Page 66 of The Love Hack

TWENTY-FIVE

It was just after two o’clock when I found myself in the crowded deli, balancing a tray containing a sandwich that looked like it could single-handedly end world famine, and a Diet Coke, wondering where on earth I was going to sit to eat it. Someone was just getting up from the only spare table, so I hovered for a second, then sat down as soon as I could. To my surprise, a couple of women in the queue turned and glared at me like I’d done something terribly wrong. I glanced around, embarrassed, but it seemed like that was the system – you looked round, you hovered, you sat. Maybe they were just having a bad day. Or, if they’d taken against me for some other reason, there was nothing I could do about it.

So I took a slurp of my drink and a bite of my sandwich, got my phone out and settled in for what was clearly going to be a marathon eating session.

Just as I was chewing my first delicious mouthful, stingy with mustard and sharp with pickle, my phone rang and Ross’s name popped up on Facetime.

My first thought was, Great! He’ll be so pleased to catch me here, at the place he recommended. Then I thought, Shit, have I got mustard on my chin? Should I message and say I’ll call him back? Then I remembered that he might have news on Zack, so I answered the call immediately, propping my phone up against a sugar canister, relieved that my headphones were already in so at least I wouldn’t give the women in the queue another reason to hate me.

‘Hey, Lucy.’ Ross wasn’t in my flat this time; he was outside somewhere, sitting on a bench in the late afternoon sunshine. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good,’ I muttered through a mouthful of sandwich, then swallowed. ‘Sorry. Yeah, great, thanks. I saw the Statue of Liberty this morning, and now I’m having lunch.’

‘You sure are,’ he said. ‘And you’re in Katz’s, aren’t you? How’s the pastrami?’

‘Off the scale.’ I held the unbitten half of my sandwich up so he could see.

‘Oh my God. I’m so jealous. Which table are you at?’

‘I don’t know. Do they have numbers? It’s kind of in the middle.’

‘Show me.’

So I angled my phone around a bit to take in the room, puzzled but humouring him, because he seemed so vicariously excited by it all.

‘Lucy! Mate, do you realise you’ve got the table?’

‘What table?’

‘Look above your head.’

I obeyed, and saw what I hadn’t noticed before: a sign suspended from the ceiling, which read “Where Harry met Sally... hope you have what she had! Enjoy!”.

Right. That explained the daggers looks from the two women in the queue. Presumably they’d planned to film themselves faking orgasms over their lunch and put it on their TikTok or something, and I’d come along and ruined it. Well, I was sorry about that, but realistically what could I do? I was here, they were already sitting somewhere else, and the queue was building so quickly that I knew if I stood up, someone else would grab my place before the two women even noticed my random act of kindness.

’So I have,’ I said to Ross. ‘How cool is that?’

‘Awesome,’ he agreed, grinning.

Suddenly, I knew what I was going to do. I was here in Manhattan, in this iconic eatery, with the right sandwich, sat at the right table, with a captive audience of not only the two disgruntled women but also Ross.

Ross loved old movies. Ross would think I was confident and hilarious. The women whose table I’d unwittingly stolen would be mollified. It would be rude not to.

I took a bite of my sandwich, chewed and swallowed, and then let out a theatrical moan, throwing my head back in bliss.

‘Yes!’ I said, running my hands through my hair. ‘Oh God! Yes! Right there!’

I moaned, gasped and moaned again, sliding lower in my chair. ‘Oh yes! Yes, yes, yes!’

My eyes were half closed in theatrical bliss, but I could sense heads turning to look at me. But I was in the zone now, so I carried on.

‘Oh my God! That’s so good! Oh yes. More, more, more!’

Another loud moan, a few more gasps and sighs, and I reckoned I was done. I sat back upright, pushed my hair back, dabbed my lips with my napkin and turned back to my screen.

Ross was looking at me, perplexed but half smiling. ‘Lucy? Are you okay?’

I glanced around. People at the neighbouring tables were staring, some discreetly and some less so. One of the annoyed women hastily put down her phone, but I was pretty sure she'd been filming me.

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