Summer Fridays

Chapter 12

FRIDAY, JULY 9

Sawyer sat on a bench facing the glittering harbor, her back to the round, rosy brick fort that was Castle Clinton. The air felt thick and smelled metallic—a little bit the way it had before the thunderstorm, only more intense, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

She’d only been to Battery Park once since moving to New York, on a cold winter day. She hadn’t imagined how different Battery Park could be in summer, and it hadn’t really occurred to her to go back for a second visit. It was so far from the Upper West Side, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan, an outer fringe even by downtown standards. Sometimes, subconsciously, Sawyer almost pictured New York falling off the map after Wall Street, like an old medieval belief about the ocean suddenly cascading off the edge of a flat Earth.

Now, as she observed the scene, she spotted joggers, couples strolling hand-in-hand, tourists and families, skateboarders and Rollerbladers, and what looked like stockbrokers yelling into their cellular phones. A group of delighted, squealing children took turns filling up paper cups and plastic bottles at a nearby water fountain and splashed one another, playing a makeshift game of tag. They chased one another, screamed, and ran away laughing, repeating the process until they were absolutely soaked, their shirts and shorts a heavy, soggy mess on their twiggy bodies. Sawyer smiled, remembering the fun of water balloon fights as a kid.

Somewhere even farther in the distance behind her—perhaps from one of the old historic churches bizarrely nestled among the modern skyscrapers—a clock tower bell sounded the hour. She counted the chimes out of habit.

Three o’clock.

Then, right on cue, she recognized a figure cutting toward her from the waterfront esplanade. He was dressed casually—as was she. They had turned back into the two twenty-somethings who had met up at the Watering Hole two Fridays ago.

She stood as Nick approached.

“Hey,” she called in greeting.

He was carrying a backpack and what looked like a portable ice chest. They nodded hello.

“I had some errands to run,” he said.

She couldn’t tell if he was apologizing.

“You’re not late,” she said, just in case. “It’s just now three o’clock, almost on the dot.”

“Good,” he said. “That works out perfect for my plan.”

“Plan?” Sawyer echoed.

Nick turned on his heel. “Follow me,” he called over his shoulder.

Sawyer tried to keep up with Nick’s long, fast strides, peppering him with questions as he led the way back along the esplanade. Eventually, he headed to a big ferry terminal. Giant letters curving in a semi-arc above the exterior of the terminal read “STATEN ISLAND.”

“We’re going to Staten Island?” she asked, blinking in bewilderment.

“Yes and no,” Nick answered.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re traveling in that direction; I don’t recommend getting off the boat there,” he quipped.

Sawyer’s brow furrowed, but he only smirked.

“C’mon,” he said. “Hurry up! We want to get a nice seat in first class.”

“First class?”

“That’s a joke. But we do want to find a good spot on the ferry. Let’s go.”

Again, Nick led the way and Sawyer followed. He moved swiftly through the terminal and up the escalators, taking the already moving stairs two at a time. They joined a herd of people waiting in front of a set of closed doors for the ferry that had just arrived to finish deboarding its passengers. Then the doors opened, and Nick and Sawyer fell into step as the group shuffled forward to board.

“Don’t we need tickets or something?” Sawyer asked, as they made their way onto the ship.

Nick laughed. “It’s free.” He looked at her and grinned. “Which makes it perfect for our purposes.” They neared a stairway and he gestured to it. “Up here. We want the promenade deck, right side.”

Sawyer followed him up a stairwell that smelled like diesel and spilled black coffee. They reached the top deck, a large fluorescent-lit room filled with rows and rows of orange plastic seats that somewhat resembled the ones on the subway. Nick veered right and pushed through a windowed metal door that led out onto a narrow open-air promenade. Orange benches lined the side of the ship, facing out to the water.

Nick walked out and then stopped in front of one of the benches. He dusted it off with a paper napkin, and flourished his arm.

Sawyer sat.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“You said you wanted to visit Lady Liberty,” he replied. “This is the way we locals wave hello to her, free of charge.”

He sat down next to her. Sawyer stared at him as a shy smile spread over her face. She wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“I’ll even be your tour guide,” Nick said. He wiggled his backpack off his shoulder, unzipped it, and reached inside to produce a large brown paper bag.

“What’s that?”

“A sampling of the local cuisine to complement our tour.” He opened the bag and tipped it in her direction to reveal a cardboard carrier containing several hot dogs with various toppings. “Gray’s Papaya,” he said.

“I’ve actually never had Gray’s,” Sawyer admitted.

Nick gave her a scornful look.

“Today we right that wrong,” he said. “We’ll commence meal service in just a moment.” He raised a finger in the air. “Marvelous cruise director that I am, I came equipped with liquid refreshments as well.”

He bent over and cracked open the cooler. Inside were several plastic cups with lids and straws, each filled with what appeared to be lemonade slushy. He lifted one of the cups out and handed it to Sawyer. He grinned and reached into the backpack again to produce one of those miniature bottles of vodka Sawyer had only ever encountered on airplanes and in hotel mini-fridges.

“To be added at your discretion,” he said, handing her the mini-vodka. He showed her the inside of his backpack, where a few more tiny bottles clinked around in the front pouch. Sawyer suppressed a giggle. Then he reached into the cooler and grabbed a second slushy for himself.

Once their lemonade slushies were properly spiked, Nick knocked his plastic cup against hers.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

The ferry gave a shudder and groan as it dislodged itself from the dock and prepared to depart. Sawyer watched the horizon and realized they’d begun to move. She stood and peered over the railing as the ferry navigated between the wooden pylons.

Nick came and stood beside her.

Together, they sipped their slushies and watched as the ferry pushed farther and farther into the bay. Eventually, the skyscraper-studded downtown tip of Manhattan receded, shrinking a little as the ferry left it behind.

Sawyer turned to look at Nick.

“This is definitely something new. Something I never guessed I’d be doing today.”

“Wait until you try the dogs,” Nick joked. “Actually, let’s not wait. Not for nothing, but they don’t call them ‘cold dogs.’ You hungry?”

Sawyer nodded and smiled. Nick retrieved two hot dogs and brought them over to the railing.

He held them out. “Mustard purist or the works?”

Sawyer thought for a second. “I’m not sure.”

He grinned. “Here, start with this and we’ll swap.” He handed her the hot dog with mustard.

With the slushy gripped in one hand, Sawyer held the hot dog in the other and leaned her head sideways to take a bite. She hadn’t had a hot dog in years, perhaps not since the days of running through sprinklers. She was surprised by how it all came back to her instantly—the softness of the bun, the saltiness of the meat, the tang of the mustard.

“It tastes like summer,” she said, attempting to lick a stray dollop of mustard from the corner of her mouth.

Nick smiled. “It’s almost like you’re a poet or something.”

They continued to eat, and the ferry continued to putter across the bay. In between bites, Nick pointed.

“So, here we have the famous Ellis Island,” he said.

Sawyer squinted at the buildings—brick and stone, with two tall towers capped with domes framing the main facade.

“It kind of looks like an amusement park.”

“Trust me—it wasn’t,” Nick retorted. “Some pretty serious stories of hardship and hope tied to that island.”

Sawyer nodded. She thought back to the Tenement Museum they’d visited.

“Actually, those aren’t the original buildings. There was a completely different set of original buildings—they were equally impressive…but they were made of wood. And. Well. You know…”

“Burned down in a fire?”

Nick nodded. “My mother said that always surprised her—all the houses made out of wood here, especially in the suburbs. She said growing up in the Soviet Union, it was all concrete and cinder blocks where she lived. Wooden houses were for old Russian fairy tales.”

Sawyer reflected, mulling.

“Have you ever wanted to go there?”

“Sure. But growing up, I was always told that was impossible,” he said. “At least for me and my mom, given her political history. But it’s strange; there were times when I was super aware that she could never bring me back to where she came from, but other times I felt so completely that I have been there in my mind, I forget that I haven’t, even now.”

“Do you speak Russian?”

“Of course. My mom’s English is perfectly fine, but we always wind up speaking in Russian together.”

“Do you ever…dream in Russian?”

“I do.”

Sawyer was quiet. She watched Nick’s face, but he was staring out over the water, lost in thought.

“To you, those stories we heard at the Tenement Museum were interesting,” Nick said, nodding in approval. “To me, those stories are…I don’t know—familiar. I can feel the yearning in them; my mom’s yearning to be here in America, mixed with her yearning for home.”

Finally, he shook himself and turned to her.

“Here,” he said, holding out half a hot dog and gesturing to the half a hot dog in her hand. “Swap.”

They traded halves.

Sawyer struggled to wrangle the half hot dog she’d been given. In addition to mustard, “the works” included ketchup, onions, relish, and sauerkraut. As she bit into it, she received the same salt and tang, but now vinegar and sweetness also filled her mouth.

“And there, to the left of Ellis Island”—Nick pointed—“we’re coming into prime view of Liberty Island. Before the French gifted us the Statue of Liberty, the island was home to a star-shaped fort whose pointed walls now make up the base. The fort was named—ironically enough—Fort Wood. No relation to the carbon-based building material.”

“This is a good tour,” Sawyer teased.

He narrowed his eyes at her playfully as though cautioning her not to insult the tour guide. “Hey—if I thought you’d allow me to swoop in and pay for us both to go on the Statue Cruise tour of Ellis Island and Liberty Island, I would have sprung for it.”

“I wouldn’t have let you pay,” Sawyer conceded.

“That’s what I thought. And here we are.” He winked. “You said you wanted cheap, and you get what you pay for.”

“I guess I’m a cheap date, then, because I’m having a good time.”

Nick let his eyes linger on Sawyer’s face for a long minute.

“I am, too.”

The ferry was passing in front of Liberty Island now. Sawyer turned to look at the statue, taking it in.

“It’s hard to imagine her not green. But she must have been,” Sawyer said.

“Like a penny,” Nick agreed. “She must have been a little bit blinding under certain angles of the sun before the oxidation set in.”

Sawyer moved to take another bite of her hot dog, but “the works” were getting messier by the minute. As she bit into the dog, a mound of sauerkraut gave way, and a mixture of ketchup, mustard, and relish went sliding down her chin. She let out a muffled yelp. Nick laughed and dashed to his backpack to retrieve some napkins.

“Hang on!”

The next second he was at her side, still laughing, but valiantly saving her shirt by pressing a wad of napkins to her chin. Sawyer chuckled, embarrassed, as he wiped the condiments away.

“It got away from me.”

“Why do you think I gave you the one with the works second?”

“So, you masterminded my humiliation.”

“Hardly! I thought you could practice on the mustard-only one. There are levels of expertise when it comes to eating these, you know; you don’t just go pro overnight.”

Nick smoothed one last speckle of mustard off her chin with his bare thumb. He caught her gaze again. Sawyer suddenly felt self-conscious; she could feel herself grinning at him like a maniac, but couldn’t help it. His eyes continued to linger.

But in the next second, they were startled by a rustle of feathers.

Nick instinctively hunched his shoulders against the flap of air and spun around. When he saw it was simply a gull, he nodded hello to it. The seagull only tilted his head, getting a better look at Nick with his flat, round, dinosaur eye.

Nick tore off a bit of hot dog bun and held it out.

The seagull tilted his eye this way and that way at the bread, then accepted the offering. For a seagull, the way he took the bread out of Nick’s hand struck Sawyer as oddly polite.

“You made a friend.” She laughed.

Nick tore off one last piece of bun, fed it to the gull, and then ate the last of his hot dog. The seagull tilted his head at them both, then perfunctorily flapped away.

“Alas, a fair-feather friend,” Sawyer joked.

“Nah,” Nick disagreed. “Did you see that look in his eye? The love was real.”

She laughed again.

He pointed to her empty cup.

“Refill? Try another dog?”

When the ferry reached Staten Island, it docked in the terminal in St. George and the passengers disembarked.

But Sawyer and Nick simply stayed put. A ferry worker came around to usher people off the boat, but Nick only smiled and slapped the guy high five.

“Heyyyy, Carlo!” Nick greeted him.

“How’s it hangin’, Nick?”

“Good. You hungry?”

“Always.”

Nick pulled one of the hot dogs out of the bag and Carlo accepted it with a smirk.

“You two stayin’ on?” Carlo asked, ignoring the fact that it was his job to make them leave.

“We’re, you know…sorta on a cruise to nowhere,” Nick answered, nodding.

“All right,” Carlo said, laughing. “The Love Boat it ain’t, but you two enjoy the lido deck, eh?”

He left them alone and carried on, munching on the hot dog.

The ferry went back to Manhattan.

And back to Staten Island.

And back to Manhattan.

And back to Staten Island.

Sawyer lost count of the number of times they rode the ferry back and forth. By the second time she saw the Statue of Liberty, she’d started to feel a little buzz from both the lemonade slushy and the nonstop conversation that seemed to pour out of the two of them as the ferry puttered along. The afternoon slipped away steadily and quickly, and before she knew it, the sun sank low in the sky, lighting up several stray sprays of idling summer clouds with orange, red, and purple, making for a brilliant and vivid sunset.

“Just so you know,” Nick said, nodding to the sunset. “Not every tour gets one of these for a finale.”

They got up from the bench and stood side by side at the railing again, watching the sun slowly sink over New Jersey. Golden shimmers danced on the water like sequins on a dress. It was a surreal sunset. The kind of striking natural scene that had always left Sawyer, as a kid, scrambling for her little plastic Kodak camera—only to be disappointed when the prints came back, proving that there were some things that film simply can’t capture.

It was also a romantic sunset.

Sawyer stole a glance at Nick, charmed. She felt a strange prickle of guilt, and settled her gaze on the middle distance over the water. Her thoughts turned back to Charles.

And then to Charles and Kendra.

“Maybe they’re not having an affair,” she said.

Nick turned and gazed at her.

Sawyer gave a shrug. “Maybe they’re not.”

Nick’s eyes flicked back to the sunset. “If that would make you happy, I hope it turns out to be true.”

Sawyer mulled for a moment.

“Do you ever think about just asking her, point-blank?”

Nick grunted. “I recommend that if you ask a question like that, just make sure you’re really, truly ready to hear the answer.”

Sawyer pictured herself point-blanking Charles, and him confirming that her worst suspicions were true. She winced.

When she glanced over at Nick and saw the expression on his face, she realized he didn’t have to picture it.

“That happened to you,” she said to Nick in a revelatory voice. “With someone before Kendra.”

He nodded stiffly.

“Was it serious?”

“We lived together.” He shrugged. “I had a ring. I hadn’t given it to her yet, but I had a ring.”

“Wow—you?” Sawyer uttered, before she could stop herself. The vodka had definitely loosened her tongue.

Nick raised an eyebrow at her.

“It’s…just…at the Yale Club, you gave me such a hard time about being engaged.”

He shrugged. “And now you know why. In my case, I would have been a fool to actually propose.”

Sawyer was quiet again as she thought this over.

“And you found out there was someone else by simply asking her?”

Nick nodded again. “I’d been having this weird feeling. But there was no real reason for it; I thought I was just being nuts. I thought it would be an easy thing to put to bed, and then we could move on. We were making breakfast. I asked her if there was someone else, and she just looked at me and said yes.”

He gave a bitter snort.

“It’s funny, because I’d kind of pictured proposing to go more or less the same way. Breakfast. A simple question. A totally frank, whole-hearted answer.”

“Nick…I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “Nah. It’s not a sob story. I’m just saying, in my experience, if you ask that question, you have to be ready for the answer. Because there’s not much to do after getting an answer like the one she gave me that day—except pack and move out.”

“Do you really think that?” Sawyer asked, sincere. “Do you think there’s really nothing to do but pack up and go? What if the person said they still loved you, and wanted to find a way to get through it, and work it out?”

Nick shook his head. “Not realistic,” he decreed. “At least, not for dudes.”

Sawyer sighed and rolled her eyes. “We’re back to that again?”

“No. Let’s skip the gender debate. I’ll just say that’s how it was for me. But who knows—it could be different for you.”

Sawyer sensed that Nick had been vulnerable with her, and now she could feel his armor starting to go back up.

“Your second reason,” she blurted with sudden realization.

“Beg pardon?”

“You said there were two reasons you’d wanted to meet up that day at the Yale Club. The second reason was that you felt I was a ‘genuinely nice person.’?”

“Pretty sure my assessment was accurate.”

Sawyer gave him a sweet, close-lipped smile and shook her head at herself, wondering how she hadn’t connected the dots sooner.

“You were a genuinely nice, engaged—well, almost engaged—person once,” she said. “You initiated that meeting at the Yale Club because you don’t want the same thing to happen to me that happened to you.”

At this, Nick turned and looked at her again. His eyes were dark and penetrating.

After a beat, he shook it off and laughed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I was never a genuinely nice person.”

“Ah,” Sawyer replied, seeing he was intent on deflection. There was nothing to do but join in. “That’s right. I see the flaw in my logic there.”

They chuckled together. After a few seconds, Nick grew quiet. He looked almost sad.

His eyes dropped to her hand resting on the rail between them, and to her ring.

“Your situation is different from mine,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t being flip that day at the Yale Club. Your situation is harder, trickier. And…I feel for you on that.”

He straightened up from where they were leaning over the railing, then cleared his throat.

“Look, there are plenty of reasons for me to be critical of the guy, and I don’t really want to have an opinion about him, period. But I can tell you one thing,” he said. “He’d be a fool to ever make someone like you feel second-best. I hope you know that’s true.”

Sawyer felt his eyes on her and met his gaze. It was a nice thing to say, the kind of generally nice thing you might say as a pep talk.

But Sawyer knew: Nick didn’t do “generally nice,” and he didn’t do pep talks.

They stared at each other for a long moment, unblinking. His eyes moved to her mouth. Sawyer felt her pulse quicken and the warmth of her blood rushing to her cheeks. A chill ran down her spine. They were standing so close. She could feel his breath on her skin.

The air between them thickened…

Until an abrupt splatter of white paint broke the trance.

Sawyer blinked at Nick’s shirt in surprise and realized it wasn’t white paint at all.

“Oh no!” she cried, already fighting off a laugh.

“What the—?” Nick muttered, twisting and straining to see the full extent of where the seagull poop had landed on his shirt.

Sawyer couldn’t help it; she was laughing uncontrollably. “I hope that wasn’t your friend!”

“?‘Fair-feather friend,’ indeed,” Nick said, continuing to mutter obscenities.

By now the sunset was slowly extinguishing itself in a spectrum of light and dark purples, and the ferry was pulling back into Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan.

“All right, all right,” Nick announced, calling it. “Tour’s over.”

He started packing up their makeshift picnic. Sawyer helped by rounding up and disposing of their trash. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Nick making sporadic attempts to wipe his shirt clean with a napkin. He seemed genuinely grossed out. She’d noticed the T-shirt earlier. It looked well-worn to the point of being thin and soft, with Nirvana’s band logo on the front and a concert date and location on the back—and likely irreplaceable.

“Hey. Do you like that shirt?” Sawyer asked innocently, as they made their way down the stairs of the ferry.

“I did.”

“I know how to get the stain out.”

“Burn it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’ll show you how.”

They trekked from Battery Park to Nick’s apartment, which turned out to be an old brick walk-up in Alphabet City.

“What?” Nick prompted, catching the expression on Sawyer’s face as he unlocked three different dead bolts on his front door.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed that he’d learned how to read her so well, then admitted, “For some reason, I didn’t picture you living in a walk-up.”

“What did you picture?”

“I don’t know. You’re a little like two different people. There’s the guy who plays in a band and frequents the Watering Hole and Gray’s Papaya…and then there’s the junior advertising exec in the expensive suit I met that first night at the Wexler Gibbons dinner who refers to women as ‘chicks’ and belongs to the Yale Club.”

She paused, then concluded, “I guess I pictured you living in a high-rise. One with a gym, and a doorman who you do that cool money-handshake with to tip, and who does you favors and calls you ‘Nicky.’?”

“I see.” Nick nodded. “You were picturing ‘slick bachelor.’ But instead, you wound up with ‘scary bachelor.’?”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

He waved her off, chuckling.

“No avuncular doorman or sad little gym that never gets used, but the roaches are on their best behavior, and I can promise you I have the dignity to never let the bathroom run out of toilet paper,” he joked. “The ladies don’t seem to like that.” Then he pushed open the door, and gestured for her to step inside.

Once within, Nick threw his backpack and the cooler on the floor. He went to the bathroom to take off his shirt and wash his neck and chest. She heard him frantically scrubbing with a washcloth.

Sawyer stood awkwardly glancing around. The building itself was probably as old as the tenement they had toured a couple of weeks ago. The fixtures in Nick’s apartment were impressively old—push-button light switches, a tall rectangular cabinet that no doubt had once contained an ironing board, and an enormous built-in bookcase that had likely housed a Murphy bed at one time. The space itself was reasonably large (not like the tiny apartments they’d seen in the Tenement Museum), but the layout was open in such a way that made it more like a giant studio than a one-bedroom.

Sawyer was impressed by how clean and cozy it was. Nick had artistic taste. The hardwood was covered in richly patterned loomed rugs in every shade of red, maroon, and burgundy. Vintage rock ’n’ roll posters in black and white hung on the walls. Bob Dylan. Mick Jagger. The Doors. The sofa was covered and neatly tucked with a throw blanket with a pretty yet masculine Slavic flower design. A black leather Eames chair and matching ottoman were happily nestled into a corner beside the enormous built-in bookcase. Sawyer didn’t see a television anywhere, but she did see a vintage record player and an enormous stereo flanked by two speakers.

The place was eclectic, bohemian; he’d managed to make the building’s ancient fixtures look stylish and cool.

Nick emerged from the bathroom and ducked into the bedroom, a room that was uselessly divided from the rest of the apartment by two glass-paned French doors that would likely bump into furniture if anyone ever tried to close them.

In the kitchen, Sawyer spotted an old claw-foot tub.

“Wow!” she exclaimed, crossing the room to admire it. “I’ve always heard about old New York apartments having bathtubs in the kitchen, but I’ve never actually seen one.”

“I know,” Nick called from the bedroom. Sawyer could see a sliver of his shape from the kitchen as he hunted around for a new T-shirt. “People always think it’s weird.”

“I don’t,” Sawyer called back. “I think it’s cool.”

He came out wearing a fresh shirt and joined her next to the tub.

“People always ask if I actually take baths in there.”

“And what do you say?”

“No, I don’t take baths in my kitchen! That would be weird.”

Sawyer slowly surveyed the books and candles on the ledges and shelves near the bathtub. Nick caught her taking stock, and they locked eyes. Sawyer smirked.

“And do you secretly take baths in your kitchen?”

“Of course. That tub is my favorite part of this place.”

He lifted off the wooden board that turned the top of the tub into a makeshift countertop and reached for one of the taps.

“See?” he said. “Everything works. Hot. Cold. And the porcelain has even been refinished.”

“The owner of the building refinished the porcelain?” She frowned, surprised. “I get why the tub’s probably too expensive to remove, but I wouldn’t think he would want tenants to actually use it.”

“OK, well, maybe I sprung to have it refinished,” Nick said. He laughed, sheepish. “Geez. I can’t get anything by you.”

Sawyer laughed. “Somehow…I feel like you’re not really trying to get anything by me.”

“You’re right,” Nick said. “With you, I’m just…not.”

They caught each other’s gaze again. Sawyer felt that same sudden uptick in her heartbeat that she had felt on the ferry. This time, her skin prickled hot and cold at the same time, and she felt a vein in her throat pulsing. She fidgeted and looked down at the floor, then caught sight of the shirt in Nick’s hand.

“Your shirt!” she said, remembering. “We really only need two things to get the stain out. Liquid dish soap, and vinegar.”

Nick rummaged around in his kitchen and produced a bottle of each.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“Nah.”

She set about scrubbing before he could stop her.

“It’s easy—look! It’s done.” She gave the shirt one last serious scrub and rinsed it in the kitchen sink. She gently wrung it out. “Now it just needs to dry. And then you can run it with the rest of your laundry.”

“And after I wash it twenty or thirty times, I’ll be ready to wear it again,” Nick joked.

“Hey,” Sawyer warned. “In plenty of countries, being pooped on by a bird is considered good luck!”

“You’re warning me not to…wash all of the ‘luck’ away?”

“No. Definitely wash it.”

He laughed, then waited, sensing there was something she wanted to say.

“Today felt like a lucky day—poop or no poop,” Sawyer admitted. “To me, at least.”

Nick looked at her. “Me, too, I guess.”

An awkward moment of silence settled between them.

A flickering worry unexpectedly popped into Sawyer’s head: she didn’t want the day to end. She felt Nick staring at her, reading her expression, and blushed.

He grinned. “There’s a diner around the corner that serves the best egg creams and banana splits on the entire East Coast.”

“What’s an egg cream?” Sawyer asked.

“Ugh—are you kidding me? Now we’re definitely going.”

As Sawyer soon discovered, “egg creams” had nothing whatsoever to do with actual eggs.

She took a sip and wrinkled her nose at the unexpected carbonation.

“So, basically…it’s a fizzy Yoo-hoo,” she decided.

“OK, first of all: you say that like you’re not impressed,” Nick argued defensively. “And second of all: What do you expect? You ordered chocolate.”

“You said chocolate is the best!”

“It is the best. Every soda jerk will tell you, chocolate is the best.”

“You’re a soda jerk,” Sawyer joked, rolling her eyes. “This whole conversation is getting to be a soda circle-jerk.”

Nick’s eyes went wide with surprise at the unexpected crudeness. He laughed, mid-sip, and almost snorted soda out his nose.

When the banana split came, they devoured it before the ice cream had a chance to melt, their long-handled silver spoons flashing under the diner lights as they dueled, carving away greedy shovelfuls.

“Between the pastrami and the hot dogs and this…I have now gathered enough evidence to officially say: you and I both eat like a couple of animals,” Sawyer observed, licking at a stray dollop of whipped cream in the corner of her mouth.

“Humans are animals,” Nick pointed out.

“I suppose.”

“It’s a shame.”

“Really? I wouldn’t think you cared about manners.”

“I don’t,” Nick confirmed. “I’m interested in the moment lasting longer when I’m having a good time.”

Sawyer blinked at him. He shrugged.

So, he had read her mind, and he didn’t want the day to end, either.

Her ears felt hot as she looked down shyly and spooned up another bite of sundae.

After leaving the diner, they took a leisurely walk together, meandering steadily west, so Sawyer could catch an uptown train.

She loved Greenwich Village at night, the old brownstones, the narrow streets, the people eating in the sidewalk cafés, the occasional fire escape lit up with a string of Christmas lights regardless of the season.

Eventually, they reached the subway entrance at Christopher Street. They stopped and turned to face each other.

“So.”

“So.”

Sawyer suddenly felt nervous, followed by a wave of embarrassment to find herself so jittery. She shoved it aside, and moved to hug him goodbye.

To her surprise, Nick jumped back.

“Are you sure you want to hug me?” he joked. “I got pooped on by a seagull today.”

She shot him a squinty look for tricking her.

“Good point,” she played along, and turned to go.

“Wait!”

She felt him grab her hand. She spun back and froze. His touch had sent a surprising tremor of electricity through her.

They looked at each other.

Nick’s eyes went down to where he still had hold of her hand. He let it drop, as though it had made him nervous, too.

In the next second, he regained his cool attitude. “But you know…I did change my shirt,” he continued the joke. “You’re probably safe.”

“I don’t know…” Sawyer continued to play along. “Doesn’t sound like much of a guarantee. But I guess I’ll take my chances.”

They exchanged a quick hug, now made less awkward by Nick’s joking. Still…it was hard to ignore the way her heart sped up, the way her temples and neck felt the tingling chill of nervous perspiration.

“Thank you for today.”

“Yeah…ditto,” Nick replied.

“Ditto” reminded Sawyer of the line from Ghost. She laughed aloud.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Well, then…see ya, I guess.”

“Yeah. See ya. Thanks again,” she said.

“Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”

She smiled and turned to go down the subway stairs, a hot gust of air coming up from the tunnel and the sounds of train brakes squealing.

A few minutes later, Sawyer stood holding the metal pole on a 1 train as it rocked its way uptown.

As the 1 hurtled along, carrying Sawyer closer and closer to her stop, she closed her eyes and—for the briefest of moments—recalled the feeling of Nick reaching for her hand and enclosing it in his firm grasp…that strange jolt of electricity.

What was that?

She felt the ghost of it again and shivered, opening her eyes to see if anyone on the train was looking.