“Zion from Williamsburg.” Micah said that as though he were considering the title of a novel. “Nope. I can’t work with that at all. Surely he’s notfromWilliamsburg. Nobody’sfromWilliamsburg.”
“No. He’s from down South. Like me.” I’d already Googled the basic facts about Micah and knew his family lived somewhere in New Jersey, but for the sake of conversation, I asked, “And where are you from?”
He scrunched up his nose. “Sometimes I wish I could say I’d been born and raised in West Philadelphia.”
“Huh?”
“LikeThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?”
I stared at him blank. No clue.
He frowned at my silence. “It’s a TV show.”
“Oh, right. I didn’t watch that.”
His eyes opened wide. “How old are you?”
I snorted at the impertinence of the question. “I’m scandalized.”
The dimple in his cheek made an appearance when he laughed. “I mean, you must be a lot younger than me if you don’t rememberThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
I sat up to my full height as if that would make me look older. “I’m the same age as you.”
“Thirty-two?”
“I turned thirty-three in May.”
“Hmm.” He scratched his chin. “You’re older than me.”
“Only by a couple of months. You’ll be thirty-three in a few weeks.” My face flushed with the realization I’d basically admitted to stalking his online bio.
“You’ve done your homework.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “So how’d you miss out on a classic nineties sitcom?”
A memory stirred. I used to sneak out to my neighbor Kelsey Bennet’s house to gorge on ice cream and forbidden TV, before my diagnosis. “I do kind of remember that show, but I wasn’t allowed to watch sitcoms. Brain rotting.”
“What a sad childhood. We’ll have to make up for it sometime. You should come over, and we’ll marathon all the junk sitcoms and eat all the junk food.”
I appraised him to figure out if he was being serious. It would be embarrassing to say yes if he was only fooling. “Sounds fun.”
He clasped his hands in supplication, like he was praying. “Think about it. Crappy food and television. You totally want in, right?”
“Yeah?” I fiddled nervously with my camera lens.
“If it would entice you more, you could do a whole photo spread of me eating pizza and watching sitcoms in my boxers at home.”
And there it was. I cringed at how easily I’d let him convince me he was hitting on me. I’m not sure why he wanted to float pictures of himself being a regular guy. Maybe he’d talked to Hervé and found out what I’d said about that. But I drew the line at shooting pictures of guys in their underwear anyway.
I settled in my chair, trying to pretend I couldn’t feel the gravitational pull of the hot celestial being to my left. He leaned over and started to say something else, but a movement caught my attention. Two women had taken seats behind us, and one of them tapped Micah’s shoulder before they fell back, heads together, giggling. When Micah looked at them, they burst into full hysteria.
The one with short-cropped gray hair said, “I’m sorry. My girlfriend thought that was you.” She was still recovering. “She wanted me to ask you for an autograph.”
Micah had already turned around with a hand outstretched. “Hi. What are your names?”
“I’m Martha,” said the gray-haired woman. She had incredible skin. It made me wonder if she was prematurely gray or if she had great genes. I had no idea how old she was. “And this is my friend Lynn.” Lynn had long brown hair, tied back at either side of her face. They both wore loose yoga wraps over tighter T-shirts and jeans. Lynn had accessorized with dangly earrings.
“Do you have something for me to sign?” Micah waited, and both women knocked each other as though he were on display at a museum and couldn’t see them.
Martha looked at Lynn. “Do we have something he can sign?” Her face contorted like she was stifling another onslaught of hilarity. “Here. Can you sign my arm?” She held out a ballpoint pen.
