The Last Phone Booth in Manhattan(10)
The line went dead.
Wait, what? I had barely caught what she said and started to repeat aloud what I could remember of the address in an effort to not let it slip from my memory. But as hard as I tried to reiterate the information, I began mixing up the numbers. I picked up the receiver and punched in the number again, hoping it would reconnect me with the same operator and repeat the message. Thankfully, it did, and I listened to it a few times until it stuck. Though I had the address now firmly solidified in my brain, I hung up the phone more confused than ever.
The only thing I could think was that this was the address of a nearby cab company or taxi stand? It was a strange way to go about arranging a ride, but I was in no position to be particularly choosy or overly analytical. Cold, sore, and looking like a wild animal from a Nat Geo special, I just needed to get home and for this to all have been a horrible, god-awful, dumpster fire of a hellish nightmare that I would awaken from à la Dorothy back in Kansas after her foray to Oz.
I looked up at the signs marking the cross streets and then repeated the mystery address again and again to myself, sounding a lot like Dory from Finding Nemo. 1843 Worth Street, New York, New York. 1843 Worth Street, New York, New York. Okay, just a few more blocks from here. My hair slipped out from my loosening hood, and the wind cemented the strands to the moisture on my chapped cheeks. I batted at them with my forearm and blew a raspberry, desperately trying to get the pieces out of my mouth and wrangle them back under the drawstring. Dear God, I must have been a sight.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally turned the corner onto the wide cobblestones of Worth Street, counting down the building numbers until I reached 1843. I peered up at the residential loft building converted from an industrial warehouse. This was clearly not a cab company. Panic and arctic wind sliced through me, and my eyes darted around for some sort of an idea of what to do or a sign from the universe on some way to get me the hell home.
Suddenly, I noticed a perfectly timed Uber Eats deliveryman exiting the building, and I rushed up the short flight of steps to catch the handle just before the door snapped shut. I slithered past him and into a small but cozy lobby, hoping to thaw out while I gained my bearings. Maybe the cab company was on a side street? Or through the alleyway behind this building? Someone who lived here would certainly know.
I scanned the apartment doors on the first floor for a few minutes, hoping to see someone coming either in or out for their Christmas Day dinner, but shockingly, all things were quiet in the building. I’d have to knock on one of these doors, but honestly, if I saw me out in the hallway looking like the disheveled mess I was, I wouldn’t be much inclined to answer either. I untied the drawstring bowed underneath my chin and yanked the hood down from my head, hoping it would make me appear less suspicious, but aware that, without a brush, the scrunchie that had been barely making do before was certainly on its last leg now.
Huffing out a sigh of defeat, I started with the first apartment. I rapped three times on the solid metal door and was surprised when a leggy blonde in a stunning red dress greeted me. Her face could not disguise the look of pure horror at my appearance, but despite her obvious pity, she stepped forward anyway.
“Can I help you?” she asked, and a sympathetic look washed over her.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you, especially on Christmas. You look beautiful, by the way. That’s a Valentino, isn’t it? Never mind. I’m looking for a cab company and this was the address I was given. Do you know of one nearby?” I gestured with the business card in my hand, the one the guard had given me, as some kind of proof of legitimacy, even though all that was written on it was the hand-scrawled phone number.
“Cab company? Here? I don’t think so, but hold on a sec.” She twisted her body away from me and called into the hallway. “Hey, G, you know of a cab company around here?” She turned back to face me with arms crossed over her chest. “Sorry, I don’t live in Tribeca.”
A beat later, a male voice called back, “What’s that?”
“There’s a woman at your front door in desperate need of . . . a cab?” Her voice went up on the word cab, but I’m sure she was thinking I was even more in need of a hair brush or a psych evaluation.
“How is it that at thirty-two years old and after all the events I’ve attended over the years, I still cannot tie a tie,” the man muttered, head down, as he approached the front doorway fumbling with the knot at the base of his neck. “There, I got it.” Just then, he lifted his head up to look at me standing in the doorway.
“Avery?” he said, wide-eyed and dumbstruck, unable to conceal his state of shock, “is that you?”
Suddenly it felt as if all the air in the hallway—and possibly all the air on Earth—had been sucked out of the atmosphere and released into oblivion, leaving me breathless and dizzy. “I—wha—Gabe? How?”
His boyish good looks hadn’t changed one bit since the last time I saw him, which happened to be our epic breakup almost seven years ago. Only now they were just more pronounced, mature, and sexy. His broad chest filled out his suit, and his arms were most impressive against the taut fabric that covered them. But more than anything, I couldn’t take my eyes off his, remembering that the last time I looked into them was the day he’d broken my heart and changed my life forever. My tongue suddenly felt too large for my mouth, and I struggled to swallow as I continued to blink at what I could only imagine was an exhaustion-induced mirage.