Winter rains came early to Portland. The city had expected another month of crisp leaves and Saturday markets full of heirloom squash. Now rain hit the windows of Hellenic Hardware, spattering the entryway as a group of bedraggled customers hurried in.
“Can I help you?” Merritt asked without looking up or listening for their answer.
Through the old glass she could see the shape of Lei-Ling’s dumpling truck. It was the only spot of color on the street. Strains of Chinese pop music tinkled from a speaker. Nothing about Super Junior-M and Jay Chou said buy more vintage hardware, but she didn’t care. Lei-Ling had even shown her a video by Acrush, a Chinese boy band comprised of cross-dressing girls. They were cute, but they were in China, and Avery was in Los Angeles, getting married to Alistair King in a few weeks. And Merritt was here, in her uncle’s shop, hawking fixtures. She took another brass light switch cover from the pile at her elbow and dipped it in mineral oil.
The door flew open, and Iliana and Lei-Ling rushed in, bringing a wave of rain with them.
“The wind!” Iliana held her coat over Lei-Ling’s head.
“The rain!” Lei-Ling exclaimed.
They looked flushed and happy. The rain was an excuse for hot chocolate and impromptu fires in the barrel behind Happy Golden Fortune.
Lei-Ling looked at Merritt. “Oh, you’re so sad!” She raced to Merritt and folded her arms on the counter, resting her head on her arms and looking up at Merritt. “I want you to be happy. Can I make you a dumpling? I’ll put anything in it you want. Name your five favorite foods. It can be anything.”
“I’m not sad,” Merritt said.
“Starburst?” Lei-Ling suggested helpfully. “Bacon!”
“I’m fine.”
“But you aren’t,” Lei-Ling said.
Of course Lei-Ling was right. Merritt had said goodbye to Avery and walked all the way down to the river. She had stared at the water. It had sparkled in the late-summer sunlight, but it wasn’t sparkling anymore. If you were not in love, winter in Portland was a long, dismal slog. And Merritt wasn’t in love, she told herself. She didn’t even miss Avery.
“Happy? Happy? Happy?” Lei-Ling said, as though Merritt had just forgotten the word.
“Merritt is depressed,” Iliana said, “because she’s made bad life choices.”
“I have not made bad life choices.”
“Why haven’t you moved into the Elysium?” Iliana asked.
“You said living in my uncle’s old apartment was morbid.”
“You’re living in your uncle’s retrofitted office,” Iliana said. “You have a beautiful, three-bedroom apartment.”
“I’m working on the…” She could not think what she was working on. The apartment was special. Avery had made sure of that.
Merritt was saved by a group of customers. Another group rang the bell outside Lei-Ling’s dumpling truck. Lei-Ling hurried outside to provide dumpling happiness for those still able to find cheer in carbohydrates. Once the customers had spread throughout the shop and Lei-Ling was busy at her steamers, Iliana pulled up a stool next to Merritt.
“You want to go over to the dojo? Practice a little?”
“No,” Merritt said. “Thanks.”
“Discipline is good for you. It’s good for everyone.”
“I am disciplined.”
“Would you please just call her and get it over with?” Iliana said. “Nobody can stand you.”
“Who has to stand me? Go hang some chandeliers if you can’t stand me.”
“I’m serious. You’ve been moping around since you told her to get out of your life.”
“I didn’t tell her to get out of my life. You make it sound so bad.”
“I don’t make it sound anything. I can’t even take you to the Mirage. You’re miserable. I’m sure she’s miserable. Just suck it up. You’re not going to be any less happy if you call her.”
Merritt knew from experience that that was not true. Being alone was like the brisk, cold days of autumn. Button up your coat and hold your head up, and it was not that bad. Nothing was worse than the empty ring of an unanswered call or the awkward question on the other end. She remembered her mother picking up. Why are you calling, Merritt?
Because it’s my birthday.
Because it’s Christmas.
Because I’m ten and I’m lonely.
“You know, you think your problems are so bad,” Iliana went on. “I get that. They feel bad. But look at me and Lei-Ling. It’s not always easy. We’re not happy every single minute of the day. When we first met she—”
“I called her!” Merritt shot back. “Okay? I called her.”
“You called her?” Iliana looked surprised.
“Of course I called her.” Merritt slumped over the counter, her chin in her hands. “I’m not a total idiot.”
She had been disciplined for a week. For a week, she had considered deleting Avery’s phone number. But a week after Avery left, Merritt had taken out her phone. If a dour, almost-forty-year-old Russian-American aikido sensei could find love with the world’s most optimistic dumpling waitress, Merritt thought, why couldn’t she hope that there was someone in the world who wouldn’t leave her? Why not me? After all, it was she who had sent Avery away, she who had said never, she who had somehow let her mother and the Astral Reveler and all the girls who had dumped her stand in the way of the woman she loved.
Merritt had called, giddy with the prospect of telling Avery she would make the sacrifice. She would be in the closet. She would pretend to be Avery’s trainer. She would go to Taha’a with Avery (and Alistair as cover for their affair). It would be seductively clandestine. She had thrilled with the thought. Avery’s kisses would replace the dull ache in her body. Avery’s tenderness would make up for everything. Merritt would devour her and worship her and, at some point, they would tumble into laughter and Merritt would feel like she was sixteen again.
Avery’s voice mail had answered, You guys are too much! I’ve been getting so many congratulations about the engagement, I’ve routed my calls to my agent for now, but don’t worry. You’re still my BFFFFFF. Leave a message. It didn’t even sound like Avery. Merritt had left a coy message and then another. Then a week had gone by and then a month.
“When did you call her?”
“After she left.”
“That was weeks ago.” Iliana looked confused. The new Iliana believed in love conquering all, and this wasn’t part of the script.
“She never called back.”
“What? She’s crazy. She loves you.”
“Yeah, and my mom loved me until I was five. Then she met someone better.”
“Your parents were yacht rats who sent you off to boarding school because they didn’t have souls. Avery’s not like that. Call her again. I know this is all going to work out. You’re a pessimist. You always expect the worst. Lei-Ling is right. You’ve got crows on power lines sitting in your heart, but”—Iliana put a hand on Merritt’s shoulder—“one day those crows are going to open their wings and fly.”
“Oh, good Lord!” Merritt said. “I’m going to go hang chandeliers. You can’t stand me? They’re going to fly away,” she muttered as she stomped off. “Wind beneath my fucking wings.”
That was the new Iliana, and her old friend showed no signs of coming back. Merritt hurried to the top of one of the ladders in the Land of Lamps and hid her face in the vintage crystal so Iliana would not see her fighting back tears.
* * *
That evening after Iliana and Lei-Ling had left, Merritt wandered the aisles of Hellenic Hardware until she came to the antique birdcage that contained the lover’s locket. NOT FOR SALE, the card read. She opened the door in the wire-framed dome and took out the locket. She smoothed her thumb over the surface, then tucked it in her pocket, rubbing it like a worry stone. She resumed her pacing. Finally, she stopped by the fountain. The water splashed, and Helen of Troy’s vacant eyes stared at her.
“Uncle Oli?” she said to the sound of the fountain and the HVAC. “Uncle Oli, are you there? What do I do?”
Above Merritt’s head and on every window frame, trellis, and chandelier, the little cardboard price tags fluttered in a faint breeze. That was all it was. Not spirits. Not the past.
“Uncle Oli, I’m so sad.” She opened the locket and stared at the women’s faces. They gazed at each other in profile, one innocent, one stern. “She’ll always choose Alistair.”
She could just imagine how she looked. Staring at someone else’s locket. Talking to her dead uncle, who surely had better things to do in heaven. She would have been pitiable at eighteen. It was downright pathetic at thirty-three. She might as well have put on the Amazon music playlist Top 50 Most Miserable Songs Ever.
It couldn’t get worse.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and touched Avery’s name. The call went straight to voice mail.
“You’re still my BFFFFFF. Leave a message.”
What the hell are the extra Fs for?
She stood up. That was it. She was sick of sleeping in the office apartment. She was sick of feeling sad. She was sick of Iliana telling her to call Avery like it was that simple. Most of all she was sick of the sinking feeling that it was all her fault. Avery had begged for her love, and she had turned her away. She had kissed Avery for the last time without even realizing it was the last. Merritt had been so wrapped up in her own hurt she had done to Avery what every single person in her life had done to her.
“She would never have stayed with me,” she said out loud.
The price tags fluttered.
She raised her voice. “She would have strung me along, and then she would have left. Damn you, Avery,” she said to the dark skylights. She pulled the locket out of her pocket. “We’re not like this. We were never going to be forever.”
Had it been true? Merritt had made it true.
* * *
She didn’t remember the drive to the Elysium. When she got out of her truck, it was raining. Her tenants were already tucked into their apartments, their windows glowing like Christmas cards. The single mom with her quiet daughter. The old professor. The drag queen with her windows festooned with feather boas. Slowly, Merritt mounted the stone stairs to the third floor. Uncle Oli’s apartment was at the front of the building. She unlocked the door. The grass carpet absorbed her footsteps. The little curio sculptures in the sconces goggled at her. In the bedroom, she touched the light switch. Everything came on at once. The filament lamp. The weirdly iridescent, glowing plastic curtains that looked remarkably like the northern lights. Even the bed seemed to glow as the sparkly comforter caught the light. Come to think of it, the bed must have been supplied by the show. She had never slept in it. She lay down, took out the locket, and stared at the picture of the two women. Then she tried Avery’s number one more time.
“You’re still my BFFFFFF. Leave a message.”
But she didn’t, because there wasn’t anything to say. She deleted the contact and pressed her face into the decorative throw pillows, each one embroidered with a thousand heart-shaped sequins.