Love Interest(17)

The elevator peels open on the ninety-eighth floor, and Benny nods a greeting from behind the concierge desk, halfway finished with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup he’s stress-eating. (I really need to have a conversation with him about allergen-friendly workplace behavior.)

Alex steps toward Benny. But like an afterthought, he throws back to me over his shoulder, “I’m dying to be wrong about you, Casey. You’re not making it easy.”





CHAPTER SEVEN


There’s a note from Miriam stuck to our fridge, scrawled in pink Sharpie on the back of an Ulta receipt:

BE HOME AT 3 A.M. BRIJ MENTIONED Y’ALL ARE GETTING DIN TONIGHT. COULD YOU GUYS CONSIDER ITALIAN?? I WANT GNOCCHI!!!



I text him a picture of her request. When we made plans earlier today, he’d had his heart set on tamales, but he also has his heart set on Miriam, and I know for a fact he will recalibrate to Italian so she’ll have the leftovers she wants after her shift.

I swipe a tepid Diet Coke from the counter—cluttered with everything that doesn’t strictly necessitate refrigeration—and walk into my bedroom.

Once, a three-night stand during my first whirlwind month in New York described this room as what he assumed a thrift store would look like. I’ve latched on to that ever since like it was the biggest compliment in the world, even though I’m pretty sure the dude meant it as a dig. The furniture is ramshackle, my “closet” is just a freestanding Ikea rack of vintage clothes and sample sale purchases, and I can’t see out the window because it’s mostly taken up by the AC unit. Also, it smells like Chinese food from the restaurant one building over mellowed out by sage smudges.

I like what he’d said, though, about the room being thrifted, because that word never fails to remind me of Mom. She died of lung cancer when I was six—a chain-smoker till the end, as Dad tells it with equal parts annoyance and affection—but in every rare, precious photo of her, she’s wearing all these awesome outfits you’d never find in Aritzia. I think part of her fashion sense came from being a Londoner and part came from being a concert photographer. Whatever it was, the woman had style. I was too young to remember most things about her, but I remember sitting on her bed while she got dressed every morning, designing her OOTD in the floor-length mirror. That, I remember.

And suddenly, I’m feeling homesick, dialing my father.

“Hi, honey!” Dad shouts on the other end of the FaceTime call. I wince at the piercing shrill of his voice and hold the phone away from my face, but I can’t help grinning. Dad has a graying ponytail and weathered skin, and his cheeks get rounder each time I see him.

“Hey, Dad. What’s good?”

“Casey!” My stepdad, Jerry, appears, bald with wire-rimmed glasses that frame bright green eyes. He and Dad grin in a way I hardly deserve. “Look at my amaryllis! Here, gimme that.”

There’s a scuffle, during which I hear, “Jer!” Then the phone drops, and the screen goes black. I bite my bottom lip, fighting a snort.

“Casey!” Dad bellows. “Are you okay?”

“Oh my God, you guys dropping your own cell phone can’t hurt—never mind.”

The phone is scooped back up, and I get a glorious view of Jerry’s nose hairs. “Come with me,” he tells me.

“Right behind you.”

Thirty seconds later, he flashes me the amaryllis in question after I give him pointers on how to flip the camera to its front view. I sit up in bed, genuinely astounded. The amaryllis is healthy and vibrant, with tall, green stalks and gorgeous pink flowers.

“Wait, is that the same bulb?” I ask in disbelief. “The dried-up one—”

“That I got from the neighbors’ compost bin? Yeah!” Jerry sticks a thumb up in front of the camera.

Dad snorts somewhere nearby. “You stole it from the neighbor’s compost bin.”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“They threw it away.”

I tilt my head from side to side. “I mean, they could have been experimenting with how it would fare in an environment of biological degradation.”

“Only we would do something that weird. I thought you were on my side with this one.” Jerry pouts.

“I am. I can’t believe you got it to bloom.”

“I did exactly what you suggested,” Jerry says proudly. “I mixed three parts Miracle-Gro with one part sandy soil, seven days outdoors and two days in. Water sparingly.”

“The student has become the master,” I brag.

“Don’t push it, sweetheart.”

Dad steals the phone back from his husband and flips the camera around. He pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose and says, as if plants are utterly boring, “Anyway. Listen to this drama about the family across the street. It involves a Serbian cellist and half a dozen illegitimate children, all of whom are named after a pastry. Jer and I got invited to this Yom Kippur break fast.…”

I listen obediently to the scandalous tale of my parents’ weird new neighbors and the murder-mystery-esque plot that unfolded at Yom Kippur break fast. I give soft, convincing mm-hmms during the juicy bits, only halfway paying attention, but by the time Dad gets to the part about a hidden message in the cellist’s music indicating a seventh illegitimate Serbian child named Croissant, I’m laughing my ass off, buried in my mountain of jewel-tone pillows.