Chapter 18 #3
I nod, my throat a little tight. “Probably, yeah.”
“And she’ll help me with my Halloween costume next year? I want to be a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish.”
“I’d say the odds of a jellyfish collaboration are extremely high.”
Emma considers the logistics of a bioluminescent future for a beat, then whispers back, “Okay. She can stay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I like Annie a lot.”
I whisper back—at a volume I know for a fact Annie can hear— “Me too. A lot, a lot.”
I stand back up, and Emma immediately pivots, lunging for Annie’s sleeve. “My dad says he likes you a lot!” she bellows in a stage-whisper that carries all the way to the Sheep Meadow. Then, she lets out a shrill, delighted cackle and skips ahead.
“Traitor!” I call out, but it’s half-hearted—her laugh’s too infectious, a pure, belly-deep peal that echoes off the trees.
Annie turns to me, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “So, word on the street is you like me a lot?”
“Blame the five-year-old. Loose lips sink ships.”
“Wonder who she inherited that from.”
“Her mom, obviously. I’m the poster child of restraint.”
Annie snorts, that unladylike burst that always catches me off guard in the best way. “For the record, I like you back. A smidge.”
“A smidge? That’s it?”
“Fine, a moderate amount.”
“Moderately. Wow, high praise.”
“Only on good days,” she adds, her eyes dancing.
“This is a good day.”
She tilts her head, the wind teasing a strand of hair across her face. “Top-tier, I’d say.”
I lean down, pressing a kiss to her forehead—slow, lingering, breathing in that faint citrus from her shampoo—and when I pull back, her eyes have gone all soft, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks, making my ribcage feel a size too small.
She glances down at our intertwined hands, the warmth of her palm seeping into mine, then nods toward Emma, who’s now negotiating with a squirrel for a photo op. “You think this won’t freak her out? Us, like this?”
I shrug, watching Emma’s chaotic joy. “Maybe for a bit. But she’s resilient. She’s like a tiny, human rubber ball—she bounces back pretty quick.”
Annie bumps my shoulder with hers, a gentle nudge that sends a spark up my arm. “Apple doesn’t fall far. You’re pretty resilient yourself.”
“Please. You’re one to talk. You’re the girl who traded fame and fortune for the gritty charm of the subway and living among us mere peasants.”
Annie bursts out laughing. “Peasants? Really, Leo?”
“Well, we’re regular folk. Commoners. We buy our coffee in cardboard cups. No silver spoons in sight.”
“You are a Columbia professor,” she points out, deadpan.
“A struggling Columbia professor. There’s a distinct lack of ivory towers in my life.”
“You are not struggling, Leo. Your apartment is ten times nicer than most, and you have a doorman.”
“I have Stanley. Stanley is seventy-four and works three days a week. Most of the time he’s asleep in the lobby.”
She shakes her head, grinning. “Still counts as a luxury amenity.”
Emma barrels back then, cheeks flushed, out of breath from her wildlife photoshoot. “Sal’s is just up there! Hurry!” She latches onto Annie’s free hand, yanking us forward with surprising force for such a small human.
Sal’s pretzel cart hunkers on the corner like it’s grown roots into the sidewalk.
The thing’s a warhorse—dented metal sides scarred from decades of bumps and scrapes, the red-and-white awning sagging under patches of duct tape and faded fabric that probably started life as a beach umbrella.
A hand-scrawled sign proclaims “SAL’S PRETZELS - BEST IN NYC SINCE 1967,” with a no-nonsense “CASH ONLY!!!” tacked below.
The air around the cart is thick enough to chew. It’s an intoxicating, yeasty perfume of hot dough and coarse sea salt that signals a universal truth: you are about to spend three dollars on a concentrated hit of gluten, and you are going to be a better person for it.
Sal’s behind the cart, a burly fixture in his own right—sixties, I’d guess, with a gut that strains his grease-spotted white tee and an apron that’s more stain than cloth.
His hair’s an improbable jet black, the sort that screams Just For Men from a mile away, and he’s got a glorious, walrus-thick handlebar mustache that curls at the ends.
His cheeks are flushed, ruddy from years outdoors, and when he spots the girls, his face cracks open into a grin that could power the Chrysler Building.
“There’s my girl!” he booms, his voice a gravelly baritone that cuts right through the taxi horns. “How’s the most important customer in the five boroughs?”
“I’m good!” Emma shouts. “We saw the polar bears and the Mayor of the Pond and I took a million pictures with my camera!”
“A million?” Sal chuckles, a deep, tectonic rumble. “You’re gonna put the paparazzi out of work, piccola.”
His eyes drift to mine, and the professional warmth shifts into something sharper, more observant. He extends a hand that feels like a warm, floured catcher’s mitt. “Salvatore DiGiovanni. But you call me Sal, or I don’t feed you.”
I shake it, feeling the solid weight of his grip. “Leo Roussos. I’m the one who pays for the film.”
“Ah! The Legend!” Sal beams. “I hear about you every week. ‘My dad is a doctor of brains,’ ‘My dad likes boring music.’ You’re a regular celebrity on this corner.”
“I see my reputation precedes me,” I say, glancing at Annie, who is leaning against the metal cart with the practiced ease of someone who belongs in this neighborhood.
“Sal, I want the usual, please,” Emma says, straining on her tiptoes.
“Extra salt and a side of mustard?” Sal asks.
“Yes!”
“You got it. And for the lady?”
Annie props an elbow on the cart’s edge. “Make it two, Sal.”
“Two? Stealin’ her thunder now?” He arches a bushy brow, but he’s already reaching for the warmer.
“What can I say? She’s got impeccable taste.”
“Wise choice,” Sal says, pulling the golden-brown knots from the warmer. He looks at me, tongs poised. “What about you, Professor? Jumpin’ on the bandwagon, or got your own twist?”
“When in Rome,” I say.
“Smart man.” He wraps them in wax paper with the speed of a card dealer.
“I’ve been on this corner almost thirty years.
Rain, shine, blizzards—you name it. I can spot a first-timer a mile off.
” He winks, a conspiratorial crinkle of his eyes.
“But I can tell you right now, it’s the best thing you’ll put in your mouth all year. ”
Annie laughs, catching my eye. “He’s a modest man, Leo. Can’t you tell?”
“Hey, I don’t bluff.” He passes Emma hers with a bow. “For you, bella—extra everything.”
I reach for my wallet, but Sal holds up a massive hand, stopping me mid-motion. “Emma’s is on the house. She brings a certain je ne sais quoi to the sidewalk. She’s my good luck charm.”
“Sal, you really don’t—”
“I really do.” He high-fives Emma, his palm completely engulfing hers. “Keep taking those pictures, kid. The world needs proof that we’re having a good time.”
I pay for mine and Annie’s, and we start to meander toward the subway. The first bite is an epiphany—hot and chewy, with enough sodium to preserve a woolly mammoth. But Sal is no liar—this is a damn good pretzel.
Emma’s forging ahead with her pretzel in one fist, camera in the other, her steps a haphazard skip that dodges cracks like it’s a game. The sun’s dipping now, painting the park in that fleeting November gold, turning bare branches into glowing silhouettes and softening the edges of the city.
From here, the skyline unfurls like a postcard—Manhattan’s jagged teeth biting into the sky.
The Twin Towers loom over it all like silent sentinels.
From this distance, they look like they were sketched onto the sky with a ruler and an ink pen, so tall they seem to be holding up the atmosphere itself.
I haven’t dwelled on them in ages, but the sight tugs something loose inside me, a thread of memory unraveling.
Mom and Dad used to haul me and Maria up to Windows on the World for birthdays as kids—a ritual extravagance, us scrubbed and starched, the elevator whooshing us to the 107th floor like a rocket.
The food was fancy gibberish—escargot? Foie gras?
—but it was the view that stuck: the city sprawled out like a living map, the rivers snaking through it, bridges threading it together.
My dad would point out the Greek neighborhoods, his voice thick with pride, while Maria dared me to press my nose to the glass and look straight down.
I’d chicken out every time, convinced the whole thing would tilt and spill us into the void.
Since the disaster with Rebecca, I’ve stayed in my own small radius.
I stopped going to the places that felt like “big life” moments, sticking to the safe, manageable corners of the city.
But staring at those towers now, that old ache stirs—not pain, exactly, but a quiet longing for the kid I was, wide-eyed and convinced the world was an endless adventure waiting to unfold.
By the time we shuffle through the door of my apartment, Emma’s a dead weight against my shoulder, her head bobbing with each step, mouth slack and a thin trail of drool soaking into my shirt.
She’s out cold, one arm flopped loose like a rag doll’s, the other still gripping her camera as if she conked out mid-snap.
The day’s caught up to her—the zoo, the ducks, the pretzel sugar crash—all of it hitting like a freight train.
“I can tuck her in,” Annie murmurs, her voice pitched low to match the dim hallway light, as I juggle keys and her limp form.
“You sure?” I ask, already feeling the ache in my back from hauling her the last few blocks.