Page 25 of People We Meet on Vacation

“I don’t mind,” he says.

As I follow him away from the crowded gate, I can’t stop staring at him. In awe that he’s here. In awe that he looks the same. Awed that this is real.

He glances down at me as we walk, his mouth twisting. One of my favorite things about Alex’s face has always been the way that it allows two disparate emotions to exist on it at the same time, and how legible those emotions have become to me.

Right now, that twist of his mouth is saying bothamusedandvaguely wary.

“What?” he says, in a voice that rides that same line.

“You’re just... tall,” I say.

He’s cut too, but commenting on that usually leads to embarrassment on his part, like having a gym body is somehow a personality flaw. Maybe to him it is. Vanity is something he was raised to avoid. Whereas my mom used to write little notes on my bathroom mirror in dry-erase marker:Good morning to that beautiful smile. Hello, strong arms and legs. Have a great day, lovely belly that feeds my darling daughter. Sometimes I still hear those words when I get out of the shower and stand in front of the mirror, combing my hair:Good morning, beautiful smile. Hello, strong arms and legs. Have a great day, lovely belly that feeds me.

“You’re staring at me because I’m tall?” Alex says.

“Verytall,” I say, as if this clears things up.

It’s easier than saying,I have missed you, beautiful smile. It’s so good to see you, strong arms and legs. Thank you, freakishly taut belly, for feeding this person I love so much.

Alex’s grin ripens to the point of splitting open as he holds my gaze. “It’s good to see you too, Poppy.”

8

Ten Summers Ago

A YEAR AGO, WHENI met Alex Nilsen outside my dormitory with a half dozen bags of dirty laundry, I wouldn’t have believed we’d be taking a vacation together.

It started with the occasional text after our road trip home—blurry pictures of the Linfield movie theater as he drove past, with the captiondon’t forget to get vaccinated, or a shot of a ten-pack of shirts I’d found at the supermarket,birthday presenttyped beneath it—but after three weeks, we’d graduated to phone calls and hangouts. I even convinced him to see a movie at the Cineplex, though he spent the whole time hovering over the seat, trying not to touch anything.

By the time summer ended, we’d signed up for two core requirement classes together, a math and a science, and most nights, Alex came to my dorm or I went to his to struggle through the homework. My old roommate, Bonnie, had officially moved in with her sister, and I was rooming with Isabel, a premed student who’d sometimes look over Alex’s and my shoulders and correct our work while crunching on celery, her alleged favorite food.

Alex hated math as much as I did, but he loved his Englishclasses and devoted hours each night to their assigned reading while I aimlessly perused travel blogs and celebrity gossip rags on the floor beside him. My courses were uniformly boring, but on nights when Alex and I walked the campus after dinner with cups of hot chocolate, or weekends when we wandered the city on a quest for the best hot dog stand or cup of coffee or falafel, I felt happier than I ever remembered. I loved being in the city, surrounded by art and food and noise and new people, enough that the school part of it was bearable.

Late one night, when snow was piling up in my windowsill and Alex and I were stretched out on my rug studying for an exam, we started listing places we wished we were instead.

“Paris,” I said.

“Working on my American Lit final,” Alex said.

“Seoul,” I said.

“Working on my Intro to Nonfiction final,” Alex said.

“Sofia, Bulgaria,” I said.

“Canada,” Alex said.

I looked at him and erupted into slaphappy exhaustion-laughter, which triggered his trademark chagrin. “Your top three vacation destinations,” I said, lying back on the rug, “are two separate essays and the country nearest to us.”

“It’s more affordable than Paris,” he said seriously.

“Which is what really matters when you’re daydreaming.”

He sighed. “Well, what about that hot spring you read about? The one in a rain forest? That’s in Canada.”

“Vancouver Island,” I supplied, nodding. Or a smaller island near it, actually.

“That’s where I’d go,” he said, “if my travel companion weren’t so disagreeable.”

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