Bex’s life is more tragic so she gets the bed.



* * *



? ? ?

I arrive in Paris early in the morning and take a cab to the hotel, my face pressed to the window as I take it all in. I was too young to really appreciate it the last time we were here, but the city sparkles in the early morning light, the tall windows and wrought-iron balconies gracing each building like something out of a Victor Hugo novel. At one intersection, a quick glance to the right reveals such a perfect, unimpeded view of the Eiffel Tower that I gasp, “Oh my god, that’s the Eiffel Tower!” I’m sure my driver is rolling his eyes, but I refuse to take my gaze off the view long enough to check.

Only minutes later, we pass the Arc de Triomphe—I manage to remain silent this time—then veer off the Champs-?lysées onto the more subdued but lovely Avenue George V.

We stop in front of the hotel and a bellman lifts my bag from the trunk. I dutifully follow him through the luscious marble lobby and get my keycard, ignoring the impulse to blow all this off and rush outside to see more of the city, before I head to the room reserved for me and Theo.

Our suite is palatial—Lars definitely was not trying to rom-com one-bed us. The primary bedroom is huge, there’s a pull-out couch, and we even have two bathrooms, so it will be very difficult, realistically, to play the “oh, I didn’t know you were in here” card when he’s showering.

A loud rap on the door interrupts me just as I’m kicking off my shoes to face-plant into bed. I know it’s not Theo—he won’t be in Paris until this afternoon, and he’ll have a key anyway.

I reluctantly trudge back across the suite to find Caden waiting with a wardrobe rack of clothes. “Hey,” he says. “This is all the stuff Mindy sent for you and Theo.”

“I’ll take it,” I say, but instead of pushing the rack my way, he shuffles, glancing from me to the carpet beneath his feet. “Look…I’m sorry about what I said the last time I saw you.”

My arms fold across my chest. “When you said my family died to get away from me?”

He winces. “It was a low blow. No hard feelings?”

There are still hard feelings. There’s also him coming to my room in Amsterdam, and generally being gross several other times too, but I just need to get through this. “Yeah, whatever,” I say.

He nods toward the room. “Let me just wheel this in.”

I reach for the handle. I don’t need Caden in my room, refusing to leave. “I can get it.”

“Bex, I’m not a rapist,” he says with an exasperated laugh. “Just let me wheel this in for you. It’s heavy, and it’s hard to steer. That’s why they didn’t send Katrina up with it.”

I give in with a shrug, stepping out of his way. He pushes the rack into the living room and leaves it beside the polished mahogany dining table. “Man, they really set you guys up, didn’t they?” he asks, looking around.