I slip on a pair of three-inch black heels then stalk over to him and peer into the bowl. There are carrots in there and tiny cubes of apple. I peel back the plastic wrap and the scent of nose-tickling lime rises up to me.
“Are you going to have any of this?” I ask him.
He shakes his head no. So I take that as permission to dip my fingers in and scoop out a jiggly glob. Then I stick it in my mouth before it can fall off. I roll my eyes in happiness at the tart flavor and the crunch of the carrot and apple.
When I look back at Josh he’s laughing at me.
“What? You know this about me,” I say. I take the bowl from him and walk across my apartment to my tiny fridge. I throw out a container of three-day-old fried rice to make room for the bowl. “Thank you for bringing it,” I call over my shoulder.
“Sure. No problem.” He looks around my apartment from the mess of clothes on my bed to the pile of fertility books to the quote on my wall. Then he rolls his shoulders and says, “Well, I should probably head out. Have fun tonight.”
He turns to go and then I remember that Brook told me to bring a date.
“Wait,” I call after him.
He turns, an eyebrow raised.
“Are you busy tonight?”
The Tribeca address is a towering glass building that glows like a blue roadside flare lit up at night. It’s an office building, not an apartment building or a townhome like I was expecting. Inside, the lobby is cold white marble and mirrors, and devoid of any furnishings except the sleek guard desk and a bank of mirrored elevators. The sound of my heels clicks on the marble and Josh’s shoes scuff softly on the stone.
The guard stares at us from the desk, and I decide he definitely isn’t the warm, friendly type.
“You sure this is the right place?” Josh murmurs to me.
I glance down at my phone and look at Brook’s text. The address is the same. “I think so.”
Josh smiles down at my phone and I flush at the memory I see on his face. He’s thinking of the park bench and the vibrating phone calls.
Geesh.
I clear my throat when we reach the guard desk and tell him my name. He runs his finger down a list attached to a clipboard, then asks for our IDs. We hand them over and the guard scans them into his computer.
Josh puts his thumbs in his pockets and stares at the thirty-foot-tall glass windows and the handblown glass chandelier. For a second I think he’s going to start whistling or calling “helloooo” to see if the empty lobby echoes. But then the guard hands us back our IDs. He takes our coats, puts them in a closet behind his desk, and hands us a coat check ticket.
“This way,” he says.
Josh raises his eyebrows at me and I shrug. The guard walks purposefully toward the back of the lobby, around the elevators, and then escorts us to a marble stairway leading down.
“Take them to the bottom,” he says gruffly. Then he turns back to his desk.
“Thank you,” I call after him.
So, I guess this is Carly’s place, or her husband’s office building, or…something. When I realize we’re headed to another basement I hold back a smile. Brook sure is going to be disappointed. This definitely isn’t the penthouse she’s been longing for.
“Thanks for coming,” I tell Josh. “I don’t really know what to expect. My friend just said to wear a dress.”
He looks down at his scuffed jeans, his old T-shirt, and his much-loved sneakers, then he glances back at me, a whole lot of amusement on his face. “So, this is a fancy dress-up kind of party?”
He rubs his hands through his messy hair and I laugh at his self-mocking expression.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s just a few of my friends from the fertility group.” How dressy can it be, honestly?
I grab the cold brass railing, and my heels click on the marble stairs as Josh and I walk down the steps. The walls are plaster and there’s a beautiful glass mosaic on the ceiling with tiles the color of lapis lazuli, and light blue and inky night blue all backlit with gold shimmer. As I study the ceiling, I realize it’s not just a pretty abstract picture. “Is it just me or is this mosaic the River Styx?”
Josh points to a cloaked ferryman in his boat in the corner of the mosaic. “Apparently, we’re descending into the underworld,” he jokes.
“Huh.”
I wonder if Carly’s husband owns this building and if he commissioned this piece. Is she the beautiful Persephone, stolen to the underworld for the pleasure of her grumpy, scowling Hades? I hope not. Persephone never seemed happy. Come to think of it, I doubt Hades was very happy either.