The long melody of the doorbell buys me a little bit of time,but it’s not enough for me to decide exactly how I’m going to play this. Maybe I should’ve thought this through earlier, but I was too happily distracted by the easy pace of texting that Ellie and I had fallen into, exchanging jokes and light teasing and flirty little comments that made me feel like I was floating an inch above the floor. Before I can explain any further, there’s a knock at the door, the quintessential fallback for an unanswered doorbell.
“Have they had dinner?” Mom asks the back of my head as I hurry toward the door. Points to her for the neutral pronoun. Maybe she’s woke or maybe she’s giving me the benefit of the doubt on the gender of tonight’s guest. I had male friends in high school. Not many, but a few.
“I’ll ask,” I call over my shoulder, then unlock the door.
Outside, Ellie is dressed just the same as she was at Sip this afternoon, plus a few familiar layers for warmth. In her camel-colored coat and heather gray Carhartt beanie, she looks a lot like she did the first time she came over, only much more sober. Her hands are a worrying shade of blue, though—the color of a ripe vein. The cold sure has set in early this year.
“Hey.” Ellie twirls her keyring around one blue-painted pointer finger, and when she steps inside, I stop short of kissing her. Our halfhearted side hug is deeply unsatisfying, but also deeply parent friendly. Just like last time, Ellie steps out of her Doc Martens and pairs them neatly by the door, revealing a pair of those fuzzy socks that grandmas and great-aunts always get you for Christmas, the same kind Kara was wearing when I swung by after the reopening. Like mother, like daughter.
“My parents are here.” I tilt my head back toward the kitchen.“If you don’t mind saying hi. And there’s plenty of Thai food, if you want some.”
“Of course.” She slips off her coat, draping it over one arm. “I’m not super hungry, but thanks. If you have tea or something, that’d be good.”
She follows close behind me into the kitchen, where Mom and Dad are openly demonstrating the horrible acting genes they passed on to me. They’ve very loudly and obviously picked up in the middle of a forced conversation, playing the role of “definitely not eavesdroppers.”
“Mom, Dad, this is Ellie. Ellie, this is my mom and dad.” I box up my leftover curry and stow it in the fridge, exchanging it for a can of lime LaCroix. “We’re just going to study up in my room, if that’s okay.”
“You have a lovely home,” Ellie says, and I realize she’s slipped back into actor mode, pretending this is her first time standing in this ready-to-sell kitchen. Toherparents, we’re a couple; to mine, near strangers. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
“Nice to meet you, Ellie. Murph, remember, showings start tomorrow.” Mom tries to cover her nerves with an extra dose of excitement in her voice. “I’m not sure if Murphy mentioned that we’re selling the place.”
Ellie nods, jutting a thumb back toward the door. “I saw thefor salesign in the yard but…”
“It’s fine, Mom,” I interrupt. “We’re just studying, not finger painting.”
I pull one of a dozen identical light-pink mugs from the cabinet, fill it with water, and pop it into the microwave, prepping Ellie’s tea. Maybe it’d be classier to get the teapot out, but I don’tsee a need to spend more time in the kitchen than we absolutely have to. We can discuss the whole moving fiasco upstairs, I guess. I can’t wait until I don’t have any more urgent, dramatic news to fill anyone in on.
In the drawer beside the coffee maker, I find a small collection of tea bags organized alphabetically. “Caffeinated or decaf?”
“Decaf,” Ellie says. “But I don’t care what kind. Thanks.”
“So you’re in Murphy’s accounting class? Or no?” Mom asks, propping her chin in her hand with feigned curiosity. She already knows she’s not in my class. She’s just digging for dirt.
“No, but my mom…” Ellie’s eyes widen and dart toward me.
“Her mom is my professor,” I explain. No more lying, if I can avoid it. Only exclusion of specific details from here on out.
“Oh?” Dad sets his fork down with a clatter, suddenly intrigued. “So you’ve got the inside scoop, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Ellie admits, adjusting her septum ring. “I’m just trying to help.”
When the microwave beeps, I take out the mug, tear open the little paper packet housing the tea bag, and drop a pouch of lemon ginger tea into the steam. I set it on the counter next to Ellie’s hands, which are slowly returning to a normal color. “We’ll be upstairs studying if you need us.”
With beverages of choice in hand, I tip my head toward the stairs, urging Ellie to follow.
“Nice to meet you both,” Ellie says, waving to my parents with a tiny wiggle of her fingers.
“You too,” Mom says with a genuine smile, then turns to me with that same smile, plus a hint of warning in her eyes. “Don’t mess up the staging, please.”
I lead Ellie up the stairs and to my room, which doesn’t look much like mine anymore. Chess pushed my bed to the opposite wall and dressed it up in an ultrabright white comforter quilted with small olive-colored pom-poms. An old teddy bear from the depths of my closet sits in the center of the bed, cozied between two slate and pale-green throw pillows. I move one of the pillow tassels out of Teddy’s face. I wouldn’t want to block his view of Ellie, who is trailing her fingers along my desk. It’s one of the few elements of the room that still truly feels like mine, and a shudder rolls through me just watching Ellie’s fingers trace the width of it. “This is so bizarre,” Ellie murmurs, barely choking back her judgment. She lingers on the faux-watercolor print above the bed. It’s a baby elephant spraying water into the air from its trunk. Adorable, but hardly my style. “Are you sure this is the same room I saw the other day?”
“They had it staged for showings,” I explain.
“Right.” She nods slowly. “And since when are you moving?”
“Since my parents came back from Florida with a new condo and a mission to complicate my life.”
Her brows knit together. “You’re moving to Florida?”
