The strangest things remind me of Liam sometimes. Things that should remind me of Alistair — the guy I dated for three years — remind me of him instead.

I’m boxing up most of my belongings, though there aren’t that many, preparing to sublet my apartment and leave most of my stuff at my parents’ house in New Jersey for three months while I’m in Los Angeles, working on The Spinster’s Panorama, a movie set in post-World-War-II Scotland.

As far as I can tell, the plot is a little stupid, but the costumes are going to be amazing.

For example, here’s a shot glass I got from Glasgow Castle when Alistair and I visited last year. The same visit when I first met Liam, sleepless and out for a midnight drive somewhere in the countryside near Newcastle. I think of Alistair when I pack it away in a box, sure, but then I think of Liam, on the bridge, in my face.

How even when he was a wreck there was something about him that stopped me in my tracks.

The card that came with flowers Alistair sent me once. They were roses, which I always think smell weird but which Alistair likes, delivered to an internship on Valentine’s day. I think of Alistair, sure, but then there’s Liam’s face in the pub, agreeing that he worked at the flower shop in Shelton.

God, if I were him I wouldn’t call either.

He still lives there. Fucking Alistair already cost him a job and I’m sure he could cost Liam plenty more, so I can’t exactly blame him for never calling. I can be upset about it. I can cry every once in a while, and I can wish with every fiber of my being that I’d done things just a little differently that morning, but I can’t blame him.

Besides, why do I think it was anything but a one-night-stand? Two adults scratching an itch before going their separate ways? Just because I’ve never had a fling before doesn’t mean he wouldn’t.

I think again about the pictures I found printed in the tabloids from years ago: Liam, naked and sprawled on a bed, heroin-skinny. Taken by someone else who got to see him naked in the morning. I haven’t looked at the pictures again since I first found them, because as much as I think about Liam naked, I don’t think about that Liam.

Try not thinking about him at all, I tell myself. Instead, you could think about how you’re flying to Los Angeles in two days, you’re probably going to need more boxes, and your dad is gonna be here with the SUV in three hours.

Shit. I’m right.

* * *

“You sure you haven’t got any more fabric scraps? We got a couple cubic inches of space left, I’m sure we could jam something else in there,” my dad says, admiring his handiwork.

“I’ve seen your collection of interesting or historical lightbulbs,” I point out. “That’s way less moveable.”

“That’s your inheritance. It’ll be worth something, someday.”

“A burned out fluorescent from the Meadowlands isn’t going to worth something ever.”

“What? They tore Giants Stadium down, you can’t get those anymore!”

“That doesn’t mean anyone wants it,” I tease.

He lowers the hatchback door gently, making sure it clicks at the bottom without slamming it.

“Just wait,” he teases back, then puts his hands on his hips, looking around my street. My dad’s got thinning, graying hair, and he’s wearing a fleece over short-sleeve button-down shirt tucked into shorts, along with loafers and athletic socks pulled halfway up his calves.

Yes, shorts, even though it’s a few days after Christmas and about thirty degrees outside. I’ve learned not to ask questions.

“You hungry, kiddo?” he asks. “If you help me find a parking spot in this neighborhood I’ll take you for burgers.”

“Deal,” I agree instantly, and get into the car.

A parking spot isn’t that hard to find, though you wouldn’t know it from the amount my dad complains. Before long we’re in Jody’s Diner, where we both order cheeseburgers and fries, no onions, extra pickles, and split a chocolate milkshake.

Moving is a lot of work, after all.

“So what is a spinster’s panorama?” my dad asks with a mouthful of fries. “Is that when an old unmarried woman makes a scene in a shoebox?”

I just stare at him while I munch a couple of my own fries, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about.

“That’s a diorama,” I say when the lightbulb comes on. “I think the panorama in the movie is the ocean, because she’s looking out her window or something, waiting for her love to come back from the war? I just know what she’ll be wearing, really.”

“I always did confuse those two,” my dad says. “If she’s got a love, how come she’s a...”

Just outside the windows, a guy walks by. He’s wearing jeans and a peacoat, and he’s got floppy brown-red hair, but that’s not what makes me stop listening to my dad mid-sentence or what makes me stop chewing my fries.

It’s the way he walks. Head up, self-assured and cocky, and somehow... British.

Like Liam. He walks just like Liam, and for a long moment I follow him with my eyes as he moves past the plate-glass windows of Jody’s Diner and on down the cold Brooklyn sidewalk.

It’s him. Every fiber of my being is screaming that’s him, he’s here, why is he here? I want to jump out of this booth and run down the sidewalk, shouting his name.

“Frankie, you okay?” my dad says. He waves some fries in front of my face. “Hellloooooooo, earth to Françoise.”

I look back at him, blinking.

“What’s up, space cadet?” he asks.

It’s not Liam. Of course it’s not Liam, it’s just one of the eight million people on this planet who look and walk like Liam. In New York City, there’s bound to be someone like that.

Liam’s in England. Even if he hasn’t called me just to chat or whatever, I’m sure he’d let me know if he were going to be in Brooklyn.

Right?

“Sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew,” I say, shaking my head.

“Want to go say hi? Fine with me, I’ll just steal your fries,” he offers.

I laugh, shaking my head.

“It’s not him, I was wrong,” I say. “What did you want to know about the spinster?”