“I’m thinking...Eva with sharp edges. Who do I sound like?”
“Chris dulled down.”
“Tell me what’s going on?” They both spoke at once.
“You first.”
“No, you.”
Eva giggled. Just hearing her twin’s voice made her feel better. “I’m sitting on warm sand watching the sky fade from magenta to coral to pink to navy. There are palm trees behind me, waves making a great swishing sound in front of me...”
Chris snorted. “And something is wrong?”
“I know.” She grabbed a handful of sand, let it flow through her fingers. “I’m restless, not feeling peaceful. Been this way for a while, just something not quite right.”
“Time for new hair?”
Eva grinned at their joke girlie remedy for whatever was wrong. “I bought a ton of new accessories to decorate it with. Didn’t help.”
“Accessories? I’m afraid to ask what these are like.” Her sister made a shuddering noise. “Is Slow Pour doing well?”
“Not great, not bad.”
“Man trouble?”
“No man to cause any.”
“Ha. Maybe that’s your problem.”
Eva snorted. “Could be. What’s been going on with you?”
Her sister sighed. “I don’t know. Just...lethargy.”
“I can’t picture that at all. You’re usually a blur of a person.”
“I feel like I need a change.”
“Me, too.” Eva pulled her hoodie closer as the air chilled with the fading light. “I moved to California because it’s so laid-back, but sometimes it feels like nothing happens, and the nothing that happens does it really slowly.”
“That sounds like heaven.” Her sister sighed. “Everything is always happening around here, all at top speed.”
“That sounds like heaven.” Eva lay back on the sand, looking up into the night sky, and a crazy, impractical, ridiculous thought made her giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Since we can’t leave our shops to go on an extended vacation—maybe we should just switch lives for a month.”
Silence. Then both sisters gasped. “Oh, my God!”
“CHRIS! I’M HERE. I’m calling from your apartment!” Eva dumped her bags in Chris’s tiny foyer, which wasn’t really more than the beginning of a narrow hallway. She’d visited her sister only once in New York, shortly after Chris moved here. Generally they saw each other in Wisconsin when they got together with their parents for the holidays.
“Let me guess. It’s much bigger than you remember.” Chris’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“Uh...not really.” Eva peeked around a corner toward the kitchen, the size of her closet, and the living room, which struggled to contain a chair, love seat and coffee table. “But it’s got so much charm!”
“Oh, is that charm? I thought charm was your house, with the plants and flowers growing everywhere and the ocean smell outside. Try and see how charming my place is in February when it’s dark and freezing for weeks on end. I can actually run from one end of your place to another. Run! It’s a real house!”
“A tiny house. Which you have to take care of.” She hoisted her bags again, phone between her chin and ear, and marched down the hall, then pushed open the first door. “Your bedroom is adorable.”
“You can barely turn around—you call that adorable? I can do jumping jacks in yours! I can see an expanse of floor! And then I can take a dozen steps and be outside! And to the beach in five minutes! No elevator, no sirens, no taxis, no—”
“Concerts or museums, no theater, no—”
“Traffic jams, no hurricanes, no impatient rude people—”
“No excitement! No energy!”
“No Ames!”
“Huh?” Eva hauled her suitcase onto the twin bed. “Who’s Ames?”
Chris made a noise of exasperation. “A regular at NYEspresso. Also an arrogant pain in the ass who doesn’t seem to hear me when I tell him I’m not interested. He’s this complete rich-boy spoiled brat who’s never heard ‘no’ in his life.”
Eva chuckled. Men came after Chris pretty regularly. All she had to do was green-light the ones she wanted and ta-da, she had a boyfriend. Eva’s quirks meant it was usually the other way around for her—she’d see someone and go after him. So far neither approach had worked long-term for the sisters, but they were happy to keep trying. “I’ll tell him you’ve eloped. Maybe he’ll fling himself off a building.”
“Please encourage him.”
“You’ll have to deal with surfer dudes and lost tourists and retired hippies who order a cup of coffee and stay for hours thinking you have nothing better to do than chat. Which, sadly, you often don’t. Though Zac will be there most days and he’s awesome.”
“So you’ve said. Though I still think your arrangement is weird. Who agrees to get married when they hit thirty only if nothing else works out?”
“We did.” She didn’t expect Chris to understand. Eva had begun to realize that while love affairs were a fabulous, fireworks-filled pleasure, when it came to choosing a life partner and future father of her children, she wasn’t going to get much better than her best male friend, Zac, master’s candidate at Cal Poly and regular at Slow Pour. It was precisely because they didn’t burn so hot that she knew he’d be a good solid match, one that actually lasted.
But they still had a year and a half before that commitment. And as much as she adored Zac and he adored her, neither of them had yet given up hope they could find another soul mate they could also be frantic to tangle up the sheets with.
“At NYEspresso you’ll have to deal with people screaming at you because you aren’t moving fast enough or the line isn’t moving fast enough. People act as if you’re put on the planet only to serve them.”
“I look forward to the challenge.”
Chris giggled. “I can’t believe we’re doing this!”
“What, turning our hometowns into horrific stereotypes?”
“Well, yes, but I meant switching lives. Are you heading over to NYEspresso tonight?”
“Uh-huh.”
