Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“Are you okay?”


Arden shrugged, knowing that Lindsey couldn’t see her. “I need to get out of here.”

“How the hell are you getting there?”

“I’m driving the Heart of Gold, obviously. How else?” She had not even considered the question until Lindsey asked, but now it seemed like the only logical answer.

“Okay,” Lindsey said. “Yeah. I’m in. Can you come pick me up?”

“Wait, seriously?” If Lindsey hadn’t said yes, Arden might have concluded this whole plan was absurd, and not even a plan anyway, and New York was a six-hour drive away, and she’d never driven that far, and certainly not in the Heart of Gold, and she had no idea where in the city Peter might be, or what she would say to him if she somehow found him, and maybe she should stay right here, like the good girl she was, have a sleepover at Lindsey’s, like she’d told her dad all along.

But Lindsey said, “Seriously. My track meet’s already over, so I’m just hanging out. You know I’ll take any excuse to get out of here.”

And Arden said, “Okay. Meet me down the block from your house in fifteen minutes.”

She grabbed her overnight bag and her brownies, she left the card key on the nightstand, and she walked out of the hotel room, letting the door slam shut behind her. And as she did so she felt her heart expanding in her chest—because finally, finally, something was happening.





Part Two





On the road

“Hi, is Peter in today?” Lindsey said into her phone. She paused. Arden tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Oh,” she said, “you don’t have a Peter there? That’s cool. Don’t worry about it.” She hung up.

Arden cursed under her breath.

About thirty miles out of town, once Arden had finally started to wrap her mind around what she was doing, she’d realized that she didn’t actually know what bookstore Peter worked at, just that it was somewhere in New York City accessible by subway. “No problem,” Lindsey had reassured her. “How many bookstores could there be?”

A lot, apparently. Arden hadn’t known. Cumberland had only one bookstore, which doubled as a cat adoption center and a tobacconist.

While Arden drove, Lindsey had pulled up a list of NYC bookshops on her phone, and she was systematically calling them all. But so far, none of them employed Peter.

“What if we never find him?” Arden asked, her eyes trained on the road. “What if the store where he works is unlisted or something?”

“Then we’ll hang out in New York City for the evening,” Lindsey said. “Get dinner in Little Italy. Take in a Broadway play. Go home with a good story.”

“I’m not driving six hours for a good story.”

The Heart of Gold shuddered a little, as it always did when Arden tried to edge the speed above fifty-eight miles an hour, as if it wanted to remind her that in this car, the trip was likely to take more than six hours. Arden glanced at the clock on her dashboard. It was now just past three. If all went well, they should reach Peter around eight forty-five. Nine at the latest.

Assuming, of course, they could figure out where he was.

Since stopping at the Matsons’ house on the way out of town, Arden had filled Lindsey in on the failed anniversary and the inconvenient start to her boyfriend’s film career.

“Are you kidding me?” Lindsey had demanded when Arden told her what Chris had done. “What a jerk! It’s like he doesn’t even care.”

It was one thing for Arden to think mean thoughts about her boyfriend, but another thing entirely for Lindsey to say them aloud. Lindsey didn’t get where Chris was coming from, and she didn’t love him like Arden did.

Or like Arden hoped she did.

“I’m sure he cares,” Arden defended him, even though she wasn’t actually sure that she was sure. “He just wants so badly to be a professional actor. And this is his chance. It’s complicated. I should be happy for him.”