Kelsey
When Bruno’s in town, he stays at the Lowell on the Upper East Side. The Lowell is the kind of hotel
where your room has a terrace and a working fir eplace, and it has a street-level restaurant called the
Majorelle that’s known for its floral arrangements and, more importantly, for afternoon tea, which
in volves a little something called Happiness Pink Cake.
Left to his own devices, Bruno would eat his grim daily rotation forever, but he takes me to tea at the
Majorelle when possible. I always go for the cake, and he goes for scones with marmalade and
Devonshire cream, grumbling all the way about nutritional fri volity, and when he’s especially
grumbalicious, I kiss him.
It took me a while to get used to someone doing things just for me. It’s so much easier to do things for
other people than to let them do things for you, at least for me it is, but Bruno is into it. We’re both going
a little outside our comfort zones. Sometimes when we’re sitting there in his elegant hotel room or my
own bedroom, I sneak a look at him—impeccable clothes, that intensity, those expressive eyebrows—and
I cannot believe he’s mine.
It’s there at the Majorelle, when I’m just finishing up the last bite of my cake, that the text comes.
From my sister. I set my fork down and read it twice.
“What is it?” Bruno asks. I turn my phone and show him. An invitation. From Danielle—to a boating
weekend, her and Tyler and us.
He reads it and looks up at me. “What the hell?” I turn the phone face-down. “They’re only inviting us
because of you. That’s what this is. Tyler wants to get to know Bruno Blackwood on a boat.” I look out at
the room—the flowers everywhere, the little tea plates, the other people just having their totally normal
afternoon.
“Screw them.” I sigh. “I talk such a good game, you know? Found family is all I need. Danielle and I
are just two people who happen to share DNA. If they think I’m that awful person, it’s their loss, but I still
want them to want me.”
He comes behind me and wraps his arms around me. “I get it.” “I don’t know what to do.” “I’ll go if
you want. If that’s what you decide.” “What I want is not to want to go. I want to be super e volved Kelsey
who declines the invitation and never thinks about it again.”
“It’s one of the pictures you’ve always had.” “I don’t know how to not want it.” I text back that we
can’t. I leave it at that. He stays there with me, and I rest my head back against his shoulder and stare at
the cream peonies in a giant vase. Someone has done something extraordinary with those peonies.
“Time might help, but you probably won’t ever stop wanting it. You’ve had a loss.”
“I guess,” I say. “People fall away and others show up. I can feel happy about the ones that show up.”
I crane my head up to smile at him. He gives me an upside-down kiss.