“Is there Andrea?” Vilmari cocked her head and grinned.
“We kissed,” she yelled from the bathroom.
“Nice.”
“Twice.” Lora sat in front of the camera again, blowing her nose. “And he’s been so sweet to me!”
“Even better.”
“You’re not excited!”
“Because I am waiting for the part where you tell me that it’s a bad idea, that it’s only temporary, that you don’t have time…” Vilmari trailed off.
“Well, all of that is true,” said Lora as her phone chimed.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Vilmari grinned.
“How do you know?” asked Lora. She looked down, flinched. Damn her, she was right.
“Because it’s not me,” Vilmari said, brushing her hair back behind her shoulder with a flourish.
“And you’re the only person who texts me?”
“Not anymore,” Vilmari said, taking a long sip of coffee out of her mug that said,KEEP CALM AND MANDALOS PAL’ CARAJO.
Lora glanced down to see the message.
Andrea:
Keys are ready when you are
Hope u slept well:)
“Am I wrong?” asked Vilmari.
“Are you ever?” said Lora, laughing.
In her entire life, Lora had only ever lived in two homes. Andrea’s house would be the third. She kept trying to remind herself that it was only temporary. Since she had planned on having time to get back to New York before the postdoc started, the little Bushwick apartment with the pink and black subway tile in the bathroom was still her real home. She walked into the kitchen, smelling the new paint, and part of her wished her mom could see it. She only hoped that Pamela would overlook her need for Ivo. Pamela used to say that he was good with the horses because his mind worked the same way theirs did. In all honesty, Lora thought that it sounded a bit cliché—the wild stallion of a man who could not be tamed and therefore was never going to change his life to go play family. Maybe that wasn’t even it. Maybe Pam and Ivo weren’t right for each other and that was that. It didn’t have to be dramatic. In fact, she’d assumed that it was not. It was simply the case of a father who was not going to be a dad, end of story. But she’d never imagined there would be a footnote.
“What do you think? Do you like the backsplash? I think it came out great,” Andrea said, setting her suitcase down in the entryway.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, running her hands over the green tile. “I can’t believe it all came together this fast.” She looked around the open space of the first floor. There was no real living room furniture, but there was a wood table and a few mismatched chairs by the kitchen. Aside from dishes, a few pots and a moka had appeared inside the cabinets. A stack of brand-new tea towels sat on the counter next to the sink.
“Those were extras from my place,” he said. “You have to come up and see the bathroom. I know it might be inconvenient to have the only bathroom on the second floor, but at least you won’t have to go too far in the middle of the night.”
“Actually, I’ve only ever lived on one floor, so it would definitely be much weirder to have to find the stairs in the dark,” she said, following him up the stairs. The bathroom was bigger than her whole apartment back home, with a tile floor, glass-wall shower, toilet, and bidet. There was a double vanity sink on the longest wall with brass fixtures and a deep ledge built out from the window that was just begging for an upholstered cushion. Would she curl up in the bathroom to read by the window? Certainly not in New York—but in Italy? Her mind drifted to other uses for a bathroom window seat. Maybe a pet would perch there. Maybe it could be a great spot for plants. Maybe Andrea would lean against it while watching her take a shower and then eventually take his clothes off so that he could—“Wow!” she exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. “It’s really more than I imagined!”
“I could have gone with the smaller vanity with one sink, but I would eventually want it to have two, so I went with the bigger option.”
“It’s perfect.”
“It’s functional,” he said, heading back out to the hallway. “You have a bed now. Nico brought the mattress over this morning.”
“It’s new,” she said, eyeing the plastic cover.
“Yes and no,” he said, pulling at the plastic to tear it off. “It was supposed to be for the guest bedroom at my parents’ house on the ground floor. But when my mom broke herhip, they decided to move their bedroom downstairs, and no one ever got around to setting up a guest room, so it sat there.”
“And they donated to my cause?” She laughed. “I’d like to thank them.”
