“You didn’t, did you?”
Hugo looked out at the tea plants. “No. They … they were already gone. They didn’t linger. There were days I was angry about that, but the more I did this job, the more I helped others in their time of need, the more I understood why. They lived a good life. They’d done right by themselves and me. There was nothing left for them to do here. Of course they’d cross.”
“And now you’re stuck with people like me,” Wallace muttered.
The smile returned. “It’s not so bad. The bikini was a nice touch.”
Wallace groaned. “I hate everything.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute. You may think you do, but you don’t. Not really.”
“Well, I hate that.”
Hugo made an aborted attempt to reach for him. His fingers fluttered above Wallace’s hand on the railing before he pulled away, curling his hand into a fist. “We live and we breathe. We die, and we still feel like breathing. It’s not always the big deaths either. There are little deaths, because that’s what grief is. I died a little death, and the Manager showed me a way to cross beyond it. He didn’t try to take it from me because he knew it was mine and mine alone. Whatever else he is, whether or not I agree with some of the choices he makes, I remember that. You think I’m a prisoner here. That I’m trapped, that you’re trapped. And in a way, maybe we are. But I can’t quite call it a prison when there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“The pictures. The photographs. The posters hanging on the walls inside.”
Hugo looked at him but didn’t speak. He was waiting for Wallace to put it together, the little puzzle pieces scattered between them.
“You can’t ever go to them,” Wallace said slowly. “See them in person. They’re a … reminder?” That didn’t feel quite right. “A door?”
Hugo nodded. “They’re photographs of places I can’t even begin to imagine. There’s a whole wide world out there, but I can only see it through these little glimpses. Do I wish I could see them in person? Of course I do. And yet I would make the same choice all over again if I had to. There are more important things than castles crumbling on cliffs over the ocean. It took me a long time to realize that. I won’t say I’m happy with it, but I’ve made my peace because I know how crucial my work is. I still like to look at them, though. They remind me how small we really are in the face of everything.”
Wallace rubbed at his chest, the hook aching. “I still don’t get you.”
“You still don’t know me. But I promise I’m not all that complicated.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.”
Hugo watched him for a long moment, a slow smile forming. “Thank you, Wallace. I appreciate that.”
Wallace flushed, hands tightening on the railing. “Don’t you get lonely?”
Hugo blinked. “Why would I? I have my shop. I have my family. I have a job that I love because of what it brings to others. What more could I ask for?”
Wallace turned his face back toward the stars. They were really something else. He wondered why he’d never noticed them before. Not like this. “What about…” He coughed, clearing his throat. “A girlfriend. A wife, or, like…”
Hugo grinned at him. “I’m gay. Probably would be pretty hard to find me a girlfriend or wife.”
Wallace was flustered. “A boyfriend, then. A partner.” He glared down at his hands. “You know what I mean.”
“I know. I’m just playing with you. Lighten up, Wallace. Not everything needs to be so serious.” He sobered. “Maybe one day. I don’t know. It’d be kind of hard to explain that my tea shop is actually just a front for dead people to have pseudo-intellectual conversations.”
Wallace scoffed. “I’ll have you know I’m extremely intellectual.”
“Is that right? I never would have guessed.”
“Asshole.”
“Eh,” Hugo said. “Sometimes. I try not to be. You just make it so easy. What about you?”
“What about me?”
Hugo shrugged, fingers twitching on the railing. “You were married.”
Wallace sighed. “It was over a long time ago.”
“Mei said she was there at the funeral?”
“I bet she did,” Wallace mumbled. “Did she tell you what was said?”
Hugo’s lips twitched. “Bits and pieces. Sounded like quite the show.”
Wallace laid his head on the backs of his hands. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Do you miss her?”
“No.” He hesitated. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t have the right. I messed up. I wasn’t a good person. Not to her. She’s better off without me. I think she’s still screwing the gardener though.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. But I don’t blame her. He’s pretty hot. I probably would have done the same if I thought he was interested.”
“Wow,” Hugo said. “I didn’t see that coming. You contain multitudes, Wallace. I’m impressed.”
Wallace sniffed daintily. “Yes, well, I do have eyes, so. He liked to work in the yard shirtless. He was probably messing around with half the women in the neighborhood. If I looked like that, I’d do the same.”
Hugo looked him up and down, and Wallace fidgeted uncomfortably. “You’re not so bad.”
“Please, stop. You’re far too kind. I can’t stand it. How on earth are you still single with ammunition like that up your sleeve?”
Hugo squinted at him. “You think that’s what I’d say?”
Abort. Abort. Abort. “Uh. I don’t … know?”
“Multitudes,” he said again as if that explained everything.
He glanced at Hugo, relieved he was ignoring Wallace’s awkwardness. “Is that a good thing?”
“I think so.”
Wallace picked at the peeling paint on the railing, barely realizing he was doing so. “I’ve never been very surprising to anyone before.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
And maybe it was because the stars were bright and stretched on forever across the sky. Or maybe it was because he’d never had a conversation like he’d just had with Hugo: honest, open. Real, all the bluster and noise of a manufactured life falling away. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he was finding the truth within himself. Whatever the reason, he didn’t try to stop himself when he said, “I wish I’d met someone like you before.”
Hugo was quiet for a long moment. Then, “Before?”
He shrugged, refusing to meet Hugo’s gaze. “Before I died. Things might have been different. We could have been friends.” It felt like a great secret, something quiet and devastating.
“We can be friends now. There’s nothing stopping us.”
“Aside from the whole dead thing, sure.”
He startled when Hugo stepped back from the railing, a determined look on his face. He watched as Hugo extended his hand toward him. He stared at it before looking up at Hugo. “What?”