Page 81 of Seven Summer Weekends

“Yes! And you can rent out your half—minus the studio—and stay here next summer.”

What he said was not crazy. She had never felt like this before—as if it were written that they would still be together next summer. Either way, she didn’t need all of that house and property. The house and studio were more than enough.

“We’ll see,” she said, in contrast to what she was feeling. She had zero intention of going anywhere.

Ben dug out his tool kit, and they hung the painting over the fireplace to the usual picture-hanging banter of “a little to the left, to the right, a little lower.” They stood back and stared at it. In the end, it was just right.

“I want to hang one more thing,” Addison said, “if you don’t mind.”

She went into the bedroom and took Julia’s sun hat from the open box and out to the porch, with Ben and Sally following her.She carefully placed the hat back on the mermaid hook, where it belonged.

“Hi, Julia,” she said, and smiled.

Ben laughed, wrapping his arms around her and whispering, “Thank you,” in her ear.

And while it may have been the corniest rom-com ending ever—it felt very much like a beautiful beginning.

After

Chapter Thirty-eight

Addison changed a half a dozen times in front of her bedroom mirror to the soundtrack of a Spotify Christmas playlist. The scene, reminiscent of a nineties movie montage, wrapped with her in the first outfit she tried on. The black pencil skirt, color-blocked sweater, and high suede boots were a perfect balance between standing out and blending in.

She slipped in her EarPods and bounded down the stairs of her downtown apartment to the tune of Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” At the corner bodega, she paused to inhale a big whiff of evergreen from the line of fresh Christmas trees that had been delivered the day before. She loved the short period of time when the scent of the city was elevated fromWhat’s that smell?to a delightful blast of pine and maple syrup. It was the hap-hap-happiest time of the year, and Addison was feeling it, along with a bellyful of butterflies.

Overly zealous, she decided to walk the twenty or so blocks to Chelsea in an attempt to wrangle said butterflies. It was toughto tame her emotions, and she soon found herself nearly skipping. Nearly skipping made it worse.

She spotted the for-hire light on an approaching cab and raised her hand.

“CC Ng Gallery, 500 West Twenty-Ninth, please.”

She slouched back into the black leather seat of the taxi and lowered her gaze.

Be present, Addison.

Meditating didn’t seem possible, even though she had gotten so very good at it. Nothing could contain the excitement in her belly.

“I’m heading to my first show,” she told the cabbie, leaning forward. “I’m an artist.”

It may have been the first time she had said those words out loud.I’m an artist. It was for sure the first time she believed them.

“Very nice, very nice,” the cabbie replied. “What kind?”

“Ceramics,” she said proudly.

She sat back and closed her eyes again, thinking of Paresh’s first lesson in meditation.

Focus on your breath. Notice the sensation of the air as it enters and exits your nose. Place your left hand on your belly, and lose yourself in the rise and the fall—the rise and the fall.

Miraculously, calmness enveloped her, until she pulled open the heavy door to the CC Ng Gallery and saw her name typeset on the wall with those of five other emerging artists.

Addison Irwin, works in clay

Addison had spent the last four months actively working in her Fire Island studio, creating similar sculptures to the first piece that had caught CC’s eye—Utter Confusion. She named each of the other ceramic sorority sisters she was showing afteremotions she had felt over the past six months—in no particular order:

Stark Gratitude

Pure Pride

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