by Tash Skilton
Later, at Fuku’s at last, I eat a spicy fried chicken sandwich with vada pav, slaw, and rice pudding, washed down with a strawberry lemon slushie. I relish the meal—so long in coming, but so worth it—taking the time to savor each bite, let the flavors and textures mingle on my tongue. There’s probably a word for it created by mindfulness experts (“slow bites” or something), but today, I’ll just call it “living.” I don’t look at my phone a single time. I don’t take images of the food and post them across social media. I live in the moment, until I’m comfortably stuffed and fully sated.
It’s not that New York has better food than LA, I realize. They’re both wonderful in different ways. I keep thinking, “I can’t wait to tell Miles that I …” and then stopping myself, midsentence.
I think back to why I went along with Mary’s crazy suggestion that I fly out to New York. Why I accepted the tickets, and packed a bag, and got on that plane, and headed to the East Coast. I’d spent so long being afraid of change, of trying anything new, and suddenly, as we went wheels up at LAX, I’d felt so electrified my body could barely contain it. Then the fast pace, noise levels, chaotic crowds, and subway fears took over. Without Miles, I don’t think I ever would have gotten out of that headspace.
If it turns out my time in New York was only an extended dream sequence, and I’m heading back to LA at the end of the month, I’d better make the most of this city while I still can.
My phone call with Night-Light Films is set for tomorrow at noon.
I can admire Mary without trying to be her. I can acknowledge that her work inspires me, without emulating it. I’m not her cookie cutter or anyone else’s, and what’s more, I don’t need to be. Can I trust my own talent? Trust my own instincts?
I guess we’re about to find out.
CHAPTER 35
MILES
I think Zoey’s ghosted me. I text; I call. I get no response. I get Aisha to text her and she gets nothing in return either. I can’t exactly blame Zoey. After all, I did it to her first. But I need to talk to her.
I keep hoping I’ll run into her. But I don’t. Not at the café, not in our hallway. I don’t even hear her. One day, I knock on her door and then find myself with my ear pressed up to it, checking for signs of life. There’s not even the sound of a whirring air conditioner. I don’t think she’s there.
Feeling dejected, but not wanting to fully entertain the possibility that she really might be gone for good, I head to Tompkins Square Park for a run. That’s when I spot an altogether different set of familiar faces.
Bree and Jude, together, stepping out of Cheese. They are both chuckling, leading me to guess that Jude has made some sort of Little Jude joke.
Jude spots me before I can decide whether to walk by without acknowledging them and gives me a huge grin. “Miles!” He comes over and slaps my shoulder.
I smile back. “Hey, Jude. How are you doing?”
“I’m great!” he says, sounding like he really means it. He pulls Bree over. “Babe, come here. You have to meet someone. This is Miles. My profile ghostwriter.”
My jaw drops. In all the years I’ve been doing this, I have never had a client introduce me that way to anyone, let alone the match I helped them snag.
But Bree is laughing. “Sounds like we owe you one,” she says as she adoringly looks over at Jude.
“I’m sorry but … you know about me?” I stammer out.
“Yes!” Bree says. “Because you want to hear something hilarious? Turns out we were both using ghostwriting services for our profiles.”
I screw my face into something I’m hoping represents surprise at this shocking revelation. “Wow. Really?”
Jude laughs. “Turns out we hardly chatted online as ourselves. Isn’t that wild?”
“Wild,” I repeat.
“When we figured that out, it made sense that you’d only seen Undersea once,” Bree says to Jude.
“And that you’d take me to a cheese restaurant, even though I was paleo,” Jude responds.
“Not anymore!” Bree says with a smirk.
I look quizzically at Jude.
“Er. Well, when you start playing strip fondue, I mean … bread is kind of essential to dip into …” Jude starts looking Bree’s body up and down and I hold my hands up.
“Got it,” I say.
“Anyway, it’s a good thing we ignored most of whatever it was you and … what was your writer’s name, babe?” Jude turns to Bree.
“Zoey.” My heart stutters at hearing her name said out loud.
“Right. Zoey. We ignored most of what you guys talked about.” He looks over at me good-naturedly. “You almost ruined it for us, mate!”
I slap on a smile. “Well, I’m glad we didn’t.”
“Us too,” Bree says. “We have to run. We actually have tickets to the preview for Mary Clarkson’s one-woman show. And I’ve convinced Jude to take me even though he knows nothing about her, obviously.” She giggles.
“See you around?” Jude says.
“Actually …” I say, an idea spontaneously forming in my head. “I have a massive favor to ask … .”
Now I just have to figure out how to find her.
I didn’t think it was possible, in this day and age, for someone to be truly unreachable. Especially someone who literally lives next door to me. My brain hums with all the ways I might get hold of Zoey. Do I sit in the hallway all day and night with my laptop? Would that make me a fire hazard? I even consider contacting Clifford (ugh) and calling her through him. Though I wonder if she’d really be likely to answer his call over mine. I mean, it’s Clifford.
But who does she even know in New York besides us?
And then I finally answer my own question. I slowly pull up my phone and search through my e-mails, looking for an address I wrote to once. Now that I know who that mailbox belongs to, it is way more nerve-racking to be writing her without resorting to any of my fanboy thoughts.
She also, apparently, is getting ready to put on a one-woman show, so what are the chances she’ll even respond?
But I have to try.
CHAPTER 36
ZOEY
Today’s coffee shop, Hole in One, is seventeen blocks from the apartment, half of which I walked and half of which I rode the subway to get to. I haven’t been to any café more than once since Miles ghosted me. I’m expanding my horizons block by block, widening the circumference of my explorations, and I’ve been keeping vampire’s hours to minimize our chances of coming across each other in the building or on the street. I even slept at Mary’s a couple of times to dodge him.
Two days ago, I saw him on the High Line, zipping toward me in his Adidas tracksuit, and without thinking, I lifted my hand in a wave. Turned out it wasn’t Miles after all, and I don’t know why seeing a stranger run past felt like losing him all over again, but it did.
I still feel dizzy each time I descend into the darkened tunnels of the subway, and my heart still speeds up at the roar of an approaching train, but the difference is that now I don’t let it stop me.
Hole in One is not, as I’d assumed, a golf-themed restaurant begging to be ripped off by Clifford, but a doughnut joint.
A message from Mary chimes in.
Contrary, Quite: Congrats on “Radioactive Wolves of San Francisco.”
(That’s the script I’ll be doctoring for Night-Light Films.)
Zoey: Thank you! Aw-ooooooh
Contrary, Quite: Aw-oooooh! Where u at, as the kids say (or did once)
I do a pin drop on Google Maps at Hole in One.
Zoey: You nearby?
Contrary, Quite: No, but I have a special delivery headed your way.
Zoey: Noooooo. Leaving now!
Contrary, Quite: Nothing illegal, I swear. Promise me you’ll sit tight till it arrives.
I’m at a small table in the back, enjoying a cinnamon twist and e-signing a contract with Night-Light, when I see him walk in.
Oh no.
A breath dies in my
throat and I turn my back but it’s too late. He’s walking toward me, his expression impossible to read. I’d done so well avoiding him, too! My heart pounds and I wipe my mouth with a napkin, hoping I don’t have any cinnamon crumbs on my face. I’m so focused on my own dread that I don’t see he’s holding a large take-out container in his hand until he sets it on the table in front of me.
He opens it with a flourish before he speaks, “Cronuts. Scones. Canelés. Tartlets. And … jumbo biscotti. Take your pick.”
I look down at the treats and then up at him. “Hi … What is all this?”
“Quality day-old products. I hit every café I could find below Thirty-Fourth Street.”
Unsure of what to say, I settle for something resembling our normal bickering. “You mean we fought over stale biscotti when we could’ve been fighting over cronuts this whole time?”
“Not just any cronut,” he clarifies. “Maple bacon.”
He nudges the container toward me.
“I’m not all that hungry,” I say.
“Oh. Work going well enough that you can buy lunch now?” His eyes are soft, questioning, as if he genuinely cares how my work is going.
“It’s getting there,” I say. We look at each other for a moment. “What are you doing here, Miles?” I can’t stand the way my voice hitches. I wish I could be nonchalant.
“Is it okay if I sit for a second?” he asks and I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak; I’ll either rage at him or sob, and the way my pulse speeds up as he settles across from me, I have no idea which emotion will win. I wasn’t sure I’d ever talk to him again, but suddenly here we are, as though nothing’s changed, as though he didn’t shatter my heart.
He swallows tightly. “I’m here to apologize. I went off the grid for a few days and I need to tell you why. I don’t expect you to understand, given how you feel about having kids—”
Now I’m really thrown. “What do kids have to do with anything?”
“You don’t want them and I do, and …”
“Wait, hold up. There are days I do, and days I don’t. I don’t think I should be pinned down about it at this stage in the game.”
“You’re right, but Jordan came to me, the day I was supposed to meet up with you. She said she wanted me to be the twins’ dad. I freaked out and I didn’t know how to handle it and by the time I came back to myself, I couldn’t get ahold of you.”
“I blocked you,” I explain, my mind spinning. “After four days of nothing, I’d had enough.”
“I’m so sorry. I brought you something to let you know just how much I mean that.” He stands up and in his haste he knocks over his bag—that ridiculous, stupid, obnoxious, holier-than-thou, upcycled bag that makes my heart clench to look at because it’s so very Miles and even when I hated him, I missed him.
He gets on the floor to clean up his stuff and retrieves a thumb drive which he holds out to me, still on one knee. “I hate that I might have ruined the city for you, so I put together some new walking tours for you to have. I got Jude to record them because, let’s face it, that accent. And in case you never wanted to hear my voice again,” he finishes in a rush.
From far away, it probably looks like the world’s most ridiculous high-tech proposal. I look at the thumb drive but I don’t take it. If I take it, does that mean he’ll walk out the door, and we’ll be done for good? I’m paralyzed, uncertain what to say or do. He stands up awkwardly, sets the drive on the table, and glances over at my laptop, the screen open to my airline ticket purchase.
“You can’t leave New York,” he blurts.
I glance between him and the screen. “Why?”
“For the same reason I turned down Jordan. I’m in love with the girl I’ve been speaking to for these past couple of months. I think about her all the time. What she says. The way she thinks. She makes me laugh. And someone once told me that a relationship is all about finding that person who makes you laugh on the worst, most god-awful days.”
My pulse jumps and I find it hard to speak. In love with … “Who told you that?”
“It … it was my dad, okay?”
I can’t help it; a smile pulls at my lips. “A life without lows makes the highs meaningless.” In love with me. He chooses me. “Was this a recent heart-to-heart with your dad or was this a Brady Bunch moment of yore?”
“Listen, I promise you can tease me about my parents all you want,” Miles says heatedly. “Only keep teasing me. Don’t stop teasing me. Don’t leave.”
“I took a new job in LA … .”
He slumps forward, rests his head in palms. “You did?”
“But I’m not moving back. I told them I’d only accept if I could telecommute.”
“So what’s the flight for?”
“They agreed to an in-person meetup every six weeks.” I shut my laptop and suddenly there’s no barrier between us.
He looks chagrined. “I just confessed all that for nothing?”
“No, not for nothing. You once asked me what I miss most about LA and here’s the real answer. I love when you’re in your car and the music on the radio overtakes you, so you pump it up so loud it vibrates through the steering wheel. The bass hits, you’re gliding along the 405—which never happens unless you hit it just right, on a Sunday morning maybe—you’re soaring along, you own the whole city, and when that perfect song hits, it creates this dome around you in your car. You’re moving around amongst all these other people but they can’t touch you.”
“Sounds lonely,” he points out.
“It was safe,” I tell him. “Because it was separate. I had my own bubble, and I never had to hear other people’s noises, never had to bump up against the rest of the world. I would go to work, and I would come home, and sometimes I would smoke pot and numb myself to every kind of emotion. I don’t want to do that anymore. These past few weeks with you, I’ve felt so many things, good and bad, but even getting hurt … it’s not as bad as not living.” I scramble to locate and open my notebook—flipping past the Table of Champions chart—and show him my new list. “There’s so much I want to see in New York, so many things I’ve never done. I haven’t ridden the Circle Line yet or eaten at a Russian supper club or browsed the shelves at the Strand bookstore. I haven’t taken a horse-drawn carriage around Central Park or wandered the marble cemetery in the East Village or toured the row houses and jazz museum of Harlem or pitted the best pizza places against each other or tasted enough exotic dishes at Chelsea Market or explored Museum Mile or watched my breath swirl in the air while ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. I haven’t even seen a Broadway show!”
Miles looks at my list, touching each item like it’s a precious thing and I know it is, to him. “The new walking tours have a lot of those things covered.”
I take his hands in mine, and look him straight in the eyes. “I want to hear them in your voice. Because I want you walking beside me while you speak. I’ve fallen in love with New York and I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”
He opens his mouth but I reach over and press a light fingertip against his lips.
“Will you show me your New York? Can we start fresh?”
His response is to cup my face in his hands and pull me in for a passionate kiss. It feels like coming home.
“Yes, yes,” he murmurs, when we break apart. His thumb gently brushes a tear from my cheek. He leans in and kisses the spot where it slid.
A waiter comes over and asks Miles if he wants anything. “You’ll need to spend ten dollars if you want to plug into the Wi-Fi,” he adds.
“That’s okay. We don’t need Wi-Fi today,” Miles tells him. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Yes.”
We grin at each other across our table.
“Clifford’s e-mails alone—” I sputter.
“His e-mail signature from the old days still haunts me.” Miles shudders. “He used to sign off as ‘Da Big Red Dawg.’”
I laugh, and it feels so good. Being on the same side, laug
hing together.
Miles is right. We have so much to talk about—in the real world, offline, as Zoey and Miles and nobody else.
“I think it’s time for a new chart,” I announce. “We should taste-test and rank all the snacks you brought us.”
I flip over to a fresh page in my notebook, blank with possibility, just waiting for the story of Zoey and Miles to be written.
Four Months Later
To: All Tell It to My Heart Employees
From: Leanne Tseng
Re: On the up and up
Team,
Happy news today: After a meeting with our accountants, I can confirm that our revenue is on the rise. Now that we’re the only major player in the game, I feel confident in adding two more people to our full-time staff.
Everyone, please offer your congratulations to Aisha Ibrahim, our staff photographer, and our newest staff copywriter, Stella Gonzalez. You deserve it, ladies.
Yours,
Leanne
To: Aisha Ibrahim
From: Miles Ibrahim
CC: Zoey Abot
Re: Promotion Celebration / We Came In Like a Wrecking Ball Party
Bravo!! We’re back from LA. (Zoey’s standing over my shoulder, so I’ve been instructed to confess—under threat of setting fire to my boat shoes—that their sushi annihilates New York’s. Dammit!)
Anyway, can’t wait to celebrate your promotion tonight at Zoey’s. Or should I say Zoey-and-Miles’s? We’ll provide the sledgehammers, cake, snacks, non-Clifford-style bubbly; you provide the arm strength. Mary gave her blessing to let us tear down our shared wall. We’re allowed to smash to our heart’s content before the professional crew comes in.
See you soon!
MILES
In case those scenes in Ghost haven’t convinced you, let me assure you that renovating a New York City apartment is very, very sexy. Zoey even wore Demi Moore-esque overalls while we destroyed a wall, got sheetrock inside all of our champagne glasses, and drank it to our heart’s content anyway. I may have lead poisoning, but it was all worth it.