The Last Phone Booth in Manhattan(43)

Miss Tilly handed Lyla a few samples to try, and we started our ascent up the narrow staircase back to ground level.

“I’m not meeting my Bumble date until way later if you want to grab a quick bite or something?” Lyla said.

“Yeah, sounds good. Nothing too bougie, though, I just donated a small fortune to Miss Tilly’s retirement fund.”

“There’s this falafel spot I’ve been dying to try in the West Village. The lines are always super long, though.” She glanced down at her watch. “But it’s after one, so we might’ve already missed the lunch crowd? And it’s not too cold today. What do you think?”

With little to no wind, the mid-February day, warmed by rays of the unobstructed sun, felt more like a day in March. “Sounds perfect.”

We walked up to Union Square, which was even more crowded with people taking advantage of the unseasonably nice day, and hopped on the 6 Train to Bleecker Street. We got out of the subway and used our phones to navigate our way to the restaurant. When we got there, the line was still wrapped halfway around the block.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lyla grunted and turned to me. “What do you want to do?”

I backed up and surveyed the line, my rumbling stomach vying for a vote. “I’m game to stick around. I mean, we’re already here.”

Lyla nodded and opened up her TikTok app. “I’m working on increasing my followers. I’m up to like 5,700! When you hit 10K, that’s when the brands start sending all the free swag to advertise. I’m gonna try to grab some new content while we’re waiting.”

Almost twenty minutes later, Lyla returned to where I was still standing in line, having only moved up a few feet from where she’d left me.

“How’d it go?” I asked. “Did you get anything good?”

“Some cute stuff. Snapped some pics for the Gram and put together a reel asking people waiting in the line what they ‘falafel about.’”

I leaned in, certain I didn’t hear her correctly. “Huh? What they falafel about? What does that even mean?”

“Yeah, a play on words. What they feeeeeel awful about. Get it? ‘Falafel about?’”

“Ohhhhh, I get it now. Funny.”

“Most were just hungry, but a few gave more thoughtful answers. Let me get you.”

“Me?”

“Do me a solid. When I ask you what you ‘falafel about,’ just don’t say hungry.” She held up her phone to face me before I could protest. “So, we’re standing outside the West Village’s newest hotspot eatery, Chick Pea, tell me, what do you falafel about?”

“Today or generally?” I asked.

“Generally.”

“Auditions,” I admitted.

Lyla stopped filming and lowered her camera. She sympathetically placed a hand on my arm and said, “That’s great you’re putting yourself out there again. You’re so good, Avery. Really.” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “You know what you should do? You should audition for The Voice. They’d hear you sing, swivel their chairs around, see what a babe you are, and boom, record deal in no time.”

I appreciated her words of encouragement, but I wasn’t sure The Voice was my chosen path. “I should have mentioned it sooner, but I was already feeling the pressure and just . . . didn’t want to have to tell you all and Charlie and everyone how I didn’t get cast again, and again, and again. My stats are pretty awful. Seven auditions so far, no callbacks.”

“Seven? That’s nothing. I do seven in my sleep,” she joked in an effort to be supportive. Her voice turned more serious. “Avery, it’s the biz. But you have to keep putting yourself out there. Your break will come. Mine too. We’ve got to believe in ourselves, right? I mean, if we don’t, who will?”

Lyla was right—no one was going to do it for me. This time I didn’t have a scapegoat or another road I could hide down. I had to either face the challenge or abandon my dream altogether—and was I ready to do that? Throw in the towel completely because it was what . . . hard?

Mom liked to say, “Mistakes are meant for learning, not repeating.” So, what had I learned? That I missed the hell out of performing. That I’d lost myself somewhere between my senior showcase and the moment the feds practically kicked down our front door. And that it was time I got out of the damn passenger seat and back behind the wheel of my own life.





Chapter Twenty-One


After close to another forty-five minutes of waiting, we were beyond ravenous and certain we wouldn’t see any falafel before we collapsed from hunger, so we begrudgingly abandoned our places in line and went in search of a classic New York hot dog cart. Although they could usually be found on every street corner, for some reason we were having a hard time locating a single stand and found ourselves wandering aimlessly in pursuit of one.

“If I pass out right here, just make sure to take care of Hank II for me,” Lyla said with her hand dramatically on her forehead.

I took her by the arm and dragged her up the sidewalk. “Come on, I see something at the end of the block.”

“It’s probably just one of those guys selling knockoff purses,” she whined.

“No, there’s an umbrella. It has to be food.”