I was walking faster than usual, picking up the rhythm of everyone around me. Since I was now alone, it was like I could take it all in a little more—the relentless thrum of the construction drills, the smoke rising up from the taped-off construction zones in the middle of the road. The cacophony of honking that soon became just like background noise, the distant wail of sirens a few streets over.
I had expected the next intersection to say Sixth Avenue, but instead, it said Madison. I hesitated for a moment, then crossed the street with everyone else as the light changed from the red hand to the white outlined figure of a guy. I knew that there were streets in Manhattan that weren’t numbered—and then when they were over, the numbers came back again. So I just had to get past these named streets and then I’d be back on track.
I stepped onto the curb just in time to avoid a Sea Food delivery guy on a bike zooming around the corner. Pedestrians and drivers yelled at him as one, then immediately moved on.
I passed by the façade of a grand-looking hotel, flags out front flapping in the breeze, black town cars idling at the curb, and then had to jump back when a car zoomed out of the attached parking garage and out onto the street. The guy next to me, AirPods in his ears, met my eye and shook his head and I rolled my eyes in solidarity, before we both walked on. But as I did so, it was with a secret bounce in my step. I’d just been taken for a New Yorker! Someone who’d also reached the end of their rope with these parking-lot car shenanigans. I quickly reached the next street—this one was Park. As I waited for the light to change—I didn’t yet feel confident to cross against the light unless there were also a lot of other people doing it—I looked up and my breath caught in my throat.
There was a stunning building ahead of me, silver and Art Deco and stretching high above the rest. My first thought was that it was the Empire State Building, but a moment later I realized that wasn’t right, and that I was looking at the Chrysler Building. Humming the line about it from Annie, I smiled as I crossed the street.
It wasn’t until I’d passed Lexington that I realized something was wrong. Not only had I not seen any sign of the theater district, but the buildings seemed to be getting smaller, not bigger. And when I reached the next intersection, and it said Third Avenue, I understood, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that I’d just walked three avenues in the wrong direction.
I sighed as I turned around, bitterly aware that this wouldn’t have happened if I’d had access to Google Maps like a civilized person. But because I didn’t—because Stevie had gone home and left me behind—I’d just wasted time going in the exact opposite direction, and now I needed to retrace my steps all over again.
I looked around, and when I saw MURRAY HILL BAGELS on an awning, I realized that I’d ended up back in Mallory’s neighborhood. I’d never even heard of Murray Hill an hour ago, and now I’d been here twice.
I rubbed my hands together as I started walking back where I’d just come from, feeling the cold seeping into them. I really needed to have prepared better for this. Gloves, scarf, maybe even earmuffs—a hat would truly mean the end of my waves. But I was only now realizing that when I’d been to the city in winter in the past, it had involved going from train to cab to restaurant to theater, then back again. My parents had always figured out which trains to take, and if it was far, they usually just decided to get a cab or an Uber. Or we’d drive into the city—we had certain garages we always used in the theater district, and my dad would duck out when the curtain call started, so that by the time we got to the car it was warmed up, seats heated and ready to go as we drove home across the bridge to Connecticut.
As I headed in what I now knew was the right way, I passed a fruit vendor on the corner—BANANAS 75 CENTS—and wished I hadn’t used all my change to call home. But just seeing the fruit was enough to make my stomach rumble, and I realized how hungry I was. I remembered there was a bodega I’d passed on this street, and suddenly a soda and a bag of chips sounded not just good but necessary. And surely they would take my hundred. Because at some point, it wasn’t even like your change would be so much that it would be a problem to take it. Like if I was buying eighty dollars’ worth of stuff, they wouldn’t have an issue with it then, right? I also wasn’t entirely sure it was possible to spend that much at a bodega—it wasn’t like it was a Target. But surely it would be okay.
* * *
“No hundreds,” the bored-looking guy behind the counter said. He looked like he was a few years older than me, maybe in college. He had been highlighting a textbook and only set down his highlighter with real reluctance when I’d approached with my armful of stuff.
“Oh,” I said, looking at what I’d set down—a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, Cool Ranch Doritos, peanut butter M&Ms, and a pack of gum. “Um, this is all I have,” I said, nudging the hundred a little closer to him. If I never saw Ben Franklin’s face again after tonight, I would honestly not be upset about it. “Can you make an exception?” I smiled at him, trying my best not to look like a counterfeiter.
“No. Hundreds,” he said more slowly this time, tapping on a paper underneath the glass counter: NO BILLS OVER $20 ACCEPTED.
“Right,” I said, nodding. I pulled the bill back, looking with real reluctance at my snacks. “Would it help if I bought more stuff?”
“How would that help?” the guy asked, and I took a breath to answer with my Target-change theory.
“Causing trouble?” I turned around, annoyed, ready to glare at whoever had said this—but then stopped when I saw, to my surprise, that it was Cary. He was standing behind me, leaning on the ATM, one eyebrow raised. “Of all the bodegas in all of Manhattan.”
I rolled my eyes at that even as I held back a smile. I put my gum back, took my armful of stuff off the counter, and walked toward him. I was thrilled to see Cary—not only because he was still very cute, but because surely he wouldn’t mind googling an address for me. I wouldn’t have to ask a stranger after all—and I wasn’t sure the bodega guy would have googled it for me, since he visibly brightened as I departed. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to smile too wide at him. After everything that had happened, I hadn’t realized how nice it would be to see a familiar face, even if it was only someone I’d only met an hour earlier. He was still wearing his jeans and brown leather jacket, his thick dark-brown hair standing up a little bit more, like it had gotten windblown. Again, the outfit was ringing some faint bell, I just couldn’t bring it to mind at the moment.
“Getting a grape soda,” he said, holding up the bottle in his hand.
“Who drinks grape soda?”
He brandished it at me. “Excuse me, grape soda is delicious.”
“I don’t think I’ve drunk grape soda since I was ten.”
“Well, it hasn’t changed,” he said, and I had to press my lips together not to laugh at his outraged expression. “Why do people see a benefit in disowning the things we loved when we were little? Why are we always casting everything aside?”
I just looked at him for a moment, then walked over to put back my candy. “That’s very deep.”