Page 68 of Songs of Summer

“What! No way, this is my song,” he lied.

“Stop! You have got to be kidding me!”

“I am, I am kidding, I knew it was your song from the first note. Great choice.”

The third course came, nori lentils with Swiss chard and shiitake mushrooms followed by dessert—a sweet potato cheesecake topped with caramel, fresh raspberries, and one spectacular sweet potato chip. It was nothing short of sublime, as was the song pairing, Matt’s choice, The Proclaimers singing “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” in honor of the distance that would soon be between them.

Yes, he had calculated it.

“Is this you?” Maggie managed in between decadent bites.

“It’s my go-to,” he fibbed again, taking a slow bite of the heavenly cheesecake.

“I love it,” she said, taking her own slow bite.

“The dessert or the song?”

“Both!”

Track 32

The Shoop Shoop Song

Maggie

On the wayto the car, they stopped at a window cut into the side of an Italian restaurant. Matt knocked three times on the glass. It slid open, reminding Maggie of the scene inThe Wizard of Ozwhen Dorothy and her posse reach the Emerald City.

“We’re here to see the wizard!” Maggie joked. “I need to get home, and he needs a shot of espresso.”

Matt cracked up. The barista not so much.

“Due caffè espresso,” Matt ordered, with an Italian accent that felt more respectful than pretentious. The window slammed shut with zero acknowledgment.

New York City, with its cranky, kooky residents and surprises at every turn, was exceeding Maggie’s expectations.

Matt was exceeding her expectations at every turn as well. Being alone with him in the city, away from all the messiness on Fire Island, felt completely right. She had never felt so instantly connected to someone. Like two halves of the same person was how her birth mother described them.

It was different, being with Matt, than it was with Jason.She knew she shouldn’t compare the two. What good would that do her? And if she did (like really did on a piece of paper with pros and cons), she knew Jason’s list of pros would run circles around Matt’s. But when she woke up in Matt’s arms on the beach that morning, it had stirred her in ways she’d never quite felt before.Could lust outweigh a lifetime of pros?

The line from “Riptide” played in her head yet again.

So what if she had been living on the highest shelf? There are worse things in life than playing it safe.

The barista placed two steaming shots of espresso on the small wooden ledge that protruded from the windowsill, served in bone china cups with lemon rinds adorning their saucers like miniature crescent moons. Matt downed his, Maggie sipped hers. The humorless barista stood there, waiting for their cups, she assumed. She fell to the pressure and downed the rest. It tasted bitter, and she felt the bolt of caffeine nearly instantly. Not that she needed it. She was high on the excitement of being in Manhattan, with Matt. He was looking down at her, patiently waiting for her to finish. His eyes seemed to be smiling. Her mind ran to kissing him again, but she quickly pushed the delicious thought away.

Concentrate on your new venture, she admonished herself.

She didn’t shut up on the car ride uptown. Matt didn’t even turn on the radio. He just listened to her big plans, smiling and nodding his head in approval. She was on fire, starting one sentence before finishing the last, a rambling jumble of everything she loved about the listening bar and everything she hoped for her own.

If someone had taken notes and organized them in a business proposal, it would have been quite sensible. Initially, she planned to open only on weekends. She would serve in shifts,a seven o’clock and a nine o’clock seating. The nine might be a little late for Chagrin Falls, but the sushi chef she was partnering with promised that his place was hopping till midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. She would switch on mood lighting after closing the store and add candles, Japanese cherry blossoms, and one long line of maneki-neko: porcelain paw-waving cats considered to bring good fortune. Her favorite employee, Phoebe Buffay, who was watching the shop now (she had officially changed her name from that of anotherFriendscastmate, Monica, when she turned eighteen), was a musical theater geek and would be the perfect hostess. Maggie would spin the records and her partner, the chef from the sushi place next door, would work the menu. Soon her little nine-to-five (really ten-to-six) shop would be rocking through the midnight hour.

“This could really work,” she squealed, as Matt happily agreed.

They pulled off the FDR Drive at East 61st Street and headed west to Park Avenue. When they turned, so did the city. Maggie stopped babbling and looked out the window.

“Aaah, the Upper East Side, I presume.”

“Yup, my childhood hood.”

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