This Same Earth

“I hope not. You just got back from vacation.”

Two months ago. Beatrice offered her a tight smile and stood, brushing her hands along her slim-cut, black slacks. She picked up her empty mug and walked toward the doorway.

“I’m going to grab some coffee, can I get you anything?”

“No,” Dr. Stevens said. “I’m fine. I’m supposed to be giving a talk with a visiting lecturer at ten, so I’m going to go prepare, and I’ll let you get back to work. Take the extra hour at lunch, and I’ll see you this evening.”

Beatrice nodded and walked down to get more coffee, glancing at the framed art along the walls.

“Hangin’ around, Art.” She snorted. “Just hangin’ around.”

When she finally broke for lunch and sped down to Colorado Street to meet Dez at their favorite Spanish restaurant, she had moved past headache and into starving. She sat at one of the sidewalk tables and ordered a small plate of oil-roasted almonds to nibble on until her friend arrived.

Desiree Riley, or Dez as her friends called her, was the quintessential California girl. She’d grown up in Santa Monica and-if not for her parents insisting she leave for a few months to tour Europe after she graduated-would have happily stayed in Southern California her entire life. She’d gone to UCLA for both undergraduate and graduate work, completing her Masters in Information Science the same year as Beatrice.

They had become unexpected friends, the blond surfer girl and the quiet Texan in black boots and even blacker eyeliner; but as the years passed, they found their own friendly equilibrium. Beatrice stopped dying her hair pitch- black in favor of her natural, dark chocolate brown, and Dez had learned how to ride a motorcycle and even had a few piercings that mom and dad didn’t know about.

“B!”

She heard her name shouted from a passing car and looked up to see Dez’s silver Jetta slowing as cars honked behind her.

“Dez, stop blocking the road!”

“Oh,” she waved a careless hand. “I will, but parking is crazy today. Order that sangria pitcher for two, okay?”

“I’m working today, you lush.”

The honking behind the Jetta only got more persistent.

“Who says I’m sharing? I’ll be there as soon as I find a spot.” She lifted her hand to daintily flip off the driver behind her, who was shouting out his window.

“Red wine sangria for two, please,” Beatrice said to the waiter, who had been staring at the commotion. He nodded with an amused smile and walked back inside. Dez huffed up the sidewalk a few minutes later and plopped down in the chair across from her friend, blowing a kiss to the waiter who dropped off the drinks.

“Okay, I’m drinking and so are you.”

“Dez-”

“No ‘buts.’ You have been in a mood ever since you got back from Chile, and it’s irritating. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk without Mano around, so spill. Everything.”

Beatrice sighed in defeat and poured herself a glass.

An hour later, Dez was leaning on the table and staring raptly as Beatrice finished the story. Her best friend knew a very carefully edited version of the tale of Beatrice and Giovanni, as Dez liked to call it. But she knew that Beatrice went to Chile every summer only to return weeks later, alone and usually in a bad mood.

“So you think he was there? Watching the house?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw him.” And smelled him. She didn’t really feel like explaining that part.

Dez sat back and frowned as she took another bite of her tortilla espanola. “Don’t you think that’s kind of creepy?”

Beatrice had never told Dez that Giovanni broke into her house at least once a year to leave plane tickets and occasionally grab a photograph. “Um… no, it’s not really. I mean, it is his house. It’s not creepy to me. I was mostly just pissed off that he didn’t come to the door.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Dez took another sip of the sangria and silently munched on an olive.

“What?”

“What what?” Dez asked, the picture of innocence.

“You have something to say, I can tell.”

She didn’t deny it but folded her hands on her lap and sighed a little as she looked across the table.

“You need to stop going there.”

“I am. I told you, I’m done.”

“I know you have friends there, and I know how much you love it, but it just…you’ve got to move on from this guy.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Did you not hear me? I told you, I wrote him in the journal and told him-”

“Yeah, you told him you were done. Got it. You told me that, too. Remember?”

Beatrice pursed her lips and looked away, biting her lip as Dez continued in a quiet voice.

“You told me you were done with him three years ago. And then you went back. And then two years ago, you said the same thing. And you still went back.”

She bit her lip to keep the tears at bay as her friend recounted the last five years of an obsession she knew she needed to abandon.

“And then last year, even though Mano practically begged you not to go, you went again.”

“I know-”

“I’m not sure you do, B. Because he and I are the ones who have to put up with your moody-ass, depressed behavior for a month afterward every time you go down there and get your heart broken again.”

“My heart is not broken. You’re being melodramatic,” Beatrice muttered and took another sip of her water.

“Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “Whatever you want to tell yourself. But stop, okay? For real. When you get the ticket in the mail next time, toss it. Donate it. Change it to a flight to the Bahamas and take your boyfriend, but do not go chasing that ghost again.”

Beatrice swallowed the lump in her throat and clenched her jaw as she contained her tears. “I know,” she whispered.

“Do you? Really?”

“Yes, I’m done. I’m…moving past it.”

“You know I love you,” Dez whispered. Beatrice could see the concerned tears in her eyes.

“I know.”

“And I’m only saying this-”

“It’s fine.” She nodded. “I get it. Really, I do.”

“You have an amazing man in your life, one who wants a future with you. That wants to move forward. Not everyone gets that, you know?”

Beatrice sniffed and brushed at her eyes. “And some people never know because they won’t ask the person who’s perfect for them out on a single date.”

Dez straightened up and a flush rose in her cheeks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Beatrice De Novo.”

“Oh,” she said with a smile, happy that the conversation had turned. “I can’t imagine. Did I mention I saw my lovely neighbor, Matt, yesterday? Yeah, he was sitting on his front porch working on his mountain bike. It must have been hot, because Ken-I mean Matt-wasn’t wearing a stitch more than a pair of little biking shorts. It was quite the view, I’ll say that.”

“He is not a Ken-doll,” Dez muttered and threw an olive at Beatrice. She caught it and popped it into her mouth.

“You do some investigation about whether he’s anatomically accurate, and I’ll consider changing my opinion of him. Until then? Ken-doll.”

Dez huffed, “Why do you even-”

“And you’re a total Barbie. Librarian Barbie. Do you know how many naughty fantasies poor Ken-I mean Matt- has probably had about you already? You’d be putting him out of his misery. Besides, Ken and Barbie belong together,” she said with a wicked grin.