Amina shakes her head. “Nothing.” Lili can’t entirely read her tone, but it’s warm, something affectionate and hidden in its texture. “No reason.” She stands, untangling herself from Lili. “Do you want to help me pack? Jackie will kill us if we miss the train, and I’m definitely going to blame it all on you.”
“Okay, this is us,” Jackie announces to Lili, pushing open the attic room door. “Sorry, Ami, but we’re calling dibs on the bedroom, you and James get the couch.”
“Actually, Jamie has decided he’s sleeping outside,” Amina announces, leaning against the doorframe. “He brought camping gear, wants to reconnect with nature.”
Lili laughs. “I don’t think a brand-new REI haul constitutes reconnecting with nature,” she comments, looking around the tiny room. Sloped ceiling, dormer windows, old bed heaped with quilts, a glass milk bottle filled with wildflowers: a little mismatched, a little rough around the edges, likely picked from the overgrown garden outside. The place is peaceful, pretty. “Jackie, this is really cute,” she says. “Like, genuinely.”
“It’s alright.” Jackie smiles, setting her bag down. “Needs a lot of work, but my parents are really excited about it.”
“Was that excitement on your dad’s face?” Amina asks. “I couldn’t tell when we picked up the keys back in the city. I was guessing more begrudging acceptance or pained tolerance?”
“No, you’re confusing that with reluctant acquiescence,” Lili corrects. “There’s this subtle difference in the depth of the scowl.”
“Ah, right. When he’s really enthused, there isn’t a scowl. Just sort of a tolerant coldness that makes you rethink every decision you’ve ever made—”
“Alright,” Jackie interrupts, trying not to laugh; it’s been a running joke since she’d broken down, belligerently drunk in freshman year, abouthow effusive and bubbly her psychiatrist mother is alongside her editor father’s terse silence, and whether divorce is always imminent or they’re incandescently happy. “He just tends towards stoicism, okay? He actually thinks you two are delightful, he told me himself.”
“Using sign language?” Amina asks.
“Hilarious. But no, they’ve never been happier together and are starting to think about, like, fresh country air and retiring, but would rather go straight to the grave than move to actual suburbia.”
Lili hides a smile, as she flicks open her email. Jackie’s family has lived in a gorgeous walk-up in the East Village since the eighties, rent stabilized with creaky floors and huge windows. Growing up, Jackie ate at Veselka more often than she ate at home. Going to Columbia for college counted as a cross-country move, in her family. They’d bought this tiny place outside of Cold Spring a few months ago, but hadn’t had time to fix it up yet. When the urban farm’s workshop intensive was scheduled upstate, near Saugerties, and Lili had started scouring Airbnb for affordable accommodation, Jackie had immediately offered it up:Do you have any idea how insanely expensive places get upstate in the summer? It’ll be fun, we’ll make a trip of it—you work, we’ll relax.
As her emails load—slow Wi-Fi, nearly nonexistent service; nothing urgent comes in, just workshop schedule reminders for tomorrow, a few emails from Kerr—Lili asks: “What’s the plan for today?” Outside, she hears the sound of birdsong, the rustle of overgrown grass.
“Shower, change, whatever you need, then let’s meet downstairs in thirty, yeah?” Jackie suggests. “We’ll head into town, we need groceries, and to stop by the hardware store.”
“More alcohol,” Amina asserts.
Jackie rolls her eyes. “I think we have plenty, but fine, more alcohol. There’s also a farm stand up the road, I want to grab fresh fruit.”
It’s gorgeous, a high summer weekend along the Hudson. The train from the city was packed, crowds descending on the tiny village, Cold Spring’s main street bustling all the way down to the water. Many more antique shops than necessary, too-expensive cars in the streets, signs of city folk with second houses.
Lili rarely leaves the city, this concentrated island of compacted intensity, this bright port that feels poised between continents with its simultaneously unnerving and comforting mix of placelessness. Compared to the open expanse of the West Coast, the ease of movement around the Pacific—that freshness of air and boundless stretch of the horizon, sharp snap of youth, sunshine and orange blossoms, easy smiles—the East Coast has always felt tangled, darker, heavier: a sense of perpetual fall, the amber glow of whiskey, gleam of leather-bound books, low laughter, shine of riding boots, generational references.
But there’s charm here, too, she supposes. A different type, all apples, milk pitchers, and crisp mornings, chipped paint, old trucks, the laden buzz of bees. Jackie’s parents bought the house cheap through a friend of a friend, old family property from elderly folks that recently passed. The acreage is mostly woods plus the worn-down farmhouse, with its groaning floorboards, too much chintz furniture, frankly ugly charcoal sketches of fox hunts—but it’s permeated with a great sense of affection, a place that was loved once.
“Jamie, what are you wearing?” Jackie asks when his car finally rolls up the drive.
“What?” James frowns down at his clothing—dress shirt, pressed trousers, Ferragamo monk strap loafers—holding an unopened bottle of vodka in each hand. “I just got off work, I drove straight here. What did you expect me to wear?”
“We’re doing manual labor,” Jackie says. “My parents actually need our help, we’re not getting a free vacation. We need to earn our keep!”
“Not tonight we’re not,” James says, popping the trunk of his Audi. “Tonight, we’re getting belligerent. Here, help me, I brought shit—”
They stay up late, cramming chaotically into the kitchen to cook dinner: Amina orders them around while doing absolutely nothing, until James takes over and shoos them out after Jackie accidentally drops the uncooked chicken on the floor. A mess of plates clutters the living room, kitchen table too small to hold everyone. They break into the stash of Laphroaig Jackie’s dad has hidden away, drinking it while Lili forces an uncharacteristically bashful Amina to listen as she reads out loud from the just-posted Artforum review of her recent group show: “‘—anexceptionallypromising young painter, with clear inspiration from Brown and Mitchell, but with emerging hints of figuration similar to Toor, a clear’—shut up, listen to me—‘aclearstandout among a show of middling talent’!” Cardgames, mixing Scotch and vodka, building a fire outside, the shine of stars, dark skies, deep-throated laughter, warm velvet air, white noise of cicadas and frogs. Around the bonfire, Lili leans her head against Amina’s shoulder, letting her eyes drift closed.
In the morning, she’s the first one awake. The intensive starts early, kicking off at half past eight and hosted by a partner farm of theirs, a major organic grower that supplies most high-end, produce-driven restaurants in the city; she’s excited to see their fields, the setup they have in their greenhouses, too. As Lili gets out of bed, Jackie steals the rest of the comforter, tugging it over her head and grumbling unintelligibly while Lili yanks on her Blundstones. Pulling on a sweater, she closes the door behind her with a quiet click.
There’s a chill in the early air, dew on the overgrown grass. From the porch, Lili has a clear view over the backyard: the remains of last night’s fire, Jamie’s abandoned tent. As she curls up in one of the wicker porch chairs, squirrels dart between the trees.
Taking a sip of hot coffee, Lili swipes open her phone. The coffee is bitter, more burnt tasting than she’s used to. She’d found a moka pot in one of the cupboards, old ground espresso in the pantry.
(6:32 a.m.) morning.
(6:32 a.m.) how are you?
Lili fidgets with her phone case after sending the text. She looks over the property, taking another sip of coffee; there’s a big overgrown garden plot. Tangled boughs of blueberries, perennial and persistent; aggressive trees of kale, left to seed over years; prehistoric rhubarb, dense; fibrous knots of rosemary, woodsy and incalcitrant. If she has time, she wants to try and tackle it today after work, as thanks to Jackie’s parents for the accommodation.
