Robbie laughed. I watched Jack assess him the way he assessed everyone—quick, perceptive, filing away details. Thensomething in his shoulders relaxed, and I realized he’d decided Robbie was okay. The journalist had rendered his verdict.
Diane arrived in a rush of cold air and perfume, wearing her red Members Only jacket and a skirt that was, by her own standards, conservative. She kissed Robbie, pointed at Jack, and said, “So you’re the one who’s been making my best friend lose her mind for a year.”
“Guilty,” Jack said.
“Good. I’m Diane. I have opinions about you and I’ll share them later, but right now I want dumplings.”
She slid into the booth beside Robbie. “What are we drinking? Is that tea? I want tea. And beer. Both.”
We ordered too much food. That was Robbie’s doing—he knew the menu, knew the waitress by name, kept saying “oh, and you have to try the—” until the table was covered with dishes we couldn’t possibly finish. Pork dumplings that were perfect, scallion pancakes that shattered when you bit into them, something with eggplant and garlic that made Diane close her eyes and say a word that was not appropriate for public.
Jack was quiet at first, he always was, in groups. Watching. Taking notes the way journalists do, cataloging details he’d probably never use but couldn’t help collecting. But Robbie had a gift for drawing people out, and somewhere between the dumplings and the lo mein, he asked Jack about the Times job, and Jack started talking about New York the way he’d talked about it on the couch last night—younger, more open, lit up from inside.
“Brooklyn,” Robbie said, nodding. “My cousin lives in Park Slope. Says it’s the best neighborhood in the city if you like bookstores and arguing about politics.”
“That’s literally all I do,” Jack said, and Robbie laughed, and Diane caught my eye across the table and mouthedhe’s goodwith a tiny nod of approval.
I watched them trading stories about their neighborhoods growing up, Diane stealing dumplings off my plate with the practiced efficiency of a woman who’d been sharing food with me for years, the lazy susan turning slowly between us, carrying dishes back and forth. This was what I’d missed the first time. Not the career or the apartment or the corner office. This. People I loved, gathered around a table, talking about nothing important on a night that mattered.
“To Valentine’s Day,” Diane said, raising her teacup. “And to Maggie and Jack, who took approximately one hundred years to figure out what the rest of us already knew.”
“Which was?” Jack asked.
“That you’re perfect together.” She shrugged. “Obviously.”
We clinked teacups. The goldfish in the tank near the register regarded us with ancient indifference.
After dinner, Diane pushed back from the table and announced that she and Robbie were going dancing. “There’s a place on Lansdowne Street,” she said, pulling on her jacket. “Robbie promised me dancing and I’m collecting.”
“On Valentine’s Day?” I said. “It’ll be packed.”
“Good. More people to bump into.” She hugged me—quick, fierce, the kind of hug that said more than words. “Go home with your man. Be happy. And call me tomorrow with all the details.”
“Every single one.”
“Even the ones that would make our mothers blush.”
“Especiallythose.”
She laughed, and Robbie shook Jack’s hand and said “Take care of her” in a way that was friendly but not entirely joking, and then they were gone, out the door and into the night, Diane’s laugh trailing behind them like a song.
Jack held out my coat. I slipped my arms in, and he settled it on my shoulders, his hands lingering for a moment.
“I like them,” he said. “Robbie’s good.”
“He is.”
“And Diane is?—”
“A lot?”
“I was going to say exactly what you need.” He took my hand. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We walked home through the snow.
It had started falling while we were inside. Fat, soft flakes that drifted down through the streetlights and collected on parked cars and fire hydrants and the brims of Jack’s ears, which were turning red from the cold. The city was quieter now, the way cities get on snowy nights, the sound absorbed into all that white.
