Page 67 of The Seven Year Slip

I really loved my friends. I also wished they wouldn’t have ruined the moment.

James asked, a little worried, “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I just have to answer this.” Or else my friends might actually file a missing person’s report on me. “My friends. They’re a little...”

“Say no more,” he replied, raising his hands. “I’ve got the food. You can go find a seat for us, if you want?”

“Sure, thanks.” And I quickly left the food truck, which was perhaps for the best because I was getting way too warm standing beside him, and he was looking much too handsome, and that was the kind of line I was not going to cross. I headed for the stone benches in front of the Washington Square Arch, and sat there to wait.

Fiona followed that up with,Okay maybe don’t text. IF YOU’RE THE MURDERER WE’RE COMING AFTER YOU BUDDY.

Drew added,YEAH GET FUCKED.

YOU TELL ’EM BABE

Both of you need to calm down, I finally texted, glancing over at the food truck. Miguel was saying something to James, who looked bashful, rubbing the back of his neck. I wanted to commit that image to memory, put it in a frame in my head, the streetlights bright against his hair, the shadows across his face in blues and purples. I, not for the first time tonight, felt my fingers twitch with the thought of painting him in vivid colors, to capture the moment. To make it last forever.

Immediately, Fiona texted,HOLY CRAP SHE’S ALIVE. BABE SHE’S ALIVE.

HALLALUJUAH, Drew added.

Then again,*HALLILUJIAH

Then,**HALLALUDSHGAKJA

A smile broke out across my lips.Drew aren’t you supposed to be an editor?I asked.

Drew sent a frowning face.

Fiona said,Clearly she never had to pirate Rufus Wainwright off Limewire.

I think I just aged ten years reading that text, I replied, then told them I was out getting dinner with a friend I’d met on the sidewalk—not quite a lie, I figured—and put my phone away as James came over with our food, two Coronas under his arm. I took the beers as he sat down, and he popped them open on the side of the benches.

“To good food,” he said, handing me mine.

“And good company,” I replied, and we clinked the bottlenecks together, and I made do with painting this summer evening in my head. The night a mix of midnight-blue and purple haze, flecks of pearl, and loud, bright pinks that only I could see, metaphors for how I felt.

The night was warm, and the beer was cold, and the company was, in fact, quite perfect. People strolled under the arch, laughing with each other, and the park made the sky look so wide I could almost see the stars. We chatted as we ate. He asked about my job, and I asked him about his. The new restaurant he was opening took up a good majority of his time, so his sous chef at the Olive Branch was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and he felt bad about it.

“Was that the chef I met last week?” I asked, recalling the sous who told me to leave the kitchen.

“Iona Samuels,” he replied with a nod. “One of the best chefs I have. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be the head chef at the Branch once I leave. I can’t imagine the restaurant in better hands.”

“Is it bittersweet? Leaving a place you’ve been for the last seven years?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Somewhat, but it’s good for my brand, and my career.” It was nice seeing his life pan out exactly the way he wanted it to. It didn’t matter what I thought about his glossy life.

I was in so little of it, after all.

“I’ve worked so much,” he went on, “I really can’t stop now. Don’t really want to.”

“You’ve built something amazing. I bet your grandpa’s proud.”

He hesitated, and took another long swig of beer. “He passed, actually.”

It felt like the wind got punched out of me. “Oh—oh, I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, really. It’s been almost seven years now. He passed right after—” He stopped himself, and said instead, “A few days after I got my own apartment.”

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