“That’s New York charm for you,” Noah whispers back.
I go to open the door and I feel him reach around from behind me to open it for me.
“Don’t worry, we’re not all like that,” he says.
And I don’t know why, but there’s something about the way he says it that sends a shiver of excitement shimmying up my spine.
Chapter Nineteen
Stepping out into the icy air helps my pulse return to somewhere close to normal. The sky is now filling with banks of white clouds and people are hurrying by with their heads down against the chill breeze.
“You hungry?” Noah asks.
I nod. Now I come to think of it, I’m absolutely starving.
“OK, I know this great place we can go to that has food and adventure all rolled into one.” He looks at me and grins and I get that shivery feeling again.
“Food and adventure,” I say, trying to joke my way back to un-shivery normality.
“Uh-huh. This place was made for Magical Mystery Day.”
“Well then, we must go there immediately.”
As we head back to the truck, I see the girl from the bookstore. She’s standing outside a café now, chatting on her phone. When she sees us, she starts really staring at Noah again.
“There’s that girl, the one I thought knew you,” I say.
Noah casts a brief look at the girl and pulls his hat down. “Never seen her before,” he mutters, quickening his pace.
As we pass the girl, I glance at her.
“It is,” she says animatedly into her phone but still staring at Noah. Then I realize what’s going on. He’s so striking-looking that this kind of thing must happen all the time. He’s literally a girl-gaze magnet. I feel a sudden pang of sorrow. What am I doing having fluttery feelings for someone like Noah? For all I know, he might have a girlfriend. He must have a girlfriend. How could the owner of those cheekbones and that smile not have a girlfriend?
“Why the sad face?” Noah asks as we get into the truck.
“I’m not sad,” I say as breezily as I can, gazing out of the window. The girl is walking toward us now, still holding her phone.
“OK, let’s go,” Noah says, quickly pulling out onto the road.
I instinctively grip onto the seat. Thankfully, a call from Mum provides a welcome distraction.
“Did you get it?” she says without even saying hello.
“Yes and it’s lovely,” I tell her. “Even better than the original.”
I can actually hear her sigh of relief.
“Noah and I were just going to get some lunch,” I say, praying that she won’t need me to come back to help her with anything.
“What’s that? Oh, could you hang on a second, darling?”
“Sure.”
I hear the shriek of children’s laughter. “No dancing on the tables, please,” Mum says in a shrill voice. “Sorry, Penny, it’s the flower girls—they’re very full of life. What were you saying?”
“Would it be OK for me to go and get some lunch with Noah?”
“No!” Mum yells. “Do not get chocolate all over your dress! Oh, Penny, I swear, if their mothers don’t come back soon I am going to go insane. Yes, of course you can go for lunch, darling. Your dad just texted and he and Elliot have gone off to see a movie in Times Square, so take your time. Have some fun,” she says wistfully. The shrieking in the background reaches fever pitch.
“Thanks, Mum. Love you.”
“Love you too, sweetheart. No! Do not eat the flowers!”
We’re driving through a more industrial area now. Every so often I catch glimpses of the river between the buildings.
“All OK back at the ranch?” Noah asks.
“Yeah. I think my mum might be about to have a nervous breakdown but she said I can stay out as long as I like.”
“Awesome.” Noah glances at me. “I mean, awesome that you can stay out, not awesome that she’s having a nervous breakdown. But don’t worry—it’s impossible to have a nervous breakdown with Sadie Lee around. She’s like a walking, talking, baking, comfort blanket.”
I laugh. “Sounds like the perfect grandma.”
“Oh, she is.” There’s something about the serious way Noah says this that makes me instantly look at him, but his face is expressionless and fixed on the road. “So, up at that turn I’m going to hang a left,” he says, “and then we’re pretty much there.”
“Oh.” We’re surrounded by grim-looking warehouse buildings now, and there are hardly any people around. I can’t see anywhere that looks remotely like a hotbed of food and adventure, but maybe once we get around the corner we’ll emerge into the heart of a quirky little neighborhood, crammed full of vintage stores and cafés.
Instead, when we get around the corner, we emerge into an industrial wasteland full of garbage Dumpsters and tumbleweed. OK, there isn’t actually any tumbleweed, but there should be—it’s totally a tumbleweed kind of place.
Noah pulls up outside a warehouse building that looks long abandoned. The walls are crumbling and covered in faded graffiti like old tattoos. Most of the windows are boarded up with sheets of corrugated iron and the few that aren’t are lined with heavy metal bars. Even the trees that are dotted about look derelict, leafless, and spindly against the beige brickwork.
“I know it looks kind of sketchy,” Noah says in what has to be the understatement of the year, “but once you get inside it’s a whole other story.”
“We’re going inside—there?” I stare at the building. The only time I’ve seen anything like this before has been in the scariest scenes of really scary movies—usually involving crazed psychos armed with guns. Or, one time, an actual chain saw.
Noah laughs. “You’re gonna love it, seriously.”
I turn to stare at him. Maybe he really is crazy, and not in a good way. “But w-what—is it?” I stammer.
“I’m taking you to a secret café—for artists,” he says.
I admit it; now I’m interested. “Really?”