“It’s polite.”
“It’s pointless. And you’re trying to change the subject. Why don’t you want me to go to London anymore?”
“Of course I want you to go!” Miriam growls, stalking away.
I follow her to a coffee vendor, where she orders an iced lattefor herself and a cappuccino for me. While we sit and wait for our drinks on the curb, I poke her in the shoulder over and over until she snaps. “I just don’t want you to never come back.”
I stiffen. “What? Of course I’d come back.”
“You moved here, and you haven’t been home since that one Christmas when you acted super weird the whole time,” she reasons. “You’ve hardly left the city. Will that be any different when you hop the pond?” Miriam rakes her fingers through her hair. “You’ve got this, like, tunnel vision for your future, and I think it’s cool you want to move to London, I really do, don’t get me wrong. But I can’t be a thing in your rearview, Case. I still need you.” She stumbles over the last words.
I peer at my best friend, understanding so completely what she’s trying to say. “I needed you when I moved here,” I tell her. “When Lance and I broke up, he accused me of following you here. Making a decision that wasn’t truly mine.”
Miriam’s forehead wrinkles. “That’s dumb.”
“Yeah, but he was right,” I admit. “You were a safety net for a really big leap. The biggest of my whole life. But moving to London—because it’smyidea, because it’s the life experienceIwant for myself—it’s the only way to know what kind of pluckiness I’m made of.”
“Pluckiness,” Miriam repeats, smirking, and I groan.
One of the greatest loves of my life is a platinum blond, foul-mouthed short girl who once pushed Ronnie Wilson off a literal bridge and into a literal creek for making fun of my speech impediment on the fourth-grade trip to the Nature Conservancy. When we were sixteen, on the playground of our elementary school, we sat side by side on the swing set and shared one warm Miller Lite we stole from her older brother. Every year on Mother’s Day, her parents send my family flowers. I have done her taxes twice now.
I throw my arm over her shoulder and set my temple against hers. There’s a quaver in my voice when I say, “Look, the Nashvillething… that’s in a separate box from New York, okay? I promise you I’m not going to vanish into thin air. Through fire and water, remember? We’re tethered, and either of us can tug on the string if we need to.”
I feel her shoulder sag against mine. “Good, because I’m always going to need you, like, at leastmetaphoricallyaround. And you’re always going to need me to shove a needle up your ass when the restaurant fries your chicken in peanut oil.”
“Masey!” the coffee guy calls through the window of his truck. We stand up from the curb, and Miriam hands me my drink.
Our conversation makes me recall something we talked about years ago: “Hey, didn’t you want to do travel nursing at some point? What ever happened to that idea?”
Miriam blushes. “Brijesh. Happened.”
My lips pull up. “Remind me why you two aren’t just dating?”
“Because. I’m pretty sure he’s the one.”
“Explain that logic to me.”
“Bitch, I can’t even figure it out myself,” Miriam says. “I’ve told him not to wait around for me to stop being terrified of how much I like him—i.e., a fuckgirl—but he’s determined to smoke me out.”
“Sex is that good, huh?”
She punches me hard enough on the shoulder to bruise. Wincing, I turn away and rub at it. A spark of dark maroon catches my eye.
“Is that…”
“What?” Miriam asks.
I grin. “No way.”
“What?”She steps up beside me and tracks my line of sight. “Oh. That’s pretty.”
Sitting there, among perennials, roses, and tulips, is a potted planter of deep jewel-toned red chocolate cosmos flowers with petals like raindrops. The Mexican flower was nearly made extinct, but it’s been repopulated in recent years, though it’s still considered a rarity. I’ve only ever seen them in botanical gardens.
Themomentof this moment strikes me as something bigger than an overpriced flower in a Manhattan farmer’s market. I pull out my phone and snap a pic for Jerry. He replies seconds later:In New York City????
Casey:Right?
Jerry:You have to buy that.
