“I know.” Allyson laughs. “Truth is I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”
She might not have a clue but Dee knows the signs and symptoms of a girl in love. She’s practically glowing, and without the benefit of the cucumber-and-yogurt facial he has planned as part of his welcome-home pampering spa day. He’s got a whole list of activities, but mostly he just wants to sit in the same room and talk. He misses her. Dee didn’t know you could miss a friend as much as he’s missed Allyson this summer, but then again, he’s never had a friend like her.
“You never did have a clue. At least now you’re owning your ignorance,” Dee teases.
“You know me so well!” Allyson jokes, but she touches her hand to the camera so it appears on the screen and Dee knows she’s not joking, not really. He reciprocates by putting his hand on her screen. They let the gesture say the unspoken things: Thank you for getting me here. Thank you for understanding me.
“I miss you,” Allyson says.
It’s just what Dee needs to hear. “I miss you, too, baby.”
Mama swoops back behind him, forcing herself back into the screen. She blows Allyson kisses. “He does. My boy is pining.”
“I miss him, too.”
Sandra sticks her head right in front of the camera. “How’s that map working out?”
She had bought Allyson a laminated map of Paris as a bon voyage present. The gesture had embarrassed Dee at first, along with the bon voyage party his mama had insisted on throwing for Allyson, even though she’d never met her. “Feels more like what you’re really doin’ is throwing me a hooray-you-finally-done-made-a-friend party,” Dee had said. His mama had raised one formidable eyebrow and retorted, “And why can’t I do both?” (Dee lost the argument. The party had been delightful.)
“Mama, she ain’t in Paris anymore. She’s in Amster—” Dee starts to say.
But Allyson cuts him off. “The map was perfect,” she says. She explains how the map had given her the idea to check the Paris hospitals, which had led her to Wren and to Dr. Robinet and to the house on Bloemstraat and now here. “So you see, I wouldn’t have found my way here without it.”
• • •
Broodje is shattered. He was up most of the night drinking, celebrating Willem’s debut as Orlando. He woke up after three hours of sleep with a Queen’s-Day-level hangover, only to remember he and Henk had promised W they’d help him move.
They’d spent the day lugging boxes up four flights of steep stairs. (W would have to be moving into the top-floor flat. Broodje had remarked that if they weren’t hungover, the flat would’ve been garden level. W spent fifteen long minutes poking holes in the logic of such a statement.)
Now Broodje is back at his flat. Not his, exactly. His for the next two weeks until he moves back to Utrecht with Henk. He doesn’t really want to go to Willy’s show again tonight, but he will because it’s Willy. At least he has a few hours free to rest. All he wants to do is take off his dusty, sweaty clothes and climb into bed.
He is already pulling off his shirt when he walks in the door.
And then he screams.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” he says, putting the shirt back on. “I didn’t know Willy had company.”
It’s a bit of a déjà vu this, walking in on one of Willy’s girls. It used to be like this all the time. But not for a while. Not for a really long while.
“Sorry,” the girl says. “I didn’t know anyone was coming.”
Then Broodje looks at the girl for a longer moment. “Wait, I know you. You were at the play last night. In the park.” He’d invited her and her friend to come to the party. He’d talked more to the friend, who was very cute, though he still missed Candace, his sort-of girlfriend, but she lived in America so they were trying to figure things out. When did Willy hook up with the friend?
“You’re Broodje,” the girl says.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Broodje says. He is tired and hungover and his muscles ache and he doesn’t want to entertain one of Willy’s girls. “Who are you?”
“I’m Allyson,” she says. Then she seems to reconsider. “But you might know me as Lulu.”
Broodje looks at her for a minute. And then he tackles her in a hug.
• • •
When Willem comes home, he finds his best friend and the girl his best friend tried to help him track down sitting together, eating. Broodje has emptied the kitchen, it seems: cheese, crackers, sausage, herring, beer. He is feeding Allyson, which is what Broodje does with people he loves. Willem sees Allyson has received a fast pass to his best friend’s heart.
“Willy!” Broodje calls. “We were just talking about you.”
“You were?” Willem says. He steps forward and his instinct is to kiss Allyson. He does not want to enter or leave a room without kissing her. This, too, is something new. But he doesn’t because this is all so new, even though the way Broodje and Allyson are sitting there, smearing cheese on crackers, it seems like they’ve been doing this for decades.
“I was telling Lulu, sorry, Allyson, what a sad sack you’ve been all year.”
“Not all year,” Willem says. (Though, really, it was almost all year.)
“Okay. Maybe not in India. I wasn’t with you in India. He went to India for three months to see his ma,” Broodje explains to Allyson. “He was in a movie over there.”
“Are you famous in India?” Allyson asks.