Page 54 of The Way I Am Now
“No. We’re friends. But we’re not friends like you and I arefriends. If you know what I mean?”
He smiles, both bright and bold, yet a little shy, all at the same time. “I think I know what you mean, yeah.”
“Good.” I twirl a bite of my pasta around my fork and stuff it in my mouth so I stop talking.
“And just so you know,” he says, “I’m notfriendswith anyone else right now either.”
“Noted.” And even I have to laugh at how nerdy and awkward we’re being. “Thank you for the information,” I add.
“You’re very welcome.”
Full of pasta and sauce and bread and cheese, we leave Nonna’s, but when we get outside, Josh starts walking in the opposite direction from which we came.
“Not this way?” I ask.
“The date’s not over yet,” he says.
“There’s more?”
“Yeah, there’s sort of a whole theme.”
“I get athemeddate?” I ask, genuinely impressed, flattered even. “What is it, the theme?”
“It’s more of a loose theme or . . . or a theme within a theme,” he says, motioning with his hands as he tries to explain.
We walk about half a block, past some apartment buildings that look a lot like ours, with storefronts at the ground level that are closed already. Old trees line the streets here, their roots pushing up the cement of the sidewalk into tiny mountains that make the ground uneven. Josh reaches for my hand again and I let him. But he keeps holding on even after we pass the broken parts of the sidewalk.
“We’ve never done this,” he points out, interlacing his fingers with mine. “You always used to pull away when I’d try to hold your hand.”
I nod. “I like it now. It’s nice.” But it’s more than nice. And I more than like it. I just don’t know exactly how to say that.
He smiles at the ground, and I squeeze his hand once. He squeezes back. Like some kind of private Morse code between the two of us. We turn on a dark corner and the wind suddenly picks up, blowing our clothes and hair. I have the distinct thought that I wouldn’t want to be walking here alone at night without him.
“We’re close,” he says as if he can tell what I’m thinking.
We stop in front of a little shop I think is a coffeehouse at first, because the neon sign in the window saysGREATER THAN > GROUNDS. As we walk in, a bell dings. There’s no one in sight, and when we step up to the counter, I see there are at least twenty different flavors of gelato lined up in the freezer case. The hand-lettered sign at the register says:COME FOR THE COFFEE, STAY FOR THE GELATO.
“Mm, gelato for dessert?” I ask.
“I took a chance,” he says, half squinting, half side-eyeing me like he’s holding his breath. “You do like gelato, then?”
“Well, yeah. I like ice cream, so . . .”
A girl pops up from behind the counter, proclaiming, as she straightens her glasses, “Gelato is not ice cream. Ice cream is not gelato. Gelato is a thousand times better than ice cream. It’s just a fact.”
“I agree,” Josh says, but he barely glances at her, this girl who kind of reminds me of myself in a weird way. Maybe it’s just the glasses and the similar hair and height, but I find myself imagining her as an alternate-universe version of myself.
She puts on a fresh pair of plastic gloves and says, “My name is Chelsea. I’ll be your barista today.” And then she sighs, like saying her name is the worst part of her job. “Let me know if you want to sample any flavors.”
“Thanks,” Josh tells her as we peruse the selections.
I can’t help glancing over at her. She’s looking at Josh—of course, I understand why—and when she sees me noticing, she pushes her glasses up, just like I always used to do when I was nervous.
“Um, can I try the pistachio mint?” I ask her.
She shovels a tiny plastic spoonful and hands it to me across the counter. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that Josh is watching me put it in my mouth. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just, pistachio mint? What are you, a senior citizen?”
