Page 21 of We Are Okay

“Anything,” she says. “Everything here is so nice.”

We look at some things together and then I make another round and Mabel drifts back to the bells. I see her check the price of one of them. Ana and Javier keep flowers in every room of their house, so I take a closer look at a corner of vases.

“How’s this?” I ask her, holding up a round one. It’s a dusty-pink color, subtle enough that it would work in their brightest rooms.

“Perfect,” she says. “They’ll love it.”

I choose a gift for myself, too: a pot for my peperomia, in the same color as Ana and Javier’s vase. I’ve kept my little plant in its plastic pot for too long, and this will look so much prettier.

The potter is sitting at the counter now, making notes on a piece of paper, and when I take the vase up to her I’m seized with the wish to stay. I hand her my ATM card when she gives me the total, and then I work up the courage to ask.

“I was wondering,” I say as she wraps the first bowl up in tissue paper. “By any chance, are you hiring?”

“Oh,” she says. “I wish! But it’s just me. It’s a tiny operation.”

“Okay,” I say, trying not to sound too disappointed. “I just really love your shop so I thought I’d ask.”

She pauses her wrapping. “Thank you.” She smiles at me. Soon she’s handing me the bag with the wrapped-up vase and dishes, and Mabel and I head back onto the snowy street.

We hurry past a pet store and a post office and into the café, both of us shivering. Only one table is occupied and the waitress looks surprised to see us. She takes a couple menus from a stack.

“We’re closing up early because of the storm,” she says. “But we can get you fed before then if you can make it quick.”

“Sure,” I say.

“Yeah,” Mabel says. “That’s fine.”

“Can I get you started with some coffee or orange juice?”

“Cappuccino?” I ask.

She nods.

“Same for me,” Mabel says. “And I’ll just have a short stack of pancakes.”

I scan the menu. “Eggs Benedict, please.”

“Thank you, ladies,” she says. “And just, excuse my reach for a second...”

She leans over our table and turns the sign in the window so that it saysCLOSEDon the outside. But on our side, perfectly positioned between Mabel’s place and mine, it saysOPEN. If this were a short story, it would mean something.

The waitress leaves and we turn back to the window. The snow is falling differently; there’s more of it in the sky.

“I can’t believe you live in a place this cold.”

“I know.”

We watch in silence. Soon, our coffees arrive.

“It’s so pretty, though,” I say. “Isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It is.”

She reaches for the dish of sugar packets, takes out a pink one, a white one, a blue. She lines them up, then reaches for more. I don’t know what to make of her nervous hands and faraway expression. Her mouth is a tight line. At another point in my life, I would have leaned across the table and kissed her. At a point further back, I would have sabotaged her, scattered the packets across the table. If I were to go all the way to when we first knew each other, I would have built a careful pattern of my own and both of ours would have expanded until they met in the middle.

“Can we return to the reason I came here?” Mabel asks.

My body tenses. I wonder if she can see it.