Page 74 of Friends with Benefits

I wait for a reply that doesn’t come, then I Google, Macaulay Culkin Run Home Alone 2. Yep, I’ve definitely lost it.

My stomach sinks when I see that half the scenes featured in the movie were actually shot in Chicago. ‘Give a guy a break!’

People on the sidewalk give me peculiar looks but they don’t appreciate how damn frustrated I am right now.

‘Duncan’s Toy Chest isn’t real! Goddamn it!’

That doesn’t seem to give people the answers they were looking for, just garners me more peculiar looks.

I seem to have driven into bad weather in the city. The buildings hold on to warmth but the sky is gray and threatening to rain. Oh, yeah, and I’m still in the shorts and a T-shirt I was wearing beside the pool before I lost my head and flew to the city.

I know Jess doesn’t have much money, which is part of the reason I know she won’t have changed her flight; I also know she’ll try to keep her bargain with her dad to run like Macaulay.

The bellhop at The Plaza stares at my attire as he holds the door for me. Maybe one day, I will come back here in my suit and stay in a suite and run up a tab he can’t afford. Look down your goddamn nose at me?

The receptionist is full of smiles.

‘Hi, I’m looking for a… friend, Jess Walters. I think she might have booked in here last night, well, early this morning.’

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I can’t give you information about guests. This is The Plaza.’

Correction: she is snooty!

‘Look, I am begging you. I drove from the Hamptons in record time to find this girl, the girl, and tell her that I can’t live without her, so, please, help me out here.’

‘That’s so sweet.’

‘Thanks. So, can you help me out?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’

I drag air into my nostrils, feeling them flare. Slapping a hand down on the counter, I search the faces in the atrium. I move through the bars and restaurants, receiving dirty looks for the fact I’m wearing shorts, but still don’t find any sign of Jess.

I stand back out on the sidewalk as the heavens open. Looking up to the sky, watching rain drops before they land on me, I realize Jess won’t be inside. She once told me, wherever we are, it’s the same rain, the same wind, the same sun. Weather connects us. She’ll be out here, under the rain, feeling closer to her dad than ever.

That thought makes something else occur to me. I may not be able to work out Macaulay’s running route but I do know that the bird woman lived in Central Park.

I enter the park, my head down to stop rain hitting my eyes, and head in the direction of Gapstow Bridge over the pond, passing two tourists in yellow duck ponchos. Cute, if you’re into that kind of thing, I suppose.

Thanks to the rain, the bridge is empty. For the record, there’s no Pigeon Lady here. Nor is Kevin McCallister. It’s just me, in the pouring rain, leaning my forearms on the bridge and watching ripples in the pond from the raindrops.

I check my cell again. Nothing. A group of teenagers comes by, talking excitedly about a movie they’ve seen.

Forty minutes have passed and still nothing.

The rain stops but the sky stays gray. I shiver under the cold of my sodden clothes.

My cell now tells me I’ve been here for an hour and a half.

I start thinking of my next steps but I come up empty. The reality is, Jess may have been here already. She may never come. She may come tomorrow.

A man stops with a woman I take to be his wife. They ask for directions and I point them toward Hell’s Kitchen.

I lean back against the bridge and look at the buildings towering over the park. I take in the lush green, knowing it will soon turn to the brightest orange for fall.

God, I love New York.

The rain comes again, spitting at first, then bouncing around my bare shins. Fantastic.

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