“Will you stop staring at the machine and come help me fold this laundry?” Steph fought the tangled mess of T-shirts, pants, and socks which had emerged en masse from the dryer. “How have we worn so many clothes in a week?”
“The heat is making us sweat,” Ade said, “and you said we couldn’t wear clothes that had started to smell.”
Steph closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before reaching inside the drum for another jumbled pile.
“Sorry. Did I state the obvious again?” Ade asked.
Emerging from her heap of clothes, Steph shot her sister a smile. A familiar warmth flowed over Ade, but it wasn’t enough to figure out her understanding of the world.
“A little, honey, but don’t you worry. You’re right. It’s been a hot, dusty week of traveling, but this load should get us back on track.” Steph folded the last of the socks and turned to a second machine, still in mid-cycle. “I need to get all this dry by tomorrow to pack up.”
Dread crept into Ade’s chest. Fending for herself was daunting. She’d never had to do it before. Both her dads had been ever-present, along with Stephanie. They sat on the bench seat, and Ade resumed her watch. The soap suds whirled around the machine, as if they were trying to escape through the window. “When will you be back?”
“I’ve posted my itinerary on your fridge, so you always know where I am. Tomorrow, I’m heading to Perpignan and then onto Barcelona. There’s a cool town I want to hit up along the coast.Everyone’s talking about its gay vibes.”
The bubbles gathered in the fold of the machine door, thickening, concentrating. “Then where are you going?” Ade asked, desperate to soak up as much reassuring detail as possible.
“I’d like to head south while it’s still warm enough. I’ve come all this way, why not soak up some sun? Then I hope to make it to Lisbon before I come back here for Thanksgiving. I’ll keep you posted Ady-baby, and you can call me anytime you need me.”
“Sure.” Ade began to spin the loose ring on her thumb in time with the rotation of the washing machine. Steph held her hand, calming the panic which had risen into her throat.
“It’ll be okay, Ade. You can do this.” Steph smiled. “Just focus on what’s in front of you. Don’t race into the future.”
“Sure,” Ade said. “Because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”Except I’ll be alone.
Steph stood to inspect the display panel. “Five minutes, and we’ll be done here.” She wandered to the messy noticeboard and unpinned a black and white flyer. “Look at this: music in the square tonight. It’s right here around the corner. Do you want to go?”
Ade peered at the advertisement. Classical strings in Place St Anne. Harmless enough. She couldn’t imagine it getting too crowded in that tiny square. She hadn’t seen many people walking past her apartment in the last few days. “Okay. Sounds nice, let’s go.”
“Great.” Steph jogged on the spot. “I love it when I don’t have to convince you.”
Ade basked in the beam of her sister’s contentment for as long as she could. Sometimes, the fleeting glimpse of Steph’s happiness brought her more joy than anything else in her world. Once the last machine had finished, Steph packed their pile of fresh clothes, and they headed out. The violin strings lilted across the square as Ade sidestepped a gathering crowd. Steph strode on and claimed a table at the church steps. She tucked her unwieldy laundry bag out of sight. The sun had begun to set in the late September sky,casting a pink glow across the city’s rooftops and creating a tall silhouette of the church spire.
“Want a beer? We may as well settle in,” Steph whispered.
Ade nodded, not wanting to disturb the grace and tranquility they’d stumbled into in the square.Hersquare. She marveled at how, in a few short days, she’d gone from tourist to resident in one of the most charming little areas of the city. Sure, her fifth-floor apartment was rough around its edges and in need of some serious maintenance. But sitting here tonight, with a string ensemble blending unknown but undeniable melodies, it was simply beautiful.
As the sun set, people settled on the church steps, with a single familiar figure in the crowd: Professor Sylvie Boucher. Ade fiddled with her thumb ring, deciding whether to re-introduce herself.It would be weird. She probably won’t even recognize me.Too late, she’d stared for too long in the professor’s direction and was now in the grip of a blinking competition with her supervisor.
“What are you doing, Ade? You look super awkward.” Steph turned to meet the subject of Ade’s gaze.
There was a gap in the harmony, and a round of applause scattered across the square. Sylvie rose to approach them. Ade could hardly breathe. She’d had no idea what to say at the beginning of the week in the classroom, never mind here in a social space.
“Hello again.” Sylvie raised a glass of pale wine in her direction.
Her cheeks blushed with the warm evening air, and tonight, her smile reached her eyes. Ade hadn’t noticed the crease of her smile back in the classroom, but now she was transfixed by how the upturn of her lips made her eyes glimmer in the falling light.
“Ade, please introduce us.” Steph extended her hand anyway. “I’m Stephanie Poole, Ade’s twin sister.”
“Delighted to meet you. I’m Sylvie Boucher, one of Adelaide’s colleagues at the university.”
“It’s Ade,” she said, looking to Steph and mirroring her bodylanguage. Ade’s neurons popped like corn as she deciphered Sylvie and Steph’s expressions. What were they saying without words? She froze, paralyzed by the frustration of trying to read too many signals at once.
Steph leaned in. “She prefers to be called Ade. Adelaide is a little too old-fashioned for her. Our dads named her after one of our great-grandmothers.”
“And it’s too feminine,” Ade said, desperate for Sylvie to see something beyond her flawed presentation to the world. “I just prefer Ade. It’s better, somehow.” She’d left their last encounter with an unsettling suspicion that she hadn’t made the best impression. It wasn’t something she could pin down, but Sylvie frowned just as she had back in the classroom.
“I see.” Sylvie tapped her toe on the flagstones. “Ade suits you.”
