Lili laughed, a quiet sound as the opening credits started.You want to watch this?
What’s wrong with this?
Reliving your youth in London?
I can assure you, I was not running a bookshop off Portobello Road in the nineties.
No, just sleeping with anything that moved in a mile radius of you.
Quiet, Lili,he’d said, gesturing at the screen. Against his side, she felt warm.You’ll miss important plot points.
It was a sweet film, easy to laugh with. She’d half-watched it during undergrad when she and Jackie both came down with the flu after finals.
Every so often, Lili glanced at her phone, tucked against her leg. She opened Jane’s text as a dinner scene played in the film. She sent a brief response:(9:09 p.m.) Thanks, hope all’s well.Looking at the photograph, she rested her head against Aleksandr’s chest, distant dialogue on-screen.
Like exposure, as she looked at it again: draining out the pain, trying to create room for the love of it.
Is that them?he’d asked.
Lili nodded.Yeah, she’d whispered.Yeah, it is.
Turning onto India Street now, Lili hears a familiar voice call her name.
“Li!” It’s Amina, hanging out the window. “The buzzer’s broken, I’ll throw you the keys—Jamie, babe, get out of the way—”
“Marwan, you better have fucking coffee,” James warns, as Amina angles around him. “There’s so much we need to fucking do for this party, I’m nauseous thinking about it.”
Lili laughs, catching the silver keys, metal gleaming in the morning sunlight.
“I’ve got you,” she says. “Don’t worry.”
“Left Daddy to fend for himself?” Amina asks, reaching for the Campari.
Lili laughs, glancing over at Aleksandr.
Across the party, he’s listening to her college roommate Varsha. His drink—whiskey that James frantically tracked down—is still half-full. He actually looks interested in the conversation. When Lili left her group of friends, sitting crowded on the battered leather couches by the windows, Varsha had been discussing the current state of Poland’s Ukrainian refugee crisis on the ground; she’d recently been on assignment in the region as a junior field producer, earning her stripes as a war correspondent. As Lili watches, Elijah—one of their old classmates—says something, cutting off Varsha. Irritation skates over her face; Aleksandr pointedly directs a question to her again.
The party is packed. It’s a gorgeous old industrial loft, Amina’s painting studio, and the ideal spot for big parties. The exposed brick walls are washed white; huge windows look over Greenpoint, towards the city;greenery is everywhere, monstera, ferns, the towering fiddle-leaf fig tree in the corner, stick of incense crumpled in its dirt. The place is usually full of Amina’s massive, half-finished canvases. They’re tucked away now, carefully settled in the storage room.
They’d spent most of the day prepping for the party.Ami, fuck no, I’m not mopping the floors before we have a hundred people over,Jackie had protested. Now, the huge place is packed, hot and dark: all their old Columbia friends mixed in with Amina’s art crowd, the staff from Hassan’s current restaurant, what looks like Jamie’s entire college crew team and classmates from his Dalton days, a bunch of Jackie’s fellow survivors from when she used to serve at Spring Place. The open kitchen is stocked, sinks full of ice and beer, one of their line-cook friends playing bartender, already half-drunk; too-loud music thrums through the floor, heavy bass from the speakers rumbling under Lili’s feet, an inexplicable mix of pounding reggaeton and trap. Shrieks of welcome as more people arrive, bringing with them the pungent drift of weed, dancing getting out of hand, sticky floor underfoot; people rubbing their noses as they come out of the bathroom; cracked iPhone screens, flash of cameras; shouted conversations. Lili knows most everyone, exchanging bright smiles of recognition as she’d followed Amina towards the makeshift bar.
Aleksandr couldn’t be more out of place, but there’s something in how he inhabits space here. Anywhere, really: tall, authoritative, clearly different—black linen shirt still too refined, even with the sleeves rolled up, shoes still too fucking expensive. She’d rolled her eyes when she ran downstairs to let him up when he’d arrived.Really?she’d said, trying not to seem too appreciative. He’d laughed, drawing her closer to kiss her.Nice to see you too, Lili.
He doesn’t blend in, but he’s at ease. Unaffected by how he stands out: expecting it, relaxed with the attention.
And the sense, too, of how he’s fitting into her life: different, but somehow—somehow—congruent. Math that is surprising yet coherent. It’s remarkably easy—watching him with her friends, feeling fine leaving them together while she gets drinks, not concerned about whatever conversation might elapse in her absence. Already looking forward to going home with him.
Lili looks away, unscrewing a bottle of vermouth.
“I think he can take care of himself,” she says to Amina, eyeballing a glug into her Solo cup.
“I’m astounded we finally got to meet him.”
“You’ve met him,” Lili counters. “That time at the bar.”
Beside them, Jackie snorts, squeezing lime into her gin and tonic. “Right,” she says. “Across a crowded FiDi bar, before he took you home.”
“It would’ve been nice to see him on your birthday, too, but I guess you did a house call, that time?” Amina muses.
