The Idea of Love by Patti Callahan Henry

do. I mean, I really like it and…”
    â€œThen can I Xerox it?”
    â€œWhy?” Ella bent over to pick up the remaining contents of her satchel.
    â€œBecause it’s beautiful. And who knows? Maybe someday it will come in handy.”
    â€œOh. Okay, I guess.”
    Margo stood up and wandered back to the office area where her name was written in shells on driftwood over the door. MARGO SANDS. OWNER. DESIGNER.
    Ella placed the shoes back in the boxes and organized the display area as if Hurricane Tilly hadn’t come through only moments before. She wrote down the orders and put the paperwork in the order box in the backroom. It wasn’t until she arrived home, when Bruiser started barking, and she realized she was out of wine, that Ella remembered the sketch. She dug into her purse just to make sure it wasn’t there. That’s when she saw her phone light up. Hunter.
    Four texts from him— What are you doing tonight? Are you free for dinner? —and her apartment suddenly seemed dingier than usual. It felt old and musty and sad, what with the aggressively peeling paint and slanted floorboards. And empty. The kitchen faucet dripped one small drop every few seconds onto her breakfast dish and coffee mug. She turned on the tap and squirted soap into the sink. She scrubbed the plate and cup and dried them with the single white cotton towel. She did these things while thinking about her kitchen at home. Her pile of blue-striped Turkish dish towels. Her Vietri dishes in the just-right cream pattern. Her dishwasher.
    â€œStop!” she told herself. It was enough, pining for all that was lost. She had to take action. Get moving. Do something about it.
    Her phone buzzed. She took three steps to cross the sparse room and pick up her cell. Hunter: text five. Last chance …
    Enough was enough.
    She shouldn’t have started lying to him. Telling him “stories” as her mother had once called lies. If she had just told him the truth, she’d be able to go out with him to dinner right now. It would be better than sitting in her apartment, if nothing else.
    A walk. She would take a walk. That was something.
    The elevator in the apartment frightened her with its groaning and stretching, so she always took the stairs. The last thing she needed was to be caught inside its metal cage. When she had groceries, she would place them on the elevator and then race to meet them on the third floor where the doors would open with her packages. Only twice had someone been on the elevator when it had stopped. The first time it was an old man eating her granola from an open bag. The second time a young child was staring at the groceries in confusion.
    She walked down the dark stairwell and reminded herself, again, to call her landlord about the missing bulbs. Ella thought about stopping in, saying hello to Mimi, but she wanted fresh air. Hell, she wanted a fresh life.
    The evening was humid, a watery intimacy she could swim through with the hope of forgetting who she was and how she had landed in this life she didn’t recognize. How did people stop thinking about the things they didn’t want to think about?
    Could she have been more inventive in bed? Cooked better meals? Done Pilates? Read articles in the New York Times to discuss over dinner? Bought more bohemian clothes like the girlfriend wears? Or ask more questions about his work? “How was work today, honey? Did you rent a lot of boats? Sleep with any of my friends’ sisters?”
    In the back pocket of her jeans, her cell buzzed again. Hunter.
    No problem about this evening. Get some rest. Talk soon
    She answered.
    I changed my mind. Meet me at Fifth Avenue, a block from the Sunset, in fifteen minutes. Walked halfway there.
    Â 
    Great!
    What else was there to do? Obsessing was getting old.
    *   *   *
    Blake saw her before she spotted him, which he liked. Ella sat on a bench at the far end of the park,