We exited onto the FDR uptown, and then on Holden’s instruction we pulled off the highway at Sixty-Third Street.
“Midtown, interesting. What’s your master plan?” I asked.
“Serendipity.”
“Aha.” I settled back. Sweet. Serendipity was a well-known café slash ice cream parlor around the corner from Bloomingdale’s. It was also where Holden and I’d had our first date.
The place was usually packed, and today was no exception. A ponytailed waiter led us to a table behind a fat potted fern.
“It’s so cute here.” I looked around as we sat. “You should have seen the dive that Rachel and I were at last night.”
“Yeah. She told me.”
“Ah.” I could feel the smile drop off my face as I opened the menu to hide behind it. The Holden-Rachel cousin bond could wax and wane, but it was always there. Whether I liked it or not. “She told you everything?”
“That you might have had a disgusting green cocktail, and it impaired your judgment to the point where an hour later, you were jumping into cabs with strangers? Yes.”
Over my menu, I wrinkled my nose. “It happened, it was awful, I guess I was following an impulse. What can I say?”
“There’s not much to say, except I think you should just order the everything nachos and a frozen hot chocolate to share.”
“Done.”
He’d chosen the items deliberately. It was as if by unspoken mutual agreement we were taking a nostalgia leap two years backward. Back to the thrill of our first date, my sophmore and his junior fall at Lafayette, when we’d only known each other for a couple of weeks.
We’d sat right there, a stone’s throw from this table. It had been so fantastically awkward. Staring at each other, sometimes laughing at each other for no reason, and then, over the shared frozen hot chocolate and everything nachos, seeking and finding the million things we had in common, including a mutual appreciation of anything dashed with cinnamon (from French toast to applesauce to gum), our dueling collections of retro board games, and our major sneezing allergies to pollen—which my mom was obsessed with and Holden’s mother totally disregarded.
“I love Serendipity,” I exclaimed in a rush of unfolding relaxation. Or else it was the Advil I’d taken just before I’d left, finally working its muscle-softening magic. “I mean, it’s the coolest, dorkiest scene. You can be in first grade or grandparents, and you’re never out of place.” Other tables were filled with young couples, families, and seniors, all plowing through their sundaes and grilled cheeses and banana splits, plus the frozen hot chocolates that were the house specialty.
“So where does that put Dave and Busters?” Holden asked.
I laughed outright. “Unforgettable.”
“Okay, for the last time. I had no idea that it was the Champion League soccer final that night.”
“Mmm, I don’t know, Hold. I thought it was kind of fun trying to talk to you over the sound of two hundred drunken grown men swearing and drinking Guinness.”
“I’m amazed that I had a chance with you, after that night.”
“I’m not.” We exchanged a glance. What was happening here? It was light, but meaningful. And I didn’t mind it. “So how was your Halloween?”
Holden passed me his phone. “You want the short story? Check out the last three videos.”
I took it and watched them, mostly of a gang of guys roaming wild up and down a crowded dormitory hall, all wearing crazy hats (cowboy, Viking) and masks (monster, vampire) and mugging for the camera. At one point, Holden flipped the camera on himself to show that he was dressed like Jack Sparrow, which had been his go-to costume ever since I’d known him. It involved a gold clip-on hoop, eyeliner, and a skull scarf wrapped around his head.
“Why does college fun look so much better than high school fun?” I asked as I passed the phone back.
“Hey, high school fun has its charm. Just ask my ex.”
Holden’s beard scruff seemed to make his eyes three shades bluer. I knew that he also knew that these moments between us were peculiar, charged with memories, affection…maybe more? Whatever it was, I was relieved when the waiter reappeared to take our order.
And the rest of lunch was easy, as we launched back in time. Which felt amazing. I loved stretching into the weight of time remembered. The day we went on six rides on the waterfront carousel, or when we crashed a party on the roof deck of Soho House. It was a nice change to reminisce easily, with no inconvenient blacked-out trauma section.
As we strolled out of the restaurant, Holden bought me a giant lollipop from the selection of toys and candy at the cashier.
“I remember that wallet.” It had been a gift, one of my first to Holden, for his seventeenth birthday. Ralph Lauren calfskin, not on sale; plus it had cost another thirty dollars to monogram. I’d used up all my babysitting, allowance, and catering-with-Smarty money. It had seemed crazily extravagant, but with parents like Holden’s, who gave him everything, it was almost like I’d needed to spend the extra.
“Yeah.” He flipped it over. “If it ain’t broke…”
“Your stash of twenties gets skinnier by the hour,” I noted as I unwrapped my lollipop.
“Easy trade,” he said. His smile was wry. I never liked Holden to feel that I was interested in him for his money, but the issue was always there, an unpleasant little twitch. He liked to treat; he liked solving problems with a credit card. Again, not his fault. It was like hailing cabs—it was part of his background.
As we stepped outside, I wondered what that would feel like, to have so many solutions ready via my wallet. This was where my mind had often drifted when I’d gone out with Holden. Smarty and I were always talking about ways to make extra cash. With Holden, it was as if those bills just appeared by magic. And yet it also took away another kind of magic—of scheming, of hoping, of saving.
The rain had stopped. Water dripped from trees and awnings as we strolled down Lexington.
“Thanks for this afternoon, Wilde. It doesn’t even feel real. More like some gorgeous Sunday daydream.”
“Anytime.” Holden twined his fingers through mine. “Only thing is, I’m not sure I’m exactly ready to deal with my Sunday-night reality yet. Look, the sun’s just about to break through—wanna walk to the park?”
“Okay.”
It was a few blocks to Central Park, where the trees were in burning-leaf autumn glory. On a park bench, an old man was smoking a pipe. The woody tobacco smoke mixed in heady with the mushroomy, wet-soil scent of the park after a rain.