Still, great job or not, an end-of-the-week cocktail is sounding pretty perfect right about now.
Once I’m out of the subway tunnel, I pull out my cellphone to text Bella. As with the best of friendships, we picked up right where we’d left off, as though I hadn’t been in Maine and barely responsive for three months.
As always, she’s read my mind, texting me before I can text her. Wine tonight? I’m thinking a bucketful, at least.
I smile and text her back. My place?
Her response is immediate. God, no. My sweater still smells like pad thai from last time I came over. Heard about a cheap new wine bar in Hell’s Kitchen. Will text u details.
I don’t even bother waiting for the elevator in my building. On a good day and at off-hours it’s slower than molasses. At six o’clock on a Friday I don’t think I’ll ever see it, especially since there’s a moving truck outside. Some poor soul is about to realize that their bed, couch, dresser, and every other heavy item they own won’t fit in the shoe-box elevators. Poor thing.
I take the steps two at a time. I like to pretend it’s my exercise. I’m winded by the time I reach the sixth floor, probably because I haven’t gone for a run once since I left Maine. It’s stupid, but running makes me think of Paul.
So do turkey sandwiches.
And books.
And military uniforms.
And anyone with blue eyes.
I round the corner toward my unit and nearly collide with a pile of moving boxes. It would seem the new resident is on my floor.
Please, please, please don’t let them be a weirdo.
As long as it’s not an aspiring musician, I’ll be fine. I already have one of those living next door. She claims to have future in “folk rap.” Yup. That’s apparently a thing. And I get to hear her practice.
Like I said, I need that wine.
A burly-looking guy with tattoos comes out of the newly occupied apartment to pick up a couple of boxes. He gives me a blatant once-over and licks his lips. I give him a drop-dead look. He blows me a kiss.
Gross. I’m so not on Park Avenue anymore.
Bella still hasn’t texted me back, but I pour myself a glass of wine and settle onto the loveseat with my Andrew Jackson book after kicking off my shoes.
Yeah. I’m back to that.
See, I went to Bar Harbor, Maine with two goals: (1) heal Paul Langdon and (2) read this damned book. I’m determined to do at least one of those, and it certainly won’t be the first. He’s made that much clear in the weeks that have passed.
It’s not like I’ve been expecting him to chase after me or anything like that. I mean, if he’s too chickenshit to go to a movie in Maine, he’s definitely not going to show up at my office with some romantic gesture. To do that he’d have to care.
To do that, he’d have to love me the way that I love him.
Ha. Loved him, past tense. I need to put that behind me.
There’s a knock at the door. It’s Maria, the folk rapper.
“Hey. I need some cornstarch,” she says, snapping her fingers in a hand-it-over gesture.
Seriously?
“I don’t have any cornstarch,” I reply.
Maria wrinkles her nose in irritation. “That’s supposed to be a neighborly thing. A cup of cornstarch or whatever.”
“Actually, I think that’s a cup of sugar. Which I have, if you need it.”
I have a ton of sugar. I’ve been determined to duplicate Lindy’s cookie recipe, but so far I’m not even close.
“Well, okay. Hand over the sugar, then.”
I frown. “Wait—do you need sugar or cornstarch?”
“Cornstarch, but I’ll take the sugar.”
I shake my head in confusion. “They’re not substitutes for each other, you know.”
“What?” she asks.
Oh my God. I should have brought my wine to the door. “Sugar and cornstarch. So not the same thing.”
“Well, what can I sub for cornstarch?”