I walk down Perry Street. Tourists are taking pictures in front of Carrie Bradshaw’s stoop. Even after all this time, Sex and the City fans still migrate here for photos. The brownstone owners must be so over strangers loitering outside their place. They put up a chain at the bottom of the stairs to discourage people from sitting here with their Magnolia cupcakes. I weave my way from Perry to West 11th to Bank, glancing into lit apartment windows. Not in a deranged stalker way. More like in an entranced admiring way. The homes on these streets are gorgeous. They have fireplaces and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and grand staircases. It’s not my fault these apartments are so alluring. Or that their blinds are wide open. The people who live there are practically inviting me to look inside.
I start heading back to the apartment after giving Darcy and Logan enough time to have dinner. They’ll probably be out hitting the clubs by the time I get home. Walking past Bus Stop Café, I glance at everyone having dinner outside. A cute boy around my age locks eyes with me and smiles. He’s sitting at two tables pushed together with three other guys. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I walk on by without smiling back. I’m on Sadie Time. I’m on a boy break and loving the idea of it more every day. The single girl thing is super empowering if you let it be. It’s Friday night, I have a new self-empowerment book called Your Dream Life waiting for me on my bed, a whole season of Prison Break to binge-watch, and a pint of Blue Bunny Bordeaux Cherry Chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Plus a bag of fresh cherries I can’t wait to dig into. I’m all set.
No one’s at the apartment when I get home. Just as I’m settling into the big puffy armchair with my bowl of cherries and the remote, Rosanna comes home.
“Right on time,” I say. “Have you seen the final season of Prison Break?”
“Shouldn’t I watch season one first?”
“Are you seriously telling me you’ve never seen Prison Break?”
“Is it good?”
My mouth falls open. I pop my eyes at her. The cherries almost go flying out of their bowl. “Is it good? Good isn’t even—I think the word you’re looking for is spectacular. Or phenomenal. Or magnificent.”
“So . . . it’s adequate?” Rosanna teases.
“Dude. You must watch this with me right now. You need to watch this show so bad that I will start with the pilot. The final season can wait.”
Rosanna slumps on the couch like a deflated balloon.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. Then she presses her lips together. Her face scrunches up and she starts crying.
“Oh no!” I go over and sit next to her on the couch, putting my arm around her. “What happened?”
“I got”—Rosanna’s voice hitches—“stood up.”
“By Donovan?” That doesn’t make any sense.
She nods. She’s crying too hard to talk. I get her a glass of water and rub her back until she calms down enough to speak without words catching in her throat.
“He never showed up at Bryant Park,” she says. “I got there before five, like you said. I sat there like a moron until the movie started. I wanted to leave, but I was too embarrassed. And there was no way to get out without stepping on a hundred body parts. Could that place be any more crowded?”
“Sorry you had to sit alone. That sucks. Why didn’t you . . .” I was going to ask Rosanna why she didn’t call me. I keep forgetting she doesn’t have a cell phone. “I would have come to meet you if I’d known.”
“Why wasn’t he there?” she asks. I wish I knew the answer.
I look over at the voice mail screen of the house phone. Rosanna told us she was ordering phone service along with internet before we moved in. Darcy and I were cool with splitting the total bill three ways. I wonder how many other UNY students in our building have a landline. We might be the only ones.
We have new messages.
“He probably called hours ago,” I say. I reach over to play the messages.
Rosanna stops me. “Don’t. Nothing he could possibly say would make a difference. He wasn’t there. That’s all that matters.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t there? Finding people in that crowd is ridiculous.”
“He wasn’t. I was looking for him the whole time. The people around me thought I was a freak for going to movie night alone. Who does that?” Her eyes fill up again.
“Not you. You were waiting for your boyfriend.”
“Who chose not to be there.”
This isn’t the first time Rosanna has sat on this couch all miserable over Donovan. Lately it seems like he makes her more sad than happy. But I don’t want to judge. How can I after what I went through with Austin? All I can do is be here for Rosanna. Whatever she needs.
When I put myself in her shoes, I can’t believe how strong she is. She moved here with nothing. Rosanna’s story reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: “Leap and the net will appear.” She took a giant leap to turn her biggest dream into reality. The net appeared to catch her. I just hope it’s strong enough to keep her from falling.
Rosanna sniffs the air. “Is something burning?”
“You mean when Darcy cooked an elaborate dinner for Logan? Which was the first time she ever tried cooking a real dinner? Um, yeah, there was burning involved.”
“What happened?”
I fill Rosanna in on the details, playing up the funny parts to make her laugh. She’s smiling by the time I finish.
“Did she really smash the smoke detector that hard?” Rosanna asks.
“Yes! Don’t be surprised if you find pieces of it all the way in your room.”
“I wish I could have seen that. How did she even know where the broom was?”
“She asked me to get it for her.”
Rosanna glances back toward our rooms. “Are they here?”
“No.”
“Because it doesn’t look like they finished their dinner.”
I look at the table. She’s right. The plates of food look like they haven’t been touched. How did I not notice that when I came home? “That’s weird,” I say. “It doesn’t look like they ate anything.”
“Do you think . . .”
“What?”
“Never mind. I don’t want to say it out loud.”
“Say it. We’re probably both thinking the same thing.”
“Would Logan, like, reject Darcy’s dinner? After she worked so hard on it?”
“It’s possible. He doesn’t strike me as the most sensitive guy.”
“I know, right? I mean, I’m happy Darcy is happy with him, but . . .”
“We’re not founding members of the Logan Fan Club.”
“Exactly.”
Darcy poured her heart into that dinner. It’s sad to see the untouched plates sitting there ignored on the table. “Do you think she can trust him?” I ask. “After what he did?”
“Refusing to eat her dinner?”
“No. Breaking up with her before she moved here.”
Rosanna shakes her head. “She must have been in so much pain when we met her. I wish I would have known.”
“I wonder why he broke up with her.”
“Darcy said he couldn’t deal with being in love. He told her he got scared.”
“Boys don’t get scared of being with a girl. Girls tell themselves the boy got scared to rationalize his behavior after he broke up with them. If a boy wants to be with a girl, he’s going to make it happen. A highly reliable source told me that.”
Rosanna is skeptical. “Who?”
“My friend John. Dude tells it like it is. He said guys use excuses like that all the time to justify being cowards. Like when a guy says he’s going to call and then he doesn’t? He just wants to make an easy escape without admitting that he’s never going to call. Guys don’t want heavy confrontations with girls they’re not into. They don’t want to deal with the repercussions of admitting the truth.” I realize too late that this is probably not what Rosanna wants to hear right now.
I should be telling her something more positive about boy behavior. Something that will reassure her that everything will be okay with Donovan. But thinking about Logan and Darcy’s abandoned dinner is not inspiring any shiny happy ideas.
“So why do you think Logan really broke up with Darcy?” Rosanna asks.
“I don’t know. But he came all the way here to win her back. He gets points for realizing he was wrong.” I’m trying not to let Austin influence my opinion of Logan.
Rosanna leans back against the couch cushions. She pulls one of the cute Graphique de France throw pillows Darcy bought into her lap. “There’s something about Logan I don’t like. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but there’s something off about him.”
“So it’s not just me! I totally feel you. Yeah, there’s something about him that’s not exactly creepy. More like . . .”
“Not right.”
What bothers me about Logan is hard to define. The times I’ve seen him and Darcy together made me unsettled. Not because of anything Logan did. He knows how Darcy likes to be treated and he brings it. Rosanna and I were swooning when Darcy told us how he re-created their first three dates in one night. But Darcy isn’t completely Darcy when she’s with Logan. Darcy doesn’t have that sparkle in her eyes that she had when she was with Jude. Even though Rosanna and I have never met Jude, he obviously brought out the best in Darcy. Darcy’s energy was shining when she was with Jude. Being around her was like basking in bright sunlight on a clear day. Now her energy is more partly cloudy. Still good. Just not the best it could be.
“Remember the way Darcy lit up when she talked about Jude?” I say. “They seemed perfect for each other.”
“I know.”
“The way she described him, it was like she met a soul mate. She’s never talked about Logan that way.”
“Jude was better for her than Logan.”
“Jude was magical. He was literally a magician. He totally—” And then it hits me. An epiphany so big I spring up from the couch. I don’t even know how to contain the enormousness of this moment. “We have met Jude.”
“When?”
“In the park! He was the magician we saw the first night here!”
Rosanna contemplates this. “How do you know?”
“I just do.” Darcy never showed us pictures of Jude. She didn’t overshare Jude specifics. But how many magicians perform in Washington Square Park? The way she talked about him, the way she described how he made her feel or his chill surfer-boy Cali vibe or his infectious upbeat attitude . . . the magician we saw had to have been him. I remember telling Rosanna how much I loved him when we were watching his act. I remember how you could feel his radiant positive energy. How could I not have realized this before?
“I had a feeling it was him the first time Darcy was telling me about him,” I say as things keep clicking. “We were having lunch at Chat ’n Chew and I almost said something, but the conversation went in a million directions from there. I totally forgot about that until now.” I gape at Rosanna. “Jude.”
“We love him,” she breathes.
“Yeah we do!” We stopped to watch his show our first night at the apartment. Rosanna had seemed nervous all day. Edgy. Displaced. Imbalanced. I wanted to take her out for a while to have dinner and show her around, hoping a mini tour of her new neighborhood would make her feel more settled. We saw Jude performing with a huge crowd around him laughing and applauding and loving every second. He was so sweet to this little boy watching up front. Jude was freaking adorable.
I’m loving how Friday the 13th keeps getting luckier. I can’t keep it in. I bust out a dorky happy dance right here next to the coffee table. Rosanna whoops and throws the pillow in the air. She catches it smoothly before it can bounce off onto the floor.
“We love Jude for Darcy!” I yell. “And we’re going to get them back together!”
Rosanna’s smile vanishes. “Wait. What?”
“The only reason they’re not together is that Logan showed up. If he had stayed broken up the way he was supposed to, Jude and Darcy would be together.”
“I thought Darcy didn’t want a real relationship with Jude.”
“That’s only what she said. But the sparkle eyes said something else.”
“But what about Logan?”
“Fine. Pros and cons.” I flop onto the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Logan pros. Go.”
“He and Darcy have a ton of history together. You can’t underestimate the power of a shared history.”
“Noted. What else?”
“He was her first love. And he did come all the way here to get her back.”
“I did enjoy that real-life movie twist.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be the ending?”
“Not when the story isn’t over. Can you honestly say that Darcy is meant to end up with Logan?”
“Maybe we’re judging him too harshly.”
“Or maybe what we were saying before is right. Our instinct is telling us he’s not the one for Darcy. Right?”
Rosanna sighs.
“We love Jude’s energy,” I forge ahead. “We loved the way Darcy was when they were together. Like you said, something about Logan is off. She’s with him because he made this grand gesture coming here, but if she waits too long, she’s going to lose Jude. He’ll start seeing someone else who would kill to be his girlfriend. Then it’ll be too late for Darcy to see he was the right person for her all along.”
“Okay. So . . . ?”
“How many pros was that for Logan? Three?”
“Yeah.”
“Any more?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Well, there are one, two, three—like twenty-five pros for Jude. Case closed. We are Team Jude.”
“Agreed. Team Jude.”
“Our first and only mission: Bring Jude back into play.”
“How do we do that?”
“If only we knew where to find him. Oh, wait . . .”
TWENTY-THREE
DARCY
WHEN JUDE COMES OVER TO our table with a double espresso for me and a coffee for him, the Dean & DeLuca déjà vu rams into me something fierce. It feels like we were just here yesterday. Me wanting to dive into Jude like a clear blue sea. Him wanting more than I could give.
Both of us wanting what we couldn’t have. Isn’t that always the way?
Jude is wearing his MULTI-TALENTED tee. He doesn’t need to advertise that on a shirt for the world to know it’s true.
“How’s your project going?” I ask. Jude is working on an invention he thinks will be huge. It’s this pump/spray mechanism for bottles that makes the bottle way easier to use. You can spray a cleaner holding the bottle in any direction and it will still come out. Even upside-down. You can pump the last bit of lotion or shampoo out of a bottle so none is wasted. No more ripping off the top of a big bottle of lotion and banging the bottle to get the rest out. With Jude’s invention, it’s smooth spraying and pumping all the way, baby.
“Good.” Jude blows on his coffee. “You know those potential investors I told you about?”
“Yeah?”
“They invested.”
“That’s amazing! Congrats!”
“Thanks. Yeah, we’re excited. Can you believe I have employees now?”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Already? So this is officially a thing.”
“It would appear to be official.”
“You have employees.”
“Like a boss.”
I sip my espresso. Hearing about how Jude’s business is taking off makes me want to gulp instead of sip. He makes me feel like I’m not doing enough with my life. Like I need to go whip up a ten-year plan. And if I seem like a slacker, what about Logan? For the first time ever, his lack of motivation is agitating me. Jude is this revolutionary genius. What is Logan doing?
I guess I’m still annoyed from last night. After Logan took off, I stood th
ere in shock by the table with our plates of food getting cold. If you looked up flabbergasted in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of me gaping at the door. Boys don’t walk out on me.
Except Logan.
Again.
Why do I keep doing this to myself? Did I really expect this time to be any different? Just because he’s spending the summer here? We don’t even see each other every day.
After my flabbergasted fit, I bolted. Didn’t even have a particular destination in mind. I just grabbed my bag and flashed into the night. I ended up at some sketchy bar on Orchard Street with desperate chicks posing along the wall and pool in the back. Anger clawed at me while I ordered a foghorn. No one asked for ID. I was so angry at myself for opening up to Logan all over again . . . and standing there like an idiot while he walked out the door. I’ll never forget that gross feeling I had when I moved here, lugging so much anger it was heavier than my duffel. Not that I would let the weight of being dumped anchor me in any way. I’m free as a bird. Summer Fun Darcy waits for no boy. Especially not the boy who’s making me feel like an idiot all over again.
Which is why I’m here with Jude.
He called a few hours ago. Normally I wouldn’t rush to have coffee with a boy who wants to get together the same day. But I was so relieved that Jude wants me back in his life. Or I’m assuming he wants me back in his life. Why else would he have called?
“I was happy you called,” I tell him.
“Your roommates make a compelling argument.”
“What?” I have no idea what he’s talking about. Has he ever even met my roommates?