Page 9 of All Our Almosts

“You wouldn’t,” she hisses. “Nolan, the woman is 91, she doesn’t need to see fiber art nipples. Let her live her final days in peace.”

“Would you rather I tell her about the Ragu in your fridge?”

“Are you trying to kill the woman!?”

When the Mercado siblings start bickering, it’s best to let it die a natural death. So I leave them to their devices and turn towards Andy, whispering, “When I’m 91, I’m confident I’ll still want to see fiber art nipples.”

“I’ll inform your descendants,” he replies seriously, and I feel a rush of gratitude for him that’s completely disproportionate to the situation. I’m grateful for the room he’s giving me in his apartment, of course. But somehow I’m even more grateful for his company on this couch during this unremarkable conversation.

I know that doesn’t make sense. I’ve had a hard day—cut me some slack.

The night goes on much the same. Nolan serves a delicious homemade lasagna, which we eat while chattering about nothing across the kitchen table.

“I’ve never had lasagna with peas in it before,” Andy says, “but it’s really good.”

“That’s the Sicilian way,” Lia explains.

Nolan doubles down, declaring, “It’s the only real lasagna.” But he’s such a goon with his little posh act that when he takes a sip of his wine I reach out and squeeze his cheeks. Red liquid spurts from his mouth all across the table, covering the lasagna we’re still eating, and everyone groans and laughs and I think maybe this is why they keep me around—a spot of levity every now and then.

But I’m also not a total jerk, so I get up to grab paper towels for the mess I made. And people still serve themselves more lasagna, because we all have each other’s germs already, so it’s fine.

Once we’ve eaten our fill, Andy pours us each a second glass while I load the dishwasher. (I live here now, remember! I’m a hostess!)

“I’ve decided I’m definitely going to get tattoos,” Lia is explaining as Andy fills her glass. “I just keep changing my mind about what and where. But I definitely want—”

“That makes no sense,” Nolan cuts in. “How do you know you want them but don’t know what you’d even want?”

“Did you guys know I have a tattoo?” Andy asks, and all three of our heads jerk up. I’m about to go into full-blown psychosis because I didn’t know my best friend has a tattoo, when he shakes his head and says, “You all are too easy.”

I slap his arm, but he’s smiling with two dimples so how can I be mad?

Oh, I haven’t told you about the smiles!

Here’s the thing: Remember how I’m a professional Andy interpreter? A big part of that is in his smiles.

His default smile would not even be considered a smile for most people. It’s a twitch of the lips. Nigh on imperceptible, unless you have my years of grueling fieldwork.

Then he has his polite smile. This is the only one I don’t care for, because it’s usually fake. I met his brother Owen last year, and the poor guy got only polite smiles from Andy all night (and it was Owen’s birthday too—yikes).

Then there’s the one-dimple and two-dimple smiles. Physically self-explanatory, those, but let me describe them to you anyway:

The one-dimple smile I gladly accept with open arms. It’s a genuine show of Andy’s happiness, and is worth its weight in gold. Likely to be seen when someone tells a joke that’s actually funny, a person he likes walks in a room, he completes his 95th marathon with a personal best, etc. (I’m pretty sure he hasn’t actually run 95 marathons, but basically.)

But the two-dimple smile… that’s my kryptonite. The two-dimple smile shows up when Andy forgets himself and is just purely, unabashedly happy. It’s hard to put into words unless you know him. Like… you know when dogs wag their tails with excitement and it just melts your heart because they have pure souls, and you want to do everything in your power to ensure nothing bad ever happens to them? It’s like that. It’s a glimpse into the pure part of his soul that’s never been hurt or let down. And I love it so, so much.

Not like… love love. I’m not in love with him. But I definitely love him like a best friend, because that’s what he is. My best friend in the world.

(Don’t tell Lia I said that.)

4

I’m not a morning person.

My alarm sounds at 7:30 on Monday morning, then 7:39, then 7:48. Eventually I force my eyes open with a groan, and that’s when I remember I’m not in my apartment. I don’t have an apartment anymore. Instead I’m in Andy’s spare room, with its cream-colored walls and three sensible office plants. I don’t know what kinds of plants they are, but they look fairly robust. I hope I don’t kill them while I’m here.

Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I approach the mirror above the dresser—and can we talk about how Andy is so meticulously prepared for any scenario that he has a spare dresser with a spare mirror in his spare bedroom? Who does that? I mean I’m sure he got it all for free off the street on Allston Christmas, but still.

(We don’t have time to get into Allston Christmas right now, but if you’re not from Boston just picture a day where the entire city dumps their old furniture out on the sidewalk for grabs.)