Liv or Leo?

The flea market had been set for six weeks. Saturday, ten to four, a table on the square in front of the old market hall. Liv was going to sell the two bikes she’d fixed up over the summer, and Mila, for the first time ever, postcards of her own photos: moss, fog over the lake, the snail on the wet bike seat. They’d cut out thirty of them at Liv’s kitchen table, and Liv had written on a piece of cardboard: PHOTOS BY MILA. FOR REAL. Mila had wanted to cross out “FOR REAL.” Liv wouldn’t let her.

On Thursday Leo showed up at Mila’s locker between classes, hands in his jacket pockets, a little too loud, the way he always got when he was nervous. “You know that exhibit at the museum? Buildings, drawn and photographed, side by side. On Saturday the photographer is doing a tour herself, just this once. At two. Want to come?” He’d said “you,” not “you guys.” Mila heard it loud and clear.

“Saturday,” she said, and her stomach dropped somewhere. “I’ll let you know tonight.” Leo nodded too fast, drummed once on the locker, and was gone.

That evening she sat on her bed with the shoebox full of postcards and thought what she always thought when two good things crashed into each other: the wrong thing, very thoroughly. Liv could run the table by herself. Liv could talk to anybody; she’d probably sell more cards without Mila standing there. Liv would say “Go!” She definitely would. Mila typed: “Would it be really bad if on Saturday after one I…” Then she stopped. She thought about the cardboard sign. About six weeks. About Liv, who had once told her, “You don’t have to come. I’m only asking because it’s better with you.” She deleted the text one letter at a time.

Instead she texted Leo, a whole paragraph, because she always texted him whole paragraphs. “I can’t do Saturday. I promised Liv the flea market weeks ago, and it’s my first postcards. I really would have loved to come. Does the Saturday after work? Or Sunday?” Four minutes later: “The tour’s only on Saturday. Bummer.” Then nothing. Mila stared at that word for a long time. Then a photo came through: a page from his sketchbook, a hand-drawn weekly calendar, the following Saturday circled in thick pencil. Underneath: “No tour then. I’ll explain the buildings, you explain the light.”

Saturday was cold and bright. Liv sold the first bike within twenty minutes to a man who wanted to haggle and couldn’t, because Liv knew exactly what every part had cost. Mila sold four postcards, the snail first, to an old lady who said she had a bike seat just like that. Just before two, Mila looked up at the clock on the church tower. Liv noticed. Liv noticed everything.

“You’ve been looking at that clock for ten minutes,” she said. “What’s at two?” Mila could have said “nothing.” Instead she said, “Leo asked me to go with him today. The museum, a tour. I said no.” Liv stopped talking with her hands and laid them flat on the table, between the postcards. “When?” “Thursday.” “And you’re telling me now.” “I thought about bailing on you,” Mila said. “On this, all of it. I’d already typed the text. I deleted it, but I typed it.” Saying that was harder than saying no to Leo.

Liv was quiet, and with Liv, quiet was loud. A man asked about the second bike, and Liv said, friendly, “Just a second, please,” and he waited. Then she said, “I could tell he’s getting important to you. I have eyes.” “He is getting important to me,” Mila said. It was the first time she’d said it out loud, and she was saying it to Liv, not Leo, and that felt right. “I’m happy for you,” Liv said. “Honestly. And…” She tugged a curl and let it spring back. “And I’m a little scared I’ll end up being the person you hang out with when he’s busy.”

“You’re not a backup,” Mila said. “I know. Mostly.” Liv laughed, quick and a little too loud, then softer: “Thanks for telling me. The part about the text. You didn’t have to.” “Yes, I did,” Mila said. “Otherwise it would’ve been kind of a lie.”

At three Liv sold the second bike, for the price she’d asked. Mila sold eleven postcards, and the last snail went to a boy who wanted to give it to his sister. At four they packed up and took the long way home, along the lake, like always. Mila had brought cinnamon rolls, and there were two left. Liv hooked her arm through Mila’s tighter than usual and didn’t let go until the bridge.

That evening a text came from Leo: a drawing from the museum, the front of a house, and next to it: “Went by myself. The photographer said she often waits an hour for the right light. Sounded familiar.” Mila laughed. Then she texted Liv: “Next Saturday I’m going to the museum with Leo. Breakfast on Sunday?” The answer came instantly, in all caps, with exactly one exclamation point: “SUNDAY IS OURS!” Whether next Saturday with Leo was a date or just a museum, Mila didn’t know. She didn’t have to know tonight.