Wrangled

Love is the secret, she says.

I don’t recall asking to be sat next to an oracle for my plane ride home. Or a guru. Or Mother Teresa. Or one of the Fates. Or whoever this lovely woman is.

But I smile her way, touched by her words all the same, and I find I appreciate her kindness toward me as well as her wisdom—even if I’m not sure I can grasp its weight in this brief, possibly fruitless exchange.

“I didn’t catch your name,” I say, still holding her hand.

“Oh, aren’t you sweet. Luciana, but everyone calls me Lucy. Lucy Tucci.” She smiles. “Malcolm’s friends call me that. Lucy Tucci. It makes me giggle, the way it sort of rhymes.”

I feel a buzz in my pocket. I pull out my phone to check.

CHAD

See ya later, sexy.

A smile spills over my face.

“I don’t need two guesses to know what’s got you smiling,” sings Lucy before she lets go of my hand and returns to her seat. Grinning to herself, she goes for another round of her favorite lip balm, tracing her lips slowly with it, savoring every second.

My smile fades.

I wish I had savored every second.

What a coincidence.

The elevator in my apartment building is broken down.

Am I back at the Spur Inn? Did I curse an elevator god?

I ascend the eight—yes, eight—flights of stairs, then find myself standing in front of my blue apartment door. My thighs feel hard as rocks. I’m sweating everywhere. I’m still catching my breath as I brace myself for whatever hellish chaos awaits me on the other side of that blue door.

I insert my key, then push my way inside.

What first finds my eyes is the clean hardwood floor, the sun reflecting off of it blindingly from the nearby window.

I move inside, and I gaze upon a kitchen without a single dish or cup left in the sink. Everything is stacked nicely and neatly on each shelf. Even the hand towel hangs neatly from its rack, as if deliberately placed there with utmost care.

I come to the couch and find every cushion in its right place. Even the remote control is sitting on my coffee table perfectly parallel with the edge.

There’s not a single used wine glass out on an end table.

Nor a stray sock, jacket, or pillow squished into a chair.

I push through the doors into my cramped studio area, and instead of the disaster of fabrics and threads and sketches, I find all my materials organized into bins, and everything else put away thoughtfully. My dress forms line the walls, each wearing a work of mine I’m fine-tuning and editing before the showcase at the end of the month, weeks from now.

I’m astonished.

I don’t know what to say.

I move into my bedroom murmuring, “Salvador?” but find it empty, my bed made, the sheets crisp and flat as paper. “Richie?” I call out as I step into my bathroom. All of my toiletries are neatly in the cabinet, nothing out of place on the counter, nothing left in disarray. Even my towels are neatly folded on the shelf over the toilet—which, itself, looks freshly cleaned and downright shiny.

Everything is perfect.

I sigh softly, then drop onto the toilet seat, sitting there with a heavy heart. Salvador and Richie—the two messiest people I know—left my apartment in a better condition than they’d gotten it. I know this is Salvador’s way of trying to make me feel an inch tall for what I last said to him on the phone. It’s working, I guess.

Maybe I’m part of the problem, too.

Maybe I don’t think as highly of my best friend as I ought to.

I try calling him, but he doesn’t pick up. That’s okay, too; I’m certain his ignoring my calls is his way of sprinkling salt in my wounds. Whether I deserve his cold shoulder or not, I can’t even bring myself to analyze. I’m much too lost in my emotions to feel anything except a ringing, stinging numbness.

I pull open my fridge and—yes, the bastard even stocked it all up, complete with kale, spinach, and quinoa—make myself an afternoon dinner of this-and-that. I stand at my kitchen counter with a glass of wine and eat in silence. The crunching of my salad fills the room as if it comes out of a speaker system at full blast.

I wish I had a cat.

Then at least my pet could sit on the couch across the room and stare resentfully at me for no reason at all.

That’d be better than this overwhelming loneliness that has just washed over me since I first stepped foot in this awful place.

Is it weird that I actually wish Salvador and Richie were still here?

At least then I’d have someone to talk to. Or hate.

Or something.

I pull out my phone and give that last text from Chad another look. I can’t bring myself to smile, not quite yet. I feel like I’m still warming up from the cold splash of reality that returning to LA has poured over my head. I haven’t even unpacked yet. My rolling luggage sits in the middle of the room like an obedient watchdog, motionless, silent, and staring at nothing, waiting for an order.