Page 24 of Meet Me in the Garden

Lionel gives him a mock-solemn nod and raises his bottle. “I’ll toast to that.”

“You can take the train all the way there, the Great Northern line,” Ginny says. “It stops right at the mouth of the park. Hotel employees get a discount for friends and family.”

“I don’t really get the point of travel,” Lionel says.

“It’s the best way to learn about yourself,” Mare says.

“That’s what I’m saying. I know myself plenty already.”

“Travel’s a disruptor, though,” Mare says. “You think you know something and then you learn you don’t know anything.”

“How about you, Odette?” Ginny asks. “Any interest in visiting Montana?”

“I’d never thought about it before. But why not?”

Ginny smiles.

The conversation turns to someone I don’t know; he was here earlier but left to go home to his new wife. “How long,” Lionel asks, “before a baby’s on the way and they trade it all for domesticity?”

“Maybe three months,” Ginny says. “Do you ever imagine it? A wife and a couple kids and a nice little house?”

“No,” Lionel says flatly.

Ginny laughs. “No consideration needed.”

“Don’t tell meyoudo?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “If I picture my life in five or ten years, I can see settling down with someone.”

“My cousin Delphine and I used to do that,” I say. “Dream about the future, tell each other what we saw.”

Mare clears her throat: “‘We dream. It is good we are dreaming. It would hurt us, were we awake.’” She pauses. “Emily Dickinson.”

“Mare’s a poet,” Ginny tells me.

“What’s your poetry like?” I ask.

“Romantic,” the boy next to me says. “Too many love poems.”

“I’ll admit it. In fact, I’m currently on the lookout for a new muse.” Mare sets her chin on her hand, angling toward me. I blush and everyone laughs.

“Uh-uh,” Lionel says. “I promised her sisters I’d take care of her. No flirting allowed.”

“Hard to resist,” Mare says.

“Here, this’ll help.” Lionel scoots to the edge of the sofa and puts his hand over Mare’s eyes. Another rise of laughter, and I’m in on it, one of them.

“I need a little air,” Ginny says a few minutes later, watching me.

“I’ll join you.” I’m lightheaded, rising from the sofa. Ginny leads me outside and down the main apartment steps and around to the edge of a lawn. She leans her shoulder against the building.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Two years.”

“Just you and Mare?” She nods. “And you’re…?”

“Friends,” she says.