Page 8 of One Last Summer
“I just don’t get what’s so bad about taking a break.” Lydia rarely let things get to her, but tonight her frustration with me was palpable.
I didn’t have words sharp enough to describe the sinking feeling that plagued my stomach at night, when it was just me and my thoughts, curled up together in bed. Work was my only distraction, and the thought of being without it to focus on was terrifying. Voicing those fears aloud was even worse.
“I just like being busy,” I said instead, and was met with an exasperated sigh as we rounded the corner to my apartment building.
“Oooh,” she admired, gazing up at the sleek, black facade, an endless wall of windows. “I can’t believe I still haven’t seen this place.”
“Don’t get too excited,” I said dryly, waving my fob in front of the keypad. “It’s more like a dorm for finance and biotech bros.”
I’d chosen this apartment without much thought, and I’d signed the lease while functioning with a post–breakup brain that was operating in survival mode. It was reasonably priced, close enough to work, and had a dishwasher. Worked for me.
Lydia laughed as the glass door swung open, welcoming us into the sterile lobby, with its pristine marble floors and bright neon lighting. “Shit, I see what you mean.”
“Right?” I said as she followed me over to the mailroom, where I unlocked my tiny silver box and pulled out a stack of what was surely junk mail.
“Dentist office waiting room chic,” she said, analyzing the large, ornate topiary in the corner. “But, like, a fancy dentist.”
It was an accurate assessment. This place had the personality of dried dog poop, but it had been easy—elevator building, gym on the top floor, and the apartment came partially furnished. All I’d had to do was move in. But enough time had passed that it felt like it should feel like home. And this was, well, not that.
The elevator chugged its way up to the twenty-fourth floor, and when I finally cracked open the door to my studio, she let out a cautious, “Okay.”
I tossed the mail onto the pile that had already taken shape on the tiny kitchen table and watched as she made her way around the room, stopping to pause in front of the windowsill.
“You murdered Richard!” She gasped, pinched the drooping, yellowed leaf of my snake plant—her holiday gift to me this past year—between two fingers, examining it with a grimace. “I have to hand it to you, Clara. This is, like, the hardest houseplant to kill, and yet somehow, you’ve done it.”
“Please don’t use that plant to make some sort of metaphor for the state of my life right now,” I warned, plopping my drink down on the table and scooting onto a chair.
“That plant had a name, Clara,” she corrected. “And I don’t need to say anything when Richard says it all, don’t you think? Farewell, sweet angel.”
I raised my margarita somberly. “May he rest in peace.”
She turned and walked toward me with a devious grin. “But seriously, you need to inject some sign of life into this place.”
“It’s basically just corporate housing,” I said quickly. I still mourned the loss of the South End apartment I’d shared with Charles, with its giant bay window that practically sucked in the sunshine, and the sliver of garden in the back that overflowed with lilacs each spring. It had felt like a living, breathing thing. This place felt like a funeral home.
At first it had seemed too permanent to decorate my new apartment, and I’d assumed I wouldn’t be here more than a couple of months. But two months turned into four, and then six. I pondered putting some art up on the walls, but every choice left me frozen with indecision. What did I—me, Clara, all on my own—even like? I had no clue. And so I did nothing.
Well, not absolutely nothing. I did kill Richard.
“Yeah, but you’re not corporate housing,” Lydia crowed, hands on hips. “You are better than this beige carpet and”—she wandered over to my fridge and let out a huff—“one pet adoption flier from six months ago.”
“I was thinking about getting a dog,” I explained with a shrug. “There’s no way, though. I’m too busy. I took it off my list.”
“Get the dog!” she said, her voice landing somewhere between amused and exasperated. “Slap some art on these walls! Stain this carpet!”
She jokingly tilted her cup, which was half full of strawberry margarita, toward the floor, and I yelped.
“Don’t! I want to get my deposit back.”
“I wouldn’t actually do it,” she said as she yanked out the chair across from me and sat down with a huff. “But can I be real with you?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“You’re an amazing boss. I know you’d go to bat for me, the same way you always show up for everyone at work. For Amaya. The same way I know you showed up for Charles too. But you need to start showing up for yourself.”
“You sound like one of those posters with the cat hanging from a tree branch,” I said, reaching forward and sliding the stack of mail toward me.
“I have no idea what that is,” she said.
