The Seven Year Slip

THE WALK FROM THE elevator to my aunt’s fourth-floor apartment felt exceptionally long, my nerves beginning to mount—sort of the way my nerves always did when I approached her door (“your door,” I could hear Fiona say). The dread of going inside, mixed with the uncertainty of whether or not I’d see that stranger again, twisted my stomach. I really hoped he was gone.

I stopped at B4, and the brassy door knocker stared back at me, the lion head forever frozen in a half scream, half roar.

“Okay, the plan is if he’s there, chase him out with the baseball bat in the closet. If he’s gone, prosper,” I muttered to myself as I fished the keys out of my purse. “Don’t freak out like you did earlier. Breathe.”

Somehow that sounded so much easier than it actually was.

My hands were shaking as I inserted the key into the lock and turned it. I wasn’t the superstitious type of person, but the waffling in my head—Don’t be here, do be here—sounded suspiciously like I was plucking petals off a daisy.

The door creaked open on rusted hinges, and I peeked my head inside.

I didn’t hear anyone . . .

Maybe he was gone.

“Hello?” I called. “Mr. Murder Man?”

No response.

Though if he were a murderer, would he respond to being called one? I was overthinking things. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. The apartment was quiet, the afternoon light streaming rays of gold and orange through the taffeta-colored curtains in the living room. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight.

I put my purse on the barstool underneath the counter and checked the rooms, but he—and his stuff—were gone.

My relief was short-lived, however, as I took stock of the apartment properly. The calendar was still set to seven years ago. The portraits on the wall were still there, the ones my aunt had taken down, either given away or destroyed, and the ones I’d stored in the hallway closet. Her bed was in the bedroom instead of mine, her books still haphazardly stacked on the shelves in her study, though I was sure I’d put most of them in boxes already.

And then there was the note—the one written on the back of a receipt in long and scratchy handwriting I didn’t recognize.

Sorry for the intrusion — I

I turned the receipt over. The date read seven years ago, from a bodega on the corner that had since been turned into an expensive furniture boutique—the kind you’d find in farm-chic makeovers with shiplap.

My chest constricted again.

“No, no, no, no,” I begged. The two pigeons sat on the sill, pressed against the glass like they wanted to be inside to watch the show. They looked a bit ruffled from the morning. “No.”

The pigeons cooed, scandalized.

I set my jaw. Crushed the receipt in my hands and threw it back onto the counter. Grabbed my purse. And left the apartment. The door slammed closed behind me.

Then I unlocked it again, and went inside.

The receipt was still there.

I turned around. Left the apartment.

And shoved my way back in.

Still there on the counter.

“I can do this all day,” I told the apartment, and then I wanted to kick myself for talking to an inanimate place.

It felt a little like I was talking to my aunt instead. She would be the kind of person to play this exact trick on me. We’d always butted heads, even though I loved her. She said I tied my bows too tightly, lived my life too neat, like my parents.

I just liked plans. I liked sticking to them. I liked knowing what was coming and when it was coming.

So, yes, this would be the exact kind of thing my aunt would do.

On my sixth reentry, I saw the crumpled receipt and the pigeons watching me like I was some fool, turned on my heels—

And came face-to-face with the stranger.

“Oh,” he said, surprised, his pale eyes wide, “you’re back already.”

I jerked backward, raising my purse. “I swear to god—”

“I’m still leaving,” he added cautiously, holding his hands up in surrender, “but I forgot my toothbrush, actually.”

I frowned. “Oh.”

“May I get it?”

I pulled my purse over my shoulder again. “Since you asked so nicely . . .” I stepped to the side, and let him into the rest of the apartment. He had his duffel slung across his body, the airport tag still on the strap. He went into the bathroom to get it while I stood perched at the edge of the living room, picking at my cuticles. He came back out with it triumphantly in his hand.

Maybe when he leaves this time, I’ll go back to my time, too, I thought.

“It’s a weird thing,” he said, waving his toothbrush, “but I have to have it.”

“I’m really picky with mine. They have to have the little rubber bits at the edges,” I agreed absently, before I remembered that I was supposed to be calling security because he had, in fact, come back. But he’d come back for his toothbrush . . .

“Oh, the ones to massage your gums?” he asked. “Those are nice.”

“And I hate it when someone just suggests that you use one of theirs they hadn’t used—it’s not the same.”

He threw his hands up. “Right? Not the same! Anyway, now that I have my emotional support toothbrush, I’ll be on my way. And if I’ve left anything else, you can just mail it here,” he added, taking a pen from the mug on the counter and jotting down his information on a napkin. He handed it to me. If he noticed the crumpled-up receipt with his note on it, he didn’t say anything.

I read his scratchy handwriting. “You’re from North Carolina?”

“The Outer Banks, yeah.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug, more coy than dismissive. “ ‘Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.’ ”

I cocked my head, the quote familiar. “Anthony Bourdain?”

The right side of his mouth quirked up into a charmingly crooked smile. If it had been any other time, any other place, it might have melted me then and there. “I’ll see you around.”

“Probably not,” I replied.

“Probably not,” he agreed with a self-conscious laugh, and saluted goodbye with his toothbrush, and it was adorable.

I lowered my gaze, and it settled on the calendar on the coffee table. Seven years.

He started for the door.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“The apartment always drew us together when we were at a crossroads,” my aunt had said of her and Vera. So it must’ve drawn this man and me together, too. I really didn’t care about whatever crossroads I was at—I found myself enchanted by the memory of my aunt on my parents’ front doorstep seven years ago, asking me on an adventure, as if time in and of itself was infinite. As if she knew, with that gleam in her eyes, that something was about to happen.

Or, perhaps, it was because of what she’d once told me.

How sometimes time pinched in on itself. How sometimes it bled together like the watercolors I used to paint with.

He lived in a world where my aunt still existed, and if I could stay in that world—however long . . . Even if it was just in this apartment. Even if it was only this once. Even if the next time I left, the apartment sent me back to my time—

In this apartment, she was still alive somewhere, out in the world.

This kind of magic is heartache, I warned myself, but it didn’t matter, because a soft, almost dead part of my heart that had bloomed every summer with adventure and wonder whispered back, What do you have to lose?

Whatever it was, I spun on my heels and told him just as he reached the door to leave, “You can stay.”

He let go of the front doorknob and turned back to me, a curious look in his bright and pale eyes. They reminded me a bit of the shade of clouds just before a plane ascended above them. “You sure?” he asked in that soft Southern lilt.

“Yeah, but—I have to stay here, too, right now,” I said, folding his napkin up and sticking it in my back pocket. If I remembered my aunt’s stories about Vera, I’d be sent back to my time eventually. “My apartment is kind of”—I paused, wracking my brain for a good lie—“out of commission. It—um. Got infested. With—um.” I glanced at the windowsill. Mother and Fucker were huddled on the AC, preening each other after their harrowing morning. “Pigeons.”

His eyes widened. “Oh. I didn’t realize it could get that bad.”

“Oh, yeah. They’re called the rats of the skies for a reason.” God, I was a terrible liar, but he seemed to buy it with a serious nod. Seriously? What were the pigeons like where he’s from? “So . . . while my aunt’s gone, she told me to look after her apartment, and I figured I could stay here a few days while that got sorted out.” I finally dragged my eyes back to him. “I’m sorry if I was a bit mean at first. You just surprised me. But if my aunt told you that you could stay . . .”

“Thank you, thank you!” He pressed his hands against each other in prayer. “I swear, you won’t even know I’m here.”

I highly doubted that, since he was almost impossible to ignore. He just looked like a loud kind of person, but he was also mesmerizing to watch. He moved through the world with this air of nonchalance—like he didn’t care what anyone else thought. It was infectious. I shifted on my feet uncomfortably, because it was finally beginning to sink in that this was real, and my aunt’s story was true. It was exactly what I had wished for for years—opening her apartment, holding my breath, waiting to be whisked away—

Only for it to happen now, after my aunt was gone, after I no longer had a heart for impossible things.

Why couldn’t I have had an encounter with someone less . . . enthusiastic? This man felt like he could exist anywhere and call it home, too much like my aunt, too much like the person I had wanted to be.

“To make up for getting off on the wrong foot,” he said, and cocked his head in a boyish way, “can I cook us dinner?”

Us. That surprised me. I felt my chest tighten like a rubber band. I quickly looked away. “Um, sure. I think there’s some spaghetti sauce in the pantry?”

“Oh, that’s sweet, but I’ve something else in mind.” His grin turned into a smile, and it was bright and crooked and, oh, no, so charming, like he had a hundred secrets he couldn’t wait to tell me tucked into the corners of his lips. “One of my favorite recipes. I’m Iwan, by the way.” He outstretched his hand. He hadn’t even taken off his duffel bag yet.

I took a deep breath and accepted his hand. His fingertips were hard and calloused, scars across his fingers, burns on his hands. They were also warm, and his grip was solid, and it melted all the nerves I had had a moment before. This might not be so bad. “Clementine,” I replied.

“Oh, like—”

I squeezed his hand a little tighter and deadpanned, “If you sing that song, I might have to kill you.”

He laughed. “I’d never dream of it.”

I let go of his hand, and he finally slid off his duffel bag, dropping it by the couch, and hurried into the kitchen. I followed him wearily. He pushed up his already short sleeves and grabbed a cutting board from the counter, then spun it around by its handle with a flourish.

This was a terrible idea. The worst idea. What had possessed me to do this?

He glanced back at me, standing there in the entryway to the kitchen, and asked if I’d like a glass of water while I waited—or something a little stronger.

“Stronger,” I decided, tearing my eyes away from this handsome man in my aunt’s kitchen, beginning to feel like I’d just made a grave mistake. “Definitely stronger.”