When we pull up to the house it’s already late in the afternoon, and Bella and Aaron are there. She rented a yellow convertible, and it’s parked out front, a chipper greeting. The door to the house is flung open, as if they’ve just arrived, although I know they haven’t. Bella texted me they were there hours ago.
My first instinct is to be annoyed — how many summers, how many times, have I told her to keep the doors closed so we don’t get bugs? But I check myself. This is our house, after all. Not just mine. And I want is for all of us to have a nice weekend.
I help David unload the trunk, handing Morgan her roller as Bella comes out of the house. She has on a pale blue linen dress, the bottom of which has paint splotches on it. This fills me with a very particular kind of joy. To my knowledge she hasn’t painted all year, and the sight of her — hair wild in the wind, the atmosphere of creation hanging around her like mist — is wonderful to witness.
“You made it!” She throws her arms around Morgan and gives me a big kiss on the side of my head.
“I told Ariel we’d pick her up at the east station in like twenty minutes. David, can you grab her? I can’t figure out how to put the top up.” She gestures toward the perky convertible.
“I can do it,” Morgan says.
“It’s no problem.” This from David, even though traffic was horrific and we’d been in the car for nearly five hours. “Let me just drop our stuff.”
Bella kisses me on both cheeks. “Come on in,” she says to Morgan. “I did room assignments.”
David raises his eyebrows at me as we follow the two of them inside.
The house is decorated in part as an old farmhouse and in part like a college girl’s first shabby chic apartment. Old wooden boxes and furniture intermix with white oversize couches and Laura Ashley pillows.
“You two are downstairs again,” Bella says to David and me. The downstairs bedroom is ours, and has been since we first rented the house, the summer Francesco came and he and Bella fought loudly in the kitchen for thirty-six hours before he pulled away in the middle of the night — with the one and only car we’d rented for the weekend.
“Morgan and Ariel are upstairs with us.”
“You know we don’t swing straight,” Morgan says, already on the stairs.
“I’m not straight,” Bella says.
“Yeah, but your boyfriend is.”
David and I set our suitcases down in the bedroom. I sit on the bed, which is wicker, as is the dresser and rocking chair, and I’m hit with a nostalgia I don’t usually experience or entertain.
“They got new sheets this year,” David says.
I look down, and he’s right. They’re white when they’re usually some mix of paisley.
David leans down and brushes his lips to my forehead. “I’m gonna jet. You need anything?”
I shake my head. “I’ll unpack for us.”
He stretches, bending over and grabbing onto opposite elbows with his hands. I stand up and rub the spot on his lower back that I know pinches. He winces.
“Do you want me to drive?” I ask. “I can go. You just drove for five hours.”
“No,” David says, still folded in half. “I forgot to put you on the rental agreement.”
He lifts himself, and I hear his vertebrae crack on the way up.
“Bye.” He kisses me and leaves, grabbing the keys out of his pocket.
I open the closet to find a hanging rod, but no hangers — as usual, Bella has stolen them all and taken them upstairs.
I plod into the hallway in search of the coat closet and find Aaron in the kitchen.
“Hey,” he says. “You guys made it. Sorry, I went for a swim.”
He’s dressed in board shorts with a towel draped over his shoulders like a cape.
“David went to town to get Ariel,” I say.
Aaron nods. “That was really nice of him. I would have been happy to go.”
“David loves the car, it’s no problem,” I say.
He smiles.
“Morgan is upstairs with Bella.” I point toward the ceiling with my index finger. I hear their feet moving on the floorboards above us.
“You hungry?” he asks me.
He goes to the refrigerator and takes out three avocados. I’m struck by his ease, his belonging here.
“Right, you cook,” I say.
He cocks his head at me.
“I just mean, Bella said.”
He nods in response.
What Bella actually said was that he made butternut squash and sage risotto, but before she could have one little bite they’d had sex on the counter, right there in the kitchen. I blink away the image and run my hands down my face, shaking my head.
“So is that a no on guacamole?”
“What? No, yes, definitely. I’m starving,” I say.
“You have interesting ways, Ms. Kohan.”
He starts piling ingredients onto the counter: onions, cilantro, jalapenos, and a variety of vegetables.
“Can I help?” I ask.
“You can open that tequila,” he says.
He gestures with his head to the countertop, where our booze for the weekend is artfully displayed. I find the tequila.
“Ice?” I ask. “I’ll pour.”
“Thanks.”
I take two small tumbler glasses down from the cabinet and pour a finger of tequila in each one. I pull the ice tray out, careful to hold the bottom drawer of the freezer when I do — another quirk of the house.
“Heads-up.” Aaron tosses me a lime. I miss, and it rolls out of the room. I’m chasing it on my hands and knees when Bella comes floating down the stairs, still in her blue tunic, hair now up.
“Rogue lime,” I say, snatching it before it scurries under the sofa.
“I’m starving,” she says. “What do we have?”
“Aaron is making guacamole.”
“Who?”
I shake my head. “Greg. Sorry.”
“What do you guys want to do for dinner?” Bella asks us. I follow her into the kitchen and she snakes her arms around Aaron’s waist, kissing him on the back of the neck. He offers her up his tequila. She shakes her head.
I know, of course, that they’ve gotten closer. That while I’ve been at work all summer, Bella has been falling for this man. That they’ve been to museums and outdoor concerts and cool, tiny wine bars. That they’ve walked the West Side Highway at dusk and the Highline at sunrise and had sex on every single piece of furniture in her brownstone. Almost. She’s told me all of it. But seeing them now, I’m met with a prick in my chest that I’m not entirely sure how to identify.
I take a seat at the counter and pick a tortilla chip out of the bag that Aaron has set out. He scoops some diced onions onto the back of a knife and dusts them into the guacamole bowl.
“Where did you learn to cook?” I ask. Anyone with knife skills impresses me. I like to believe it’s the one thing that prevents me from being a good cook.
“I’m kind of self-taught,” he says. He nudges Bella to the side and opens the oven. In goes an array of sliced peppers, onions, and potatoes. “But I grew up around food. My mom was a cook.”
I know what that means. It’s not the words themselves, although they are markers, but the way he says it — with a slight bewildered edge. Like he can’t quite believe it, either.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He looks back at me. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”
“Dinner?” Bella asks. Her hands are on her hips, and Aaron loops his arms through hers, pulling her in and kissing her on the side of her face. “Whatever you want,” he says. “I’ve got snacks covered.”