You Have a Match(91)

But I’ve been in Alaska for the last three weeks, stalking moose and whales and bears, taking the terrifying winding bus through the thin mountain roads of Denali and kayaking in the endless summer sunlight. I have so many photos that trying to choose the ones to highlight for the ambassador program feels like choosing which of my organs to keep. But even with the hum of the adventure still in my bones, it’s a relief to be back.

Before I can ask what they’ve been up to, Mickey hands me a flower—a red rose, identical to the one Savvy has tucked behind her ear.

“Oh—uh—thank you?” I say, pleased and confused.

“It’s from Leo,” she says. “It’s our one-year anniversary, you know. Yours and Leo’s, too. If we’re counting from the day we all started making out.”

I blink at her. “It’s been a whole year?”

“Yeah. Anyway, since Leo isn’t back yet, I told him I’d chuck a flower at you in his stead.”

“I believe you called it ‘Tuxedo Masking,’” Savvy chimes in, grazing the petals of her own flower with her fingers.

“To possess even one iota of his dramatic flair,” says Mickey, flinging herself on the plush pink couch.

I hold the rose up to my face, feeling the flutter of it against my skin. There’s that same dopey, happy lift in my heart that I’m not quite used to—the little ways that I’m still surprised by the Leo I knew then versus the Leo I know now. The Leo I grew up with versus the one who tucks my hair behind my ear, who falls asleep on movie nights with his head in my lap, who sometimes tugs me by the hand while we’re walking for a sneaky kiss. It’s the same Leo as before, but it’s as if I’ve tapped into some other dimension of him, one that I must have known somewhere deep down was there even when I wasn’t capable of seeing it on my own.

Or maybe it’s not Leo who changed, but me. I feel like in the last year a part of me has opened up, as if it was just waiting until there was someone worth making space for. A lot of it is Leo, but there was more room to fill than I ever realized—room for Savvy and Pietra and Dale. For Mickey and Finn. For the parents I thought I knew but understand so much more of now.

“Speaking of dramatic flair, is this supposed to be a unicorn cow? Or just a cow that is dressed up as a unicorn?” I ask, squinting at one of the new fixtures by the couch.

“Its origins remain a mystery, as do all of its fellow ceramic cow brethren,” says Mickey, gesturing to the rest of the space.

I glance around and see what else changed in the two weeks I’ve been gone—the local art on display sells and rotates so quickly that the place is essentially transformed from one day to the next. One week will be splashy slashes of primary colors on giant canvas, the next will be delicate pastel watercolors of views of the Puget Sound, and right now the place is cows on cows on cows—a doctor cow by the window, an astronaut cow on the barista station, a cow in a Seahawks jersey by the window. The only constants are the big, plush, cozy couches and chairs, the giant framed photos I’ve taken all over Shoreline and Seattle (including my favorite, one of a very haughty-looking duck on Green Lake labeled “Queen Quack”), and a table from the original Bean Well with Poppy’s and Gammy’s names inscribed in the wood.

“So?” says Savvy. “I got bare-bones details, but I gotta hear about the rest of your trip. Did you see anything cool?”

“Did anything try to eat you?” Mickey cuts in, leaning forward. On the inside of her wrist is the newest of her tattoos, the first one in permanent ink—a miniheart that says Mick + Sav on the inside, identical to the one on the tree back at Camp Reynolds. It’s the first year none of their little crew will be spending the summer there, but with Mickey starting a bachelor’s in education in the fall, it will probably only be a matter of time before she’s back.

I set the rose down on the table, leaning in. “Actually, at one point, right after we got on, a bear wandered right up to the bus—”

“Uh, this is the first time I’m hearing that story.” It’s my mom, coming out from the back room, where we hold classes and let meetup groups rent the space. I hadn’t realized she was here.

“Did I say a bear? I meant a deer. A tiny baby one about yea high.”

My mom shoots me a don’t think I won’t be bringing this up later look, right as Pietra wanders out behind her, her face streaked with paint. “I’m ninety-eight percent sure I cleaned up the last of the finger paint from the Mommy and Me group, but the lot of you should watch your butts just in case,” she informs us, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze in greeting. “Maggie sent me some of the pictures from your trip. Stunning as usual.”

I flush.

“We’re gonna have to open a second shop to display them all,” says my mom.

This is only half a joke, especially now that my mom is so involved. She’s shifted from full-time lawyering to part-time, and every hour she isn’t working or wrangling my three brothers in line is spent here. She’s either meeting with families who come here for legal help pro bono, just as she envisioned for the original Magpie, or helping Pietra run the business—which is ridiculously booming. We got a few write-ups in newspapers and artist blogs that led to us getting put into a “13 Underrated Gems in the Seattle Area” article that went viral last year, and the word-of-mouth from the meetup groups that come here has certainly helped. The place is usually so packed that it’s hard to find a seat. I heard murmurs of her and Pietra looking into a second location, one closer to Shoreline. Savvy and I have already been brainstorming coordinating color schemes.