Today, the East Village is bursting with its usual characters: post-college guys in colorful socks and even more colorful glasses, girls with pink hair and multiple piercings, women gripping a bottle of water in one hand and a tightly wound yoga mat in another.
As Simran makes her way downtown, Beyoncé’s voice blasts through her headphones and encourages her to be a powerful woman. New York is settling into spring, with its pungent cherry blossoms and Lululemon-clad joggers. Food trucks spread the whiff of fried treats. A group of break dancers collects tips in a giant white bucket. Next to them, a homeless man naps on a frayed slab of cardboard. He has a sign propped up behind him: VETERAN WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY AND HAS NO FOOD OR MONEY.
After months of winter, the warm weather seems to infuse new life into the city. Everyone’s in a good mood. Even the homeless man has woken up and started bobbing to the break dancers’ music. He somehow still manages to flick off random pedestrians for not dropping money into his box.
She passes Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, where she once saw John Krasinski, her celebrity crush, and Emily Blunt walking their dog. They all locked eyes as she was in the middle of biting a massive cinnamon roll. She likes to tell herself that under different circumstances, they surely would have become instant friends.
Her heart starts pounding when she’s two blocks away from Neil. In a matter of moments, Milk Bar isn’t just going to be a place where she, Sheila, and Vishal ate cake pops to avoid studying for finals. Now, it’s about to be a place where she’ll see a role model. A fleeting opportunity to be around someone doing grand things.
She runs her fingers through her hair. If only she had a mirror. She shifts her lackadaisical walk into a strut, because that’s what Beyoncé would do.
Neil is already standing outside the restaurant. He’s reading something on his phone and grinning, the dimple marking his cheek like a tiny crescent moon.
Her eyes take time to adjust to him, the way they take time to adjust to darkness when the lights are suddenly switched off. He’s GQ casual in a fitted, white crewneck shirt and slim-fit jeans. She envisions this to be the type of outfit he wore while he sauntered through Princeton’s plush campus, contemplating his next writing topic.
“Hey, you!” Neil says when he sees her crossing the sidewalk. “It’s good to see you again.”
He puts down his camel messenger bag and reaches forward for a full hug at the same second that she stretches for a handshake. She somehow ends up giving him a ginger pat on his back. Very smooth, Simran. Very smooth.
“Good to see you, too,” Simran says, her breath slowing down but her fingers still tingling.
“You look . . . elegant,” he says.
“Thanks.” A rush of warmth spreads from her cheeks to her neck. She’s wearing a white dress and pink pumps from Zara. An outfit that’s flattering and understated, she hopes. Nani always tells her that her eyes are her strongest feature, so she spent extra time making sure her eyeliner was even. One day, she’ll be effortlessly chic, like those women who always have fresh manicures and blowouts. One day.
“Shall we?” Neil asks, motioning to the restaurant.
Milk Bar doesn’t have any chairs but instead has one C-shaped wooden table where people are standing and sharing desserts. The piping is exposed, and silver lamps are spaced across the ceiling in an “industrial chic” look.
Once they’re inside, Neil asks her if she’s thought of writing another essay or article.
“I’m not sure,” she says. Nobody else has asked this. But Neil’s sincere curiosity makes her want to have creative ideas and not dismiss that part of herself.
“There are so many topics I’d like to learn more about so I can spread that information to others. But therapy is more about focusing on the individual patient and working with them over a period of time. So even though I’ve had some ideas, it’s been hard to focus on them with school.”
“What are some of your ideas?”
She glances at his even, clean fingernails. “I thought of doing a piece about how in our culture, boys are treated differently from girls, whether that’s in Indian villages or even here. Then I considered researching how a girl’s ambition changes from elementary school to adulthood based on messages she’s received from people around her.”
“Those sound like great topics,” Neil says. “And ones you could do a lot with.”
“And I really think that people need to know about them. Think about them. Discuss them,” she says. “There’s some data that was recently published about rates of depression in Asian American girls, so if I touched on that, I could combine my journalism and psychology background. You know, I thought journalism and psychology were so similar. And they are, to an extent, but there are certain differences that I haven’t appreciated until I started school.”
“Such as?”
“It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about this for a while but haven’t been able to talk about it with anyone,” she says, hoping Neil can understand how much this means to her. “Well, I knew therapy was obviously about working with people and their issues privately, but there’s something to be said about being able to pass that information along to others. Make sense of it on a bigger scale, you know? I didn’t think of that in college, or really, until my master’s program.”
“Yes, I can see what you’re saying,” he says with the same patience and understanding she imagines he has with people he interviews for his own articles.
“It’s so nice to be able to actually talk about this with you.” She holds herself back from saying that he’s made her feel more encouraged in a few minutes than everyone else has in a few months.
“Always important to find your people.” Neil gives another Crest-commercial-worthy grin. “Have you by any chance heard of Laura Martinez?”
“I only have several of her articles printed and taped to my wall!” Simran says. “And I might have preordered her next book the first second possible.”
Laura Martinez writes monthly psychology articles for The New Yorker. She has a book about sociopaths coming out in two months.
Neil laughs. “She’s a friend.”
“Really? A friend?” Simran asks. She shouldn’t be surprised.
“Really. She’s probably going to have an event for her next book at the Strand.”
“Ah, the Strand.” Simran pictures the tall rows of books and book-related accessories. “Easily my favorite place in the city.”
“Not surprised to hear that. I think you could do something similar to her, if you wanted, considering your background, as you said.”
“I don’t know. I mean, the psychology coursework is taking over my life right now, and there’s still a lot I want to learn about before I even consider writing anything.”