“Especiallylocalfriends,” I remind her.
“So move away,” she says. “You’ve been talking about it for years.Thenvisit the ’burgh and jump his bones.”
To Lauren, this is a simple problem with a simple solution. To me, it is anything but.
She doesn’t know I see it differently. I haven’t admitted to Lauren how much Alex means to me, because I can barely manage to admit it myself. Lauren doesn’t know, because I haven’t told her, that I love Alex, that I love him so much that loving him as anything other than my friend will be the last thing I do. Because loving him as anything other than my best friend would mean loving him in a way that could end badly. And I will never risk that.
“It’s not that easy,” I tell Lauren, a sliver of the truth. “I can’t just move away. I’m still working on getting full ownership of Argos.”
“Oh my god, Thea, just take the dog from your shitty ex-husband—hell,I’llcome steal him for you—so you can get out of there already.”
“I’m not positive I’m going to leave. I’m… still weighing my options, here. Professionally, that is.”
Lauren’s quiet for a beat, then says, “You think you want to go for it, submit the co-ownership proposal for The Bookshop?”
“Yes. And no.”
“Those would be conflicting answers.”
“That’s because I’m feeling conflicted.”
“About what?” she asks.
I glance over my shoulder at The Bookshop, the dark charcoal-painted brick façade burnished bronze by the sunset. The thriving glossy green ferns I planted out front, in honor of my boss, Fern, that made her smile in a way I’d never seen before. And then I turn, facing ahead, toward Alex’s house. My heart twinges.
I used to be so sure, after the divorce, that I wanted out of Pittsburgh, the city my ex had dragged me to. Two messy, healing years later, I find myself pinned between a rock and a hard place of loving my life here so much that I can’t stand the thought of leaving it, and dreading all the ways I could get hurt if I stayed.
“Thea?” Lauren says. “What aren’t you saying?”
“Compromise,” I tell her.
Lauren groans, then audibly gulps her margarita. “I’m listening.”
“You talk about the reason you wanted me to call, everything that’s making you miserable at work, and stop acting like a protective older sister who never lets herself have any problems—”
“You sound like my therapist,” Lauren mutters.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I tell her.
“Andyourpart of this compromise?” she says.
“Tell me what’s going on with you, and I’ll tell you… some of what I’m weighing—”
“Onlysome?” she yells.
“And,” I add, “my plan to get Argos.”
Lauren’s silent for a beat, deliberating. “You really, truly,actuallyhave a plan to get the dog for good?”
I hike the stack of children’s books higher in my arm and tell her, “I do. And I think it’s going to work.”
“Does it involve Ethan’s prolonged physical suffering?”
“Not likely, but definitely acute humiliation.”
“Fine,” she sighs, “but I want to switch to FaceTime first. I want toseethe sinister, scheming glint in your eye when you tell me your fiendish plan.”
“Fine,” I say back, “but if I trip on the sidewalk and eat pavement because I’m looking at my phone instead of what’s in front of me, you have to jump on the next plane from…” I have no idea where she is right now, just that she isn’t where she was the last time we talked. “Not-Chicago?”
