Tonight the Streets Are Ours

He bends down to fuss with some flowers in a planter. “Some of the greatest art in history is born from tragedy. Literature, music, paintings. If I can create something beautiful and meaningful out of everything rotten that happened with me and Bianca and Leo, then maybe … maybe there’s a point to all of this.”


To Arden this seems like a ridiculous justification. The right answer would have been to leave Bianca alone. Even if Leo had been unhappy with his life anyway, even if he had wound up leaving anyway, at least something else would have been the last straw for him. At least Peter and Bianca would be innocent.

But it’s too late for the right answer now. What’s done is done. And she supposes that Peter is only trying to work with what he’s got.

“Just do one thing for me,” Arden says. “Don’t write about last night. Don’t write about meeting me. Not on your blog, not in a book, not anywhere. I am not your story to tell.”

“Fine,” Peter says. “I can do that.” He rubs his neck and looks at her through lowered lashes. “It’s too bad, though. I would have a lot to say about last night. I would have a lot to say about you.”

And she’s curious to know what he would say about her—of course she is. But she’s not going to ask.

“I need to go home,” she says.

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you mad at me?”

She thinks about this. Mad isn’t the word. She had just wanted Peter to be someone different from the person he is. But whose fault is that?

She shakes her head. “I feel sorry for you,” she says. “I feel sorry for all of you.”

Peter nods, like this is the best response he could hope to get. “Can I walk you back to your mom’s?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got it covered.”

“Okay, then. I guess … I’ll see you around. Maybe on my first book tour!” He laughs to show that he’s joking, sort of. She pictures Cumberland’s one fading bookstore, with its rack of cigarettes, and she thinks it’s unlikely that Peter will ever have a book tour that brings him anywhere close to her.

He extends his arms, and she steps forward into them. They hold each other for a long moment, and Arden wonders about all the people who must have hugged in this garden over the years and whether any of them could have had a relationship like hers and Peter’s. She thinks she hears Peter sniffle a few times while her face is pressed into his shoulder, but she doesn’t look, and she doesn’t ask him if he’s okay.

“Are you walking out, too?” she asks when they pull apart.

“Not yet. I’m going to hang out here for a little while longer, read my book, you know. I just got to the good part.”

She nods. “Bye, Peter.”

“Bye.”

She turns and heads back toward the street, toward her mother. Once she’s outside, she glances behind her and she sees Peter sitting back on the bench, his book unopened in his hands, staring at a marble statue of a little boy, all alone.





Lindsey’s big night

Using the directions stored in Arden’s phone from last night, she and her mother navigate to Jigsaw Manor. “Why on Earth did you think this would be a good place to leave your car?” her mother asks as they walk fifteen minutes from the nearest subway stop.

“I didn’t have to parallel park,” Arden replies. This gets a laugh from her mother.

When they reach the car, Arden’s heart somersaults, because there is a person lying on its hood. A girl.

“Lindsey!” Arden cries, running toward her.

Lindsey sits up and slides off the car. She gives a laugh of surprise as Arden flings her arms around her and hugs her, hard. “I’m so sorry,” Arden whispers. “I shouldn’t have run off last night. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Lindsey says. “I shouldn’t have picked a fight with you. And I shouldn’t have let you go.”

“Well, I’m Mrs. Ellzey,” Arden says. And the two of them lose it, laughing so hard they have to hold on to each other just to stay upright.