“What’s the thing?” I asked, curious, but regretted it a second later when Stevie shot me a look.
“It’s really annoying, and it’s not even my fault! So my roommate left her wallet out on the counter, and when I was packing to go, I accidentally knocked it into my purse.” She shook her head. “And I told her that I could bring it back with me next week, but apparently she wants her credit cards and, like, needs her license to ‘get on a plane on Tuesday.’ ” Mallory made air quotes with one hand as she rolled her eyes. “So I was going to go home and get the later train and totally miss my welcome massage, but now I don’t have to!”
“Um,” I said, trying to follow all this. “And why is that?”
The (all-black) watch on her wrist lit up and she frowned at it for a second, before tapping it again and turning the screen back off. “God! My train’s in like ten minutes. Okay,” she said, like she was trying to get herself to focus. “If you guys wouldn’t mind running it back over to my apartment? You would help me out so, so, so much.” She smiled hopefully at us.
“Sorry,” Stevie said, shaking her head, her voice firm. “We’re seeing a show tonight, actually, so we can’t.” I smiled, glad to see that Stevie was as excited about the show as I was. I knew she would be—just that she might need a minute to get there.
“What time’s the show?” Mallory asked, not missing a beat, eyes locked with Stevie’s.
“Eight,” Stevie said with real reluctance. “But—”
“That’s perfect!” Mallory said, clapping her hands together. “Because I promise that it won’t take long, like fifteen to twenty, tops, and you’ll still have plenty of time before your show and you’d be helping me out so much.” She motioned for us to follow her over to the side, out of the way of people passing, where there was an optical shop that had closed for the night.
“I just…” Stevie’s voice trailed off.
“I know it’s in here.” Mallory dropped her duffel to the ground, and then started going through her enormous purse, handing things to Stevie as she searched for something in its depths. “So all you need to do is bring the wallet back to my apartment. And you can even do it after your show—my roommate is working tonight. She acts like working in the mayor’s office is so important, I swear.…”
“Well,” I said as Mallory piled an iPad, a planner, a scarf, and an oversized pair of headphones into Stevie’s arms, “isn’t it?”
But Mallory rolled right over me like I hadn’t spoken. “And apparently, they have to do the budget or something, so she’ll be working late. Aha!” She retrieved from the depths of her bag a small red leather wallet. Her phone beeped again and she groaned. “Okay, I’ve got like five minutes and I’m not going to have time to get a Starbucks apparently. God! Can you believe today? I cannot even. So here’s the wallet. Just drop it off on the kitchen counter, since that’s apparently where Flora thinks a great place to leave wallets is.” She took all the things she’d put into Stevie’s arms back and swept them into her purse. “My keys,” she said, holding them out to Stevie along with the wallet. Stevie took both with what looked like extreme reluctance. “I’ll text you my address—I have your number, right?” She pulled out her phone, scrolled through it, then nodded. “I do. Great.”
“How should I get the keys back to you?” Stevie asked, putting the wallet and keys in her clutch with a sigh.
“You can just leave them in the apartment—the door locks when you close it.”
Stevie widened her eyes at me, basically an eye roll that she was too polite to do in front of Mallory, and I could tell that she was getting very annoyed by this. “So do you live far?” I asked, trying to wrap this up.
“No, super close.” Mallory glanced at her watch again, then started to walk in the direction of the trains, and Stevie and I followed after her. “But I’ll give you cab fare.” She pulled out her own wallet as she walked and looked through it. “Ugh, all I have is a hundred. Well, it’s your thanks for helping me out,” she said, pulling out a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill and handing it to me. “Thank you so much!” She swooped down on Stevie and kissed her cheeks again. “You’re just the best. You’re saving my life!”
She’d only walked a few steps toward track twenty-one before she jogged back toward us. “Oh—Brad will be there, but just ignore him. He’s so spoiled it’s unbelievable. And he might cry when you leave, but don’t let it worry you. It’s all just for show.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, but Mallory was now running in her heels toward her train, duffel bumping against her hip.
“You’re the best! Thank you!” she called with a wave over her shoulder. Then she started running even faster—which was honestly impressive, in those shoes—and then a second later, disappeared.
Stevie and I looked at each other for a moment. “Okay, what just happened?” she asked.
“I know,” I said, starting to laugh. “She seemed… interesting.”
“Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
“But it is cool that we bumped into someone! I feel like that’s always happening in New York movies and shows but I never believed it was real.” I held up the hundred-dollar bill. “And we made some money off it too!”
Stevie laughed and shook her head. “Let’s just get this over with.” As if on cue, her phone beeped from inside her bag, and she pulled it out. “Mallory just texted her address,” she said. “Somewhere called Murray Hill? It’s on Thirty-Seventh Street, at any rate.”
“So that’s probably pretty close to the theater district,” I reasoned. “Since that’s around Forty-Second. We’re not going too far out of our way, and we’ll still have more than enough time before the play.”
“Great,” Stevie said, looking relieved. “Let’s get this done and then we can be back on track. Just let me figure out trains.”
“No need!” I said, flashing the hundred again, and then a second later, worrying that maybe I shouldn’t do that. “We’ve got cab fare!” I started to walk toward the nearest exit I saw, Stevie following behind me. I heaved open the heavy door, with its brass handle, then held it for her.
I stepped outside and there it was—New York. Horns were honking, crowds of pedestrians were surging forward into the intersection as they crossed against the light, and a man, his guitar case open, was singing an enthusiastic but off-key rendition of “Dancing in the Dark.” The light changed and blurs of yellow cabs sped forward, as all around us, crowds of people streamed past, scrolling through their phones, walking fast and frowning, talking to people they were with, or grooving along to the music only they could hear in their earbuds.
I looked up—at the sliver of sky you could see in between all the tall buildings, the way the whole world seemed to have been stretched higher than anyone had ever thought to make it back home.
It was cold out, with that damp bite in the air that had always, always meant snow—like a promise for later, if only you were patient. I zipped up my coat as I took it all in, the two police officers in blue on the corner, the flashing ads on top of the taxis, the bus stopping across the street and lowering itself with a hiss to let people on.