Page 26 of Guy's Girl
Madison Square Park teems with activity. Men walk dogs. Nannies push strollers. Trainers lead sweaty groups of women in kickboxing. A man who can’t be younger than seventy pushes himself around and around the curving paths on a skateboard. Ginny winds through it all, making her way toward the crowd right at the center.
Finch comes into view just as Shake Shack does. He sits at one of the green tables just beneath a string of dangling lights, waving. Ginny waves back.
“Hungry?” he asks, standing.
“Starving.”
Finch orders a fried chicken sandwich, a Shackburger, French fries, and a milkshake. It takes all Ginny’s effort not to order her burger wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. They carry their trays over to one of the green tables and sit facing each other.
“So,” Finch says, picking up the fried chicken sandwich with one hand. “Friendship Trial, Day One.”
Ginny smiles and sips from her plastic water cup. “I suppose you could call it that.”
“What should the first test be? Should we talk shit about people we know and see if our opinions align?”
“Oh, come on. That’s cheating. You already know they do.”
“That’s true.” Finch nods, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “I think that’s how we bonded so quickly freshman year. Do youremember when we used to stand in the corner during Wigglesworth dorm parties and psychoanalyze all the people in the room?”
Ginny laughs. “How could I forget? Tristan almost beat you up when he heard you call him the ‘quintessential Oedipal headcase.’ ”
Finch holds up both hands. “Hey, now. It’s notmyfault that the guy reeks of repressed desire to murder his own father.”
“I think it’s more the bit about sleeping with his mother that bothered him, Alex.”
Finch sits back. “Alex,” he says. “No one calls me Alex anymore.”
“Not Hannah?”
Finch picks up a fry, then puts it back in the cardboard carton. “She’s the only one.” His eyes flick up to Ginny’s face. “And you now, I guess.”
“If you’d like.”
“I would, actually.”
“Okay, then.”
They sit in silence. Ginny looks over at the family seated at the table to their left. A mother and father drink plastic bottles of cranberry juice, two kids eat peanut butter sandwiches, another simply runs in circles around them all.
“Have you heard from Adrian?” Finch asks.
She shakes her head. “I might text him and see if he wants to go out this weekend.”
“Might you?” Finch leans back in his chair, holding a hand to his heart. “My, my, Virginia Murphy, how verymodernof you.”
The mother has run out of cranberry juice. Her husband leans over and pours a measure out of his own bottle into hers.
“Right,” she says. “Because acting like a desperate, lovesick puppy issomodern.”
“You’re not acting desperate. You’re inviting him out. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Okay, but itfeelslike that big of a deal.”
“That’s just because you’re in love with the guy.”
“I am not in love with anyone, thank you very much.”
Finch lifts the milkshake to his mouth and sips lengthily. “Ah, nowthat’sa true shame.”
