HAZEL

I can forgive Josh for never having seen Aliens—because no one is perfect—and in his favor, he tried to pretend he wasn’t terrified in the opening scene when the dream alien rips out of Ripley’s torso. If he thought that was bad, imagine his reaction when Hudson, Hicks, and Vasquez find all the cocooned colonists in the corridors. Boom! Aliens everywhere!

In the end, he wouldn’t go so far as to agree with me that it’s the best movie ever made, but before he left he managed to work in the phrases Game over, man, game over and They mostly come out at night. Mostly. Clearly I’m a stellar influence.

I spend some time the next morning with Winnie at the park. While she lounges in the grass next to me, I stare up at the clouds, trying to find animals in them and wondering what it is about Josh Im that I’m so drawn to. It isn’t just that he’s good-looking. It isn’t only that he’s kind. It’s his calm center that’s a gravitational pull to my chaotic one. Every time I’ve met his eyes—from that first puke-filled night to now—I’ve felt a gentle hum inside my breastbone: I’m a satellite that’s found its safe-space beacon.

A few days after our friend-date, I ambush Josh at work to take him on an ice cream break. Partly it’s because deep down I really want to have ice cream for lunch every day this summer, but partly, too, it’s the memory of Josh’s expression while he was reading the texts from Tabby. He looked like he’d been kicked. I’m still waiting for him to update me, to tell me what happened with her, but despite the display of emotion he shared with me at my place, he’s gone back to his even-keeled, dry-humored self.

I’m afraid to tell Emily what the text said because I get the distinct impression she does not like Mistress Tabitha, and I also sense that the last thing Josh needs is an opinionated sister telling him how to feel about this. I’m just going to have to woman up and ask him about it myself.

“So.” I smile over my cone at him.

He knows exactly what’s coming and just stares at me flatly.

I must be pretty easy to read because it feels like Josh is never surprised by anything I say. “Do you love or hate the way I’ve already insinuated myself into your life?”

He takes a bite of his mint chip and swallows. “I remain undecided.”

“And yet you’re here.” I sweep my hand over the outdoor table, gesturing to the beauty before us: his little kid-size cup and my enormous, dripping two-scoop cone. “Enjoying a magnificent break from work.”

Josh arches an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t turn down ice cream.”

I acknowledge this with a sage nod. “Well, regardless, Jimin, I like you.”

“I know you do.”

“And as someone you would never date, but who will soon be your best friend, I can say with no ulterior motive that I don’t like that you’re in a relationship with a potentially treasonous skank.”

His eyes go wide. “Wow. Let’s jump right in.”

“Ha!” I smack my thigh. “So that came out a little balder than intended. What I meant to say”—I clear my throat delicately—“is have you talked to Tabby since Sunday?”

“We’ve been playing phone tag.” He gives me a wary look before dropping his attention to his cup again, scraping around the edge. “And yes, I realize that seems odd given that we’re in the same time zone. She’s avoiding this conversation. Maybe I am, too.”

Wait. It’s been five days since that weird text came in, and they haven’t even spoken to each other? I would feel like a grenade with the pin pulled free. Granted, I probably tend to overprocess things rather than under-, but to be in a relationship and wondering whether infidelity is happening and not need to know ASAP?

“Are you both dead inside?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “We might be.”

“Why don’t you go to L.A. and do this in person?”

He looks up at me, dropping the tiny spoon into his empty cup. “So here’s where I keep getting stuck. She’s not moving back. I get that now. So, if we work through this, either I move to L.A.—”

“Gross.” I scrunch my nose.

“Exactly, or she and I … what? Have a long-distance relationship forever?”

“If you go that direction you are going to get tennis elbow because that is a lot of phone sex.” I lick a drip of chocolate from my cone and as an afterthought add, “Good thing you’re a physical therapist.”

Josh gazes at me impassively.

“Maybe she could get a job somewhere more appealing to both of you—”

He shakes his head. “I have an established practice here, Haze.”

“Or,” I continue, feeling the warm glow fill me when I realize he’s shortened my name out of familiarity, “she could decide L.A. isn’t for her. Geography is just space; you can’t let that come between you if it’s good.”

Josh eyes me, unblinking. “I thought you didn’t want me to be with a ‘treasonous skank’?”

“Of course I don’t. But do we actually know whether she’s treasonous?” I take a long lick of my ice cream. “You haven’t talked to her.”

He grumbles something and stands to throw his cup away in a nearby trash bin. “I need to get back to work.”

Hefting up my cone I stand, following him down the block. He’s walking back all stiff and soldierly, and I have to jog to keep up. The top scoop of my ice cream slides off and lands on the sidewalk with a sorrowful splat. I stare at it, forlorn.

“I can see you working out whether it’s okay to pick that up and put it back on.” He rests a hand on my arm. “Don’t do it.”

The chocolate and peanut butter begin to melt, and a whimper tears out of me. “It was so delicious. I’m blaming you for walking so fast and angrily.”

His hand stays there, and I look up at him with a pout that slips away as I realize he’s working this Tabby thing around in his thoughts like a Tetris piece.

“You should go to L.A.,” I tell him. “Whether it’s to fix things or end them, it can’t be done over the phone, and definitely not over text.”

“Zach and Emily think I should end it, and they don’t even know about the text.” He drops his hand back to his side. “My mom and dad don’t like her, either. Thanks for at least considering the possibility that she’s not a treasonous skank.” He pauses. “I’m worried she is, though.”

“Why don’t they like her?” I ask.

Straightening, he turns to start walking again. I give a fond farewell to my melting ice cream before reluctantly following. “They don’t know each other very well.”

“How is that possible? You’ve been together for two years!”

“Tabby never really went out of her way to build a relationship with Umma—my mom—and my dad is quiet to everyone, but I’m not sure she’s even tried to have a conversation with him. Especially to my parents, that’s a pretty hard thing to overcome.”

He digs in his pocket for his phone when it chimes with a tone I’ve come to understand is Tabby’s. I watch as he reads the text a few times and then looks up at me.

“Seems like you and Tabby are on the same page.” He shows me the text.

..........

Josh heads back to the office, and I watch him leave, feeling protective. He’s built like an athlete—all lean muscle and definition—but there’s a vulnerability in him somewhere, the back of his neck, maybe, the small downward tilt of his head. We’ve only been friends for a week now, but I don’t want him to get his heart broken. I’m also bummed there won’t be anyone around to give me shit in the way he does—so straight and somehow, beneath it all, entertained by me anyway.

To make matters worse, when I return to my apartment, I hear Winnie barking maniacally from inside. Panicked, I rush in and my first step is a sodden one. With a gasp, I register that my apartment is completely flooded. The carpet squishes under my feet. Winnie barks from the bedroom, and between her hollers, a quiet hiss comes from somewhere deeper inside; water gushing happily everywhere. A pipe must have burst because a miniature lake spreads across the living room and kitchen, down the hall. I slosh through it, scanning for the source before realizing that it’s the sink in the bathroom.

I find Winnie standing on the safe island of my bed, yelling at me. Vodka squawks angrily from his perch when he sees me and Janis hops around her cage like a maniac. It’s such an oddball sitcom moment that I actually laugh, but the sound quickly dies into a tiny whimper.

It takes only a few twists of the valve to shut it off, but the damage is done. I collapse back on my butt in the deepest puddle and stare out through the bathroom door. The carpets are ruined. The furniture also probably ruined. Piles of papers I’d left on the living room floor have disintegrated. Books, clothes, shoes, dog toys, everything.

For a few minutes, I’m only stunned. I have no other thought but

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

I hate having to be the grown-up in situations like this. I know it’s not my fault, but my landlord is going to freak out anyway and I’m going to have to work really hard to not feel the need to apologize. He’ll blame this on Winnie or Janis somehow because I had to charm his pants off to let me have them here in the first place. (I didn’t actually charm his pants off—gross.) I’ll have to clean out everything in the apartment, and move—at least for a while. I’ll have to find somewhere to stay with my animals, so most hotels are out of the question. I can’t stay in Mom’s tiny apartment with the dog and bird and rabbit and possibly permanent Glenn. Emily has a spare room, but her house is so obsessively clean that just being there for dinner sometimes stresses me out.

Pushing up, I find my purse on the kitchen counter and make the first call to the landlord. Perhaps not surprisingly, he just got off the phone with my downstairs neighbor, whose ceiling started dripping, so I’m relieved to not be the one to break the news. He lets me know he’ll cover the cost of my rent elsewhere until this is fixed, and I know my insurance will replace anything ruined by the flooding. It’s a relief, but this still sucks because there’s no one but me to pack it up, to figure it out, to find somewhere to sleep in the meantime.

I’m sure Mom will take Janis, Vodka, and Daniel. Winnie has to stay with me. I shove everything I can into a couple of suitcases and pack up my animal family into the car before sitting and staring out the windshield. Daniel swims winningly in the small cup in my cup holder. Vodka repeats the word cookie about seven hundred times in the back seat. Winnie leans over the console and licks my ear. I can hear Janis burrowing in some newspaper in her cage.

“We’re homeless, guys.”

Winnie looks at me like I’m being melodramatic, so I call Emily for sympathy.

“Flooded?” she repeats. “Seriously?”

I feel my lip wobble and the wobble spreads to my chin and then I’m crying into the phone, babbling about all the ruined art projects and carpet and my favorite blue espadrilles and how I’m not going to live with my bird and bunny for the next few weeks and I liked that apartment because it was sunny and my neighbor baked cakes a lot so it always smelled good and—

“Hazel, shut up,” Emily yells into the phone. “I’m trying to tell you. I think you can stay at Josh’s.”

I sniffle. “If Josh is anything like you about laundry and vacuuming, he would murder me in my sleep.”

“He’s going to be in L.A. for a couple weeks.”

I pause. So he booked the ticket, then. I’m both happy for Josh and sad. I want someone better for him than Tabitha, even though I barely know him and I’ve never met her.

“Let me add him in real quick.” Emily disappears before I can protest, and when she comes back, she makes sure we’re each on the line.

“I’m here.” Josh sounds tired and bored, and I can’t tell if it’s his usual lackadaisical manner or he’s upset … or both.

“So, Hazel’s apartment flooded,” Emily begins.

Josh sounds significantly more alert when he says, “Wait, seriously? While we were out just now?”

“You two were out just now?” Emily asks.

I ignore the strident interest in her voice and explain, “A pipe burst, and normally I’d be making lots of terrible sex jokes about that, but really, it just sucks.” I fidget with my car keys in the ignition. “I’ll be out for at least three weeks.”

Emily hops in: “Josh, I was thinking she could crash at your place until she finds somewhere to stay longer term. You’ll be gone and there’s plenty of space. She’ll even keep the tornado confined to the guest room.”

“I will?” I wonder whether Emily really believes this.

“No pets,” Josh says immediately.

“Winnie?” I counter. “I can pay you rent.”

“Is she housebroken?”

I press a hand to my chest, genuinely offended. “I beg your pardon, sir, my canine has impeccable manners.”

Josh laughs dryly. “Okay, sure.”

“Really?” I dance happily in my seat. “Josh, you are the best.”

“Whatever.”

His tone makes my heart wilt a little. “You sound so sad, best friend.”

“I’m your best friend,” Emily reminds me.

I can’t help the giddy lean to my words. “It’s been my plan all along to have you two fighting for my love.”

Josh sighs. “I’m hanging up now. I’m at work, and leave for L.A. at seven. Emily will give you her spare keys.”

“You doing okay?” I ask.

“Wait,” Emily says. “Why wouldn’t he be okay?”

I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “He was having some intestinal distress earlier.”

Josh groans across the line. “I’m fine.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little gentler. “Call me if you, you know, need anything, Hazel.”

My heart squeezes so tight. “Thanks, Josh.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but I hear when he disconnects from the call.

Emily falls completely silent.

“Hello?”

She clears her throat. “I’m still here.”

“So, can I swing by for the keys? That’s so insanely nice of him, I can’t—”

“What is going on with you and Josh?”

I make a frantic time-out gesture, but Emily can’t see it. “Nothing, gah. Josh and I aren’t romantic, like at all. I just really, really, really like him. He’s like a Hazel magnet. I love his dry humor and sarcasm and that he seems to get me. I think we’re just becoming really good friends and it makes me really happy.”

“Really?” she says, and I start to answer before realizing that she’s making fun of my tendency to be superlative.

“Really,” I say. “Seriously. There is zero attraction there.”

Emily snorts. “Okay.”