“No, but I like to think that I’m still kind of like a kid myself,” I said, “so even though I haven’t designed a kid’s room, exactly, I try to approach everything with a child’s heart.” I exhaled and smiled, but I felt a slight sinking feeling in my gut. I had bullshitted my way through that answer, and I could tell it hadn’t done much to impress them.
“Great,” Grant said with a quick nod. “Let’s get into it, then. I want to hear more about this mural idea of yours.”
An hour later, we were hugging our goodbyes. Aside from my ridiculous “child’s heart” speech, the meeting had gone as well as I could have hoped.
“I’ll send over my rate and contract, and we can go from there,” I said to them before we headed off in different directions. I didn’t rush, taking my time to savor every little thing I saw along the way to the subway: The parents swinging a small kid between them, arm in arm. The busboy from the restaurant on the corner, lugging in a giant crate of lemons through the front door. The window on the second floor of the apartment above me sliding open. New York felt possible tonight.
My phone buzzed in my bag. An email from my landlord, thanking me for sending my most recent rent payment in on time. I scanned her words until my eyes stopped at the last sentence. “We have to raise your rent a hundred dollars starting next month.”
And in an instant, everything felt impossible again.
Pizza. This was the only appropriate solution to the end of this day. Plus, I could afford it, for now at least. I turned around on Mott Street and made my way back down to Spring, swinging a right toward my favorite spot in the city, Famous Ben’s.
Twenty minutes later, I was face-to-face with two perfect slices of vodka sauce pizza—covered with a dusting of parmesan and red pepper flakes—and a frothing cup of root beer. Heaven. I placed my phone next to my paper plates, so that I could scroll and eat at the same time, and dug in. A text from Cleo popped up just as I opened Instagram. Any word from Lola?
Nope, I wrote back. Must be a hot date. I looked at the time on my phone. It had been almost ninety minutes since her date started. Lola hardly went that long without touching her phone, much less texting.
Should we be worried? Cleo asked.
I think she’s a few blocks from where I am. I’ll walk by on my way to the subway.
Cleo replied with a row of thumbs-up emojis, and I clicked back over to my Instagram feed. I scrolled past pictures of a newly adopted puppy, someone’s meticulously drawn bullet journal, and a slideshow of a home renovation with way too many sliding barn doors. Nothing about this mindless parade of images was soothing tonight. How did I know so many people in loving relationships, with enough money to buy gorgeous houses, who also happened to look impossibly good in wide-brimmed hats?
I swiped over to the Search page and typed the name Hayes Montgomery. A private account popped up. It was probably better that I couldn’t get a firsthand glimpse into his perfect, gorgeous life. It would only make me feel worse. And besides, why was I still fixating on Hot Suit, anyway? I needed to get this guy out of my brain.
My skin crawled with the temptation of insecurity, the urge to listen to that voice in my head that liked to tell me I couldn’t carve out the career I wanted, couldn’t make it in New York, could never look good in impossibly wide-brimmed hats. I knew deep down that that voice was lying—though maybe not about the hat—and that it did me no good to believe it. But sometimes self-doubt was an easier path to take than blind confidence.
As I was staring at my phone, a text from my mom popped up: Thought you might like to know that Jeremy and his wife are expecting their first baby! A girl. Saw his mom at Stop & Shop. Love Mom.
But I did not, in fact, want to know that my high school boyfriend and his wife were having a kid while I was sitting alone, unemployed, eating the only meal out that I could realistically afford. I didn’t respond.
Slices finished, root beer guzzled, Instagram accounts muted, bathroom visited, I mapped out on my phone the bar where Lola was and realized it was even closer than I’d thought. I’d walked by it a million times when I used to work in SoHo at the Anthropologie store on West Broadway, right after college. Five sweaty blocks later, and I was standing out front. No windows for me to peek through. Crap.
From the outside, it seemed like a regular old bar, but opening the door revealed it to be one of those spots tailor-made for first dates. Red velvet lined the booths and barstools. The shelves behind the dark wooden bar sparkled with bottles of liquor. It looked cozy, and romantic, and dark. There was no way you could hang out in this place without making out with someone.