Tonight the Streets Are Ours

7) She wants to get a job in international politics when she grows up, like work for the UN or be a diplomat or something else where she travels a lot and wields influence.

8) Her biggest phobia is fire, which she says is a “rational fear,” since fire can kill you. She laughed at me when she found out that my biggest phobia is public speaking, because according to Bianca, public speaking cannot actually result in death.

9) She’s the most incredible girl I’ve ever met.

When the field started filling up with the after-work crowd, we left our spot and walked around for a while. I bought us lemon Popsicles from a pushcart. We were talking so much that we barely made the time between sentences to eat, so her Popsicle melted all over her hand. She was laughing at the sticky mess, and I wanted so badly to lick every last drop of lemon off her fingers—but I didn’t, I didn’t touch her fingers with my tongue or any other part of her with any part of me.

We wound up at the carousel, so I bought tickets for both of us and we rode horses next to each other. Afterward, I walked her to the subway, all the way down to the turnstile, as far as I could go without actually getting on her train with her.

“I had a lot of fun this afternoon,” she said.

“Me, too,” I said. “Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”

And neither of us said anything about Leo at all.

I wanted to kiss her. I would have traded anything for it. Watching her walk away felt like suffocating, and again I thought of Romeo and Juliet. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

See, this is why it’s hard to be a writer. Some other writer has always said it all before you, and surely they have said it better.

But today I don’t care, not about any of that. Life is sort of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if you know what I mean. Some days are too big. Some days are much too small. But today was one of those rare days that was just right.

While Chris was buying his sixteen hats, Arden poked around the Grass Is Always Greener. On one of the racks, she found a dress that didn’t look too far off from what Bianca had been wearing the first day Peter saw her in the bookstore. It was bright blue, not yellow, but it had that lace trim at the top, just like what Peter had described. That style had been very en vogue last year, so it wasn’t surprising to find it here.

Arden slipped into the dressing room and tried it on. The straps were a little too long, so they kept sliding down her shoulders, but maybe that was sexy? Otherwise, it fit well. She stood on tiptoe and held her hair off her face in an improvised upsweep. I look pretty, she thought. I think.

“Arden?” She heard Chris’s voice from outside the dressing room.

She opened the curtain. “Hi.” She looked up at him through lowered eyelashes.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “I’m ready to go. I got the last hat for free, because I’m buying so many! Anyway, I’m starving. You want to get some food?”

Arden swallowed hard. “Um,” she said. “What do you think of this dress?” She pirouetted slowly, still on her toes.

When she turned around to face front, Chris seemed to have only just registered that she wasn’t wearing the jacket and jeans that she’d been in all day. “It’s nice,” he said. “But don’t you already have something like that?”

She dropped to flat feet. “No.”

“Well, then you should get it if you like it. I’m going to start loading the hats into the car while you’re doing that, okay? I’ll meet you out there. And then food! God, I’m starving.”

He galloped out of the store, and Arden returned to the dressing room. Before peeling off the dress, she looked in the mirror for a second, but she didn’t see anything pretty there anymore. She just saw herself.

Back in regular clothes, she handed the dress to the sales clerk, who asked, “You buying this?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“It looked good on you,” the sales girl said with a shrug.

Arden shook her head. “It’s not really worth it.” And she followed her boyfriend into the cold outside.